Mystery Unsolved Inc True Crime

The Missing Identity of The Lady Of The Dunes

This week on Mystery Unsolved Inc True Crime we sift through the case of The Lady Of The Dunes, a murder mystery from Cape Cod with theories that stretch from the Boston Mafia to Hollywood.

Reynard relays the information, "On July 26th 1974, twelve year old Leslie Metcalfe was returning from the beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with her family in the late afternoon. A local dog had followed them, and when it took off, barking, Leslie decided to run ahead of her parents and follow."

"In the dunes at Racepoint Beach, amongst the scrub pines a mile east of a ranger station, Leslie discovered the decomposing body of a naked woman, approximately five feet, six and half inches tall, one hundred and forty-five pounds, between twenty and forty years old, lying on one side of a beach towel with her head on top of a folded pair of jeans and a blue bandana. It's estimated the body had been lying there anywhere from ten days to three weeks before being discovered. Her head had been crushed on the left side and she had been almost entirely decapitated. While no weapons were found, it's believed that something akin to a military entrenching tool was used to nearly sever the head. Also noticeably absent from the corpse were the victim's hands, presumably removed to avoid identification via fingerprints."

"The violent state in which the body was left obviously suggested murder. And with no apparent sign of a struggle at the time, authorities believe that the unidentified victim would have known her murderer. Some of the only evidence of another person being around were size ten footprints that indicated a heavy person who was running, and Provincetown Police Chief Jimmy Meads said the killer likely drove the victim to the dune in a four wheel drive sand vehicle to sunbathe."

"Despite using blood hounds, studying missing persons bulletins, scouring the registers of local lodgings and looking into anyone who had a permit to bring their vehicle into the area, police turned up nothing. Margie Childs, a Provincetown local, noted in 2019 that the fact that no one could identify The Lady Of The Dunes in the tight-knit community was very strange. In their attempt to ID the victim, police turned to the victim's extensive dental work, worth thousands of dollars at the time, and noted to be of New York style. Details of the dental work were sent to every dentist in Massachusetts, published in two dental journals and distributed to organizations like the FBI and Interpol. No one came forward recognizing the work."

"The body was exhumed in 1980 so blood samples could be taken and an approximation of the victim's face could be molded from the skull. Photos of the resulting bust were sent around the country in the hopes that someone would recognize it. No identification resulted. Twenty years later, in 2000, the body was exhumed again when a bone fragment was taken to test a potential lead. That again turned up nothing. In 2013, the body was exhumed for a third time to obtain even more DNA. Still, nothing has produced a positive identity for The Lady Of The Dunes."

"With an unidentified murderer and an unidentified corpse, it's time to launch into theories. Our first theory is about the victim's identity and comes from the Tumblr of Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King."

"Hill's interest in The Lady Of The Dunes was sparked after reading Deborah Helber's book The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths Are Solving America's Coldest Cases. About an hour into a fortieth anniversary screening of Steven Spielberg's classic film Jaws, Hill spotted an extra with a face that looked eerily familiar. The face reminded him of the composite drawings of The Lady Of The Dunes. The extra appears in jeans and a blue bandana, the same clothing found with The Lady Of The Dunes. While this may at first sound like a simple coincidence of wardrobe, Jaws was filmed on the cape during the summer of 1974, meaning the scene in question may have been filmed weeks or days before her death. An Entertainment Weekly reporter contacted Universal about the identity of the extra, but they cannot locate a record and the casting director had already died. Hill admits his theory could be bogus, but says, 'If nothing else, it's a pretty good little ghost story.'"

