Woman Found Dead Wrapped In Carpet

[Hollie Kipps]

Officialssaid she had a fatal gunshot wound to the head. Her body was found covered with plastic bags, wrapped in duct tape, tied with a rope and placed inside a sleeping bag before being wrapped in carpet.

Reyes-Geddes was 37-years-old the last time she was seen alive, according to the Charley Project, which compiles information about missing persons. She was supposed to travel in April 1998 to Dallas and then to Laredo, Texas, but it was never clear if she ever arrived there, according to the group.

"The Garfield County Sheriff's Office is very grateful to give our victim a name and peace to her family," the sheriff's office said. "We are also grateful for the State Bureau of Investigation for their help."

Investigators had considered that Reyes-Geddes may have been a victim of serial killer Scott Kimball, who is currently serving a 70-year prison sentence in Colorado. Kimball is believed to have killed about 25 people, but has previously denied involvement in other cold-case killings.

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She disappeared on the evening of September 15, last seen leaving a date with a man driving a white pickup truck. He was described as a balding white man with a beard, standing about 6ft-tall but has yet to be identified.

Search teams scoured Macomb, Oklahoma, where she lived and had gone missing, and one of her cousins eventually found the 30-year-old in a "waterlogged carpet" in a drain under a road a few miles away from her home. The local medical examiner confirmed that the body was hers.

"We found a deceased person wrapped up in a carpet and stuffed in a drain under the road," he told the outlet. He noted that there were no visible injuries on Meave-Byers' body and that an autopsy would need to be performed before an official cause of death could be determined.

Meave-Byers' older sister Andria told KFOR that her sister was "a great mother" and that it was "all" she cared about. She was also a teacher's aide in Macomb Public Schools and "cared deeply for [the] students and families," the district said in a statement.

"Our hearts are heavy as we grieve this tragic loss of a beloved Macomb Public Schools educator and parent," the district said, noting that investigators were following up on every lead possible. Investigators have asked anyone with information about the man she had been on a date with to call 405-273-1727.

Amber Davis, the organiser of the GoFundMe page set up for Meave-Byers' family, said they "are saddened to say that Makayla has passed from this earthly world and is now in her heavenly home." She added that Meave-Byers' left behind "lots of family who love and miss her very much."

Authorities have finally identified the remains of a New York City teenager coined "Midtown Jane Doe," after her grisly murder spawned a decadeslong cold case investigation. A recent breakthrough owed to advanced forensics linked her DNA to the mother of a woman killed on 9/11.

Jane Doe was identified as Patricia Kathleen McGlone, who was just 16 at the time of her death and had previously lived and attended school in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Investigators believe she was murdered during the latter half of 1969, or, potentially, at some point in early 1970, said Detective Ryan Glas of the New York City Police Department. Glas has worked this case for much of the last two years.

The case drew an initial wave of horror and intrigue in 2003, when construction workers discovered human remains buried beneath a Manhattan building that was being taken down. That February, as workers were breaking up the floor of the building to prepare it for demolition, a skull rolled out from under the concrete. A search revealed the skeleton of a young woman who had been tied in the fetal position with an electrical cord. Her body had been wrapped in a carpet and encased in concrete. The medical examiner determined that she had died from strangulation.

There was a gold signet ring with the initials "PMCG" found on one of the victim's fingers, and buried with her was a dime minted in 1969 and a green plastic toy soldier, but there was little else in the way of clues as to who she was or what may have happened. The victim was nicknamed "Midtown Jane Doe" because of the location of the building where she was found, in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City. Between 1964 and 1969, the building was a popular nightclub called Steve Paul's The Scene, which made a name for itself as a rock-and-roll performance venue where acts like The Doors and Jimi Hendrix played.

New York City police detectives reopened the case for review in 2017. They applied modern tests to the forensic evidence originally collected from the crime scene and DNA lifted from the victim's remains to eventually develop what Glas called "a suitable genetic profile." The profile was then linked to potential relatives using investigative genetic genealogy.

