A woman’s bones found in a roadside dump prove she was murdered.

CASE DETAILS

As two teenagers returned from exploring caves in Barren County, Kentucky, they discovered fragments of a human skeleton in a roadside dump. The county coroner called in Dr. Emily Craig, one of the country’s leading experts in forensic anthropology, to examine the remains:

“Basically, all we had when we first started was a pair of red jeans with the human leg bone still inside. The skull is the best indicator of race and sex. You look at the brow ridge, you look at the nose, you look at the chin, the cheeks, just the general shape.”

The victim was a white female in her early 40s. Cut marks on one of the bones indicated she might have been stabbed to death. Dr. Craig hoped that the victim’s clothes might match a description in one of the local police department’s missing-persons files:

“When I got these remains back to the lab, I was able to do a very detailed study. And within a very short time, I found a file that almost exactly matched. Age, race, sex, height, and time since death, were all indicative. But absolutely positive was the fact that this victim was wearing red jeans, white tennis shoes, and a button-down blouse.”

The victim was 42-year-old Nancy Daddysman. Before she disappeared two years earlier, she had lost custody of her five children in a bitter divorce. Heartbroken, she had come to Kentucky for a fresh start. Nancy had vanished after her car broke own in Bowling Green. According to Barney Jones, Sheriff of Barren County:

“She was planning on traveling I-65 north to meet a male friend of hers in the Indianapolis, Indiana, area. We were able to verify that it was not possible that he would be a suspect as far as this case is concerned.”

The hillside where Nancy’s remains were found was 30 miles from where she was last seen. Police believe that only someone familiar with this part of Kentucky would choose to place her body there. Dr. Craig now hopes an Unsolved Mysteries viewer might help solve the case:

“Identifying the victim is the first step in solving the crime. We’ve done this first step. Now we have to find out who did it.”

Update:

The ten year mystery of Nancy Daddysman’s death received a major break recently when an inmate already serving time in Indiana for another murder confessed he had killed Nancy Daddysman as well. David M. Bell told authorities he was high on methamphetamine when he picked Nancy up in his car, struck her with a pipe, stabbed her and dumped her body. Bell is currently serving a 65 year sentence for his previous murder conviction.

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