New Sketch of "Julie Doe", Transgender Woman Still Unidentified After 27 Years

[moriah]

4. There's more detail in the linked articles.

At that time, forensic science thought that "pitting" of the pelvis only happened because of childbirth. Because she had noticeable pitting, and nothing to contradict that had been found, they believed she was a cisgender female (if very tall and strongly built). Since then they have learned that many women thought never to have given birth because of a lack of such pitting had multiple children, and it's been found in men with typical male hormonal balance too. However, they think in this instance the pitting was caused by estrogen therapy.

Florida has always been one of the better states to be found unidentified in, because they were the first to start keeping a central database of unidentified decedents. But two women found there in the 80s were revealed by DNA to be missing women previously ruled out because of old and bad science, and this caused Florida to pretty much reopen every cold unidentified decedent case. When they removed her skeleton from storage, the new ME was sure it belonged to a XY male, but all of the x-rays taken in 1988 matched so they had the right body. He thought maybe he was wrong, and sent in the DNA.


Original Orlando Sentinel article

Longer Kos Article

Follow-up from the Sentinel

Facebook page made by Redditors for Julie Doe