"For our next theory we move from movie monster to real life mobster, Whitey Bulger. Whitey Bulger, you may recall, was the infamous Boston mob leader who was beaten to death in prison while serving two life sentences for eleven convicted murders. And it's widely thought he was responsible for many more. In 2015, a woman named Sandra Lee, who suggested her family was close with Bulger at the time of the murder, and even called him Uncle Jimmy, told a reporter that The Lady Of The Dunes bore a striking resemblance to one of Whitey's alleged murders. In particular Lee believes the method of disposal and attempts to avoid identification of the body are strikingly similar to the murder of Debbie Davis. In Davis' case the victim's teeth were removed, presumably in an attempt to avoid identification. Davis was strangled to death and The Lady Of The Dunes showed signs of strangulation. Davis' hands however were not removed and The Lady Of The Dunes' teeth were left in place. Bulger has never been officially associated with the case as a subject. Lee also claims to remember seeing Whitey in Provincetown at the time of the The Lady Of The Dunes' murder. What's more, for some reason Lee has also claimed that when she was nine years old she discovered the unidentified body on the morning of July 26th 1974, before Leslie Metcalfe, but did not alert authorities."

"Our third theory is that serial killer Hadden Clark, who is currently serving seventy years in prison for theft and the murder of two women, was responsible for the murder. This theory was first presented by Hadden Clark, speaking with journalist and former police officer Alec Wilkinson. Clark claimed that while staying with his grandfather on Cape Cod in 1974 he lured a woman into the dunes, where he struck her in the head with a surf casting fishing rod. He claimed he then retrieved a saw from his truck and removed her hands, using some of her fingers as fishing bait and burying the hands elsewhere. Casting doubt on Clark's claims is the fact that the details he provided about the murder were featured in newspaper articles. Clark also has a history of claiming involvement in other murders that never checked out."

"Our final theory holds that The Lady Of The Dunes was herself a criminal. The fact that her hands were removed could suggest that the murderer knew the victim's fingerprints would be on file somewhere. This led authorities to suspect the lady could be Rory Gene Kesinger. Kesinger had a criminal history of bank robberies and attempting to shoot police, including once in a hospital with the officer's own gun. When The Lady Of The Dunes was discovered, Kesinger had recently escaped from Plymouth County Jail, just across Cape Cod bay from Provincetown. While awaiting trial someone was able to get Kesinger a hacksaw blade, which she used to free herself. In classic escapee fashion, she used tethered bed sheets to repel out of a window and was met by a car that drove her away."

"It's said the sculptural post made of The Lady Of The Dunes after the 1980 exhumation had a striking resemblance to Kesinger. In the late 90s authorities tracked down Kesinger's mother, who agreed to give a saliva sample to see if her DNA meant she was the mother of the victim. The theory was so strong that it's what lead to the body being exhumed again in 2000. Both tests failed in determining whether it was a match, which led to another test in 2002 that proved conclusively that there was no match between Kesinger and The Lady Of The Dunes."

"This case has been closely followed in the more than forty-five years since Leslie Metcalfe discovered The Lady Of The Dunes, resulting in numerous other theories with varying degrees of plausibility. In the 1980s, a psychic told Provincetown Police Chief Jimmy Meads that the victim was a Canadian nurse named either Carolyn or Marilyn O'Leary. While the word of a psychic may not seem like enough to merit further scrutiny, another person had also reported the victim to be an American nurse named Carolyn O'Leary, who had gone missing. Upon investigation authorities found O'Leary to be very much alive."

"Despite over four decades of dead ends, investigations continue. According to journalist Mary Ann Brag, after three exhumations authorities currently have the skull, ribs, the left scapula, the right scapula, a tissue sample of a leg, and hair samples in their possession. Cape officials are looking into a new method for identifying the body using DNA evidence and genealogy. DAs from California who worked on The Golden State Killer case which was finally solved using genealogy records have been brought over to look into the case. There's even a Twitter account dedicated to discovering the identity of The Lady Of The Dunes. Still, an answer is anything but guaranteed. Prior to his death in 2011, Police Chief Meads stated that the only way to solve the case would be if someone on their deathbed wanted to clear their conscience before passing. Without that it appeared the identity of The Lady Of The Dunes as well as her murderer will remain unsolved."