Detectives learned first that Jane Doe was born in April 1953, but because both parents had died and she did not have siblings, finding a DNA sample that could definitively prove the victim was in fact Patricia McGlone, the child of those two people, was not a straightforward process. Genetic experts said the DNA of a specific maternal cousin would confirm the identity of Jane Doe, and after conducting a series of interviews with prospective relatives across the United States and spanning multiple generations, Glas was able to find it.

Although the cousin had already died, her son told Glas that he remembered his mother submitting a DNA swab to the medical examiner in New York City after his sister died on 9/11. Relatives of missing people submitted their DNA to help identify unknown victims in the wake of the attacks. Glas retrieved the cousin's genetic information from the medical examiner's office and, earlier this month, confirmed that the remains of "Midtown Jane Doe" belonged to McGlone.

Investigators determined that McGlone had been enrolled in Catholic school and a public middle school in Sunset Park, but her school attendance record tapered off in 1968 and 1969, said Glas, who described her as "a runaway and a truant" in the period leading up to her death. McGlone had gotten married around that time and was no longer in touch with her family, said Glas, adding that police have not found records of missing persons reports filed after her disappearance.

An active homicide investigation is now underway to learn more about the circumstances surrounding McGlone's death. Police have not named any potential suspects but Glas said that her former husband was connected to the building where her remains were found. His team is asking anyone who knew McGlone, her family or the area around Steve Paul's The Scene around the time of her murder to contact the police department.

On September 21, 1986, the decomposing body of a 26-year-old woman was found inside a foul-smelling carpet near I-95 in Greenwich, Connecticut. Blow fly larvae were feeding on, and moving in and around, the body. Pale and dark brown blow fly puparia were recovered, along with 4,000 larvae, for laboratory study.

An autopsy revealed that the victim, Sylvia Hunt, had been stabbed 15 times. Forensic entomologist William Krinsky determined from climate and insect evidence that blow flies had deposited eggs on the corpse seven days earlier. The carpet pattern matched one in the room occupied by a suspect. The insect and carpet evidence helped convict him of first-degree murder.

Heaton said he was staying with Teresa Hill in Apartment 4 at 5 Corning St. in July 2015. He said he left for three or four days and when he returned he found Hill deceased in the apartment. She was 59.

Police arrived at the scene and found a body wrapped in black plastic with rope tied around the ankles and duct tape around the plastic outside on the ground. There was a socked foot sticking out the bottom of the plastic. The body is badly decomposed.

Bitner said the apartment is vacant and he was cleaning up inside. He said when he, Killinger and Meredith began cleaning out the items that were on the outside back porch of Apartment 4, they lifted a rolled-up piece of carpet off the porch and threw it over the balcony onto the ground. They then set about lifting the carpet onto a trailer and that is when the body wrapped in plastic fell out onto the ground.

Police interviewed Rachel Smith, the property manager for R&W Properties, LLC, which owns 5 Corning St. Smith said Teresa Hill was the last person to lease Apartment 4. She was not paying her rent and had not been seen in months, Smith said. She was mailed a notice to move out on Aug. 4, 2016. Smith said Rodney Heaton was staying in the apartment without authorization. Heaton was reportedly last seen at the apartment on Oct. 6 by Wayne Bitner. Heaton told Bitner that Hill had moved out and was out of town.

Police also searched Apartment 4 at 5 Corning St. for evidence, including duct tape, body fluids, bedding, carpet, flooring that has been painted over, and any items that may contain DNA of Teresa Hill.

This case immediately took on an aura of mystery as soon as police cordoned off Corning Street. Reporters from The Express arrived on the scene around 9 a.m. last Thursday and watched police searching through a pile of debris on the ground, but remaining mum about what they were looking for.

At that point, police and the Clinton County coroner would only say that a body had been found. They said they did not know whether the body was of a male or female because the deceased had been dead for a long time. They also said the cause and manner of death could not be determined.

An autopsy on the body last Friday determined it was female. However, positive identification of the woman, along with the cause and manner of death, await results of DNA, toxicology and anatomical tests, police said.

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