Murder of Sherri Jarvis

On November 1, 1980, the nude body of a girl estimated to be between the ages of 14 and 18 was discovered by a truck driver who had been driving past the Sam Houston National Forest. She was lying face-down in an area of grass approximately from the shoulder of Interstate Highway 45, and two miles north of Huntsville. This individual called police at 9:20 a.m. to report his discovery. The victim had been deceased for approximately six hours, thus placing her time of death around 3:20 a.m. A rectangular brown pendant containing a smoky blue or brown glass colored stone on a thin gold chain necklace was found around her neck. and was described by the Harris County Medical Examiner as being a "well-nourished" individual. and her hair was approximately 10 inches in length and light brown in color, with what has been described as a possible reddish tint, although her hair bore no evidence of having received color treatment. at the edge of her right eyebrow and the fact that her right nipple was inverted. The cause of death was certified by the coroner to be asphyxia due to ligature strangulation, possibly inflicted via a pantyhose, The pantyhose and underwear had likely been placed inside the girl's vaginal cavity in an attempt to prevent her body from bleeding as she was transported to the site of her discovery. She had been sexually assaulted prior to her death with a large blunt instrument both vaginally and anally. It is unknown if the girl had been conventionally raped, as no biological evidence attesting to this form of sexual assault was discovered either at the crime scene or in the coroner's subsequent examination of her body. The girl had also been severely beaten prior to her death as many bruises were evident across her body, with her lips and right eyelid, in particular, being extensively swollen. In addition, her right shoulder bore a deep and visible bite mark. ==Investigation==

Sightings Following exhaustive witness appeals and extensive media accounts regarding this murder, numerous individuals (all of whom are now deceased) informed investigators they had seen a teenage girl matching the decedent's description within the 24 hours prior to her murder. These individuals include the manager of a South End Gulf station and two employees at the Hitch 'n' Post truck stop, all of whom described this girl as wearing blue jeans, a dirty yellow pullover, and a white knit sweater with noticeably large pockets that extended past her waist. This girl had been carrying red leather-strapped high-heeled sandals. reported she had worn According to the first witness, the girl—appearing somewhat disheveled where she again requested directions to the Texas Department of Corrections Ellis Prison Farm, claiming "a friend" was waiting for her at this location. In response, a waitress drew a map providing directions to the prison farm, which she then handed to the girl. Ellis Prison Farm Both inmates and employees of the Ellis Prison Farm were canvassed and shown mortuary photographs of the victim, although none was able to identify her. Investigators traveled to both the Rockport and Aransas Pass districts to consult with law enforcement personnel regarding any missing females whose physical descriptions matched that of the victim. Staff at schools in both districts were also contacted by investigators for the same purpose. Numerous Texas high school yearbooks were searched for any female known to be missing whose physical features matched her description. None yielded results, and no missing person reports relating to young Caucasian females were matched to the victim at the time. Despite the fact police and media appeals in the towns of Rockport or Aransas Pass to discover the identity of the victim failed to produce any fruitful leads as to her identity, it was thought that she may have indeed hailed from the general region she had stated to the waitress at the Hitch 'n' Post truck stop the evening prior to her murder. ==Funeral==

On January 16, 1981, the unidentified girl was buried in the Adickes Addition at Oakwood Cemetery. Her burial followed an open-casket funeral, and the cemetery in which she was interred is located within the city where her body was found. She is buried beneath a tombstone donated by Morris Memorials; the inscription upon her tombstone reads, "Unknown white female. Died Nov. 1, 1980." ==Ongoing investigation==

Further forensic analysis The remains of Walker County Jane Doe were exhumed in 1999 in order to conduct a further forensic examination of her remains, including the obtaining of a DNA sample from her body. This second forensic examination of her body revised the likely age of Walker County Jane Doe to be between 14 and 18 years old, In November 2015, the case was officially reopened by the Walker County Sheriff's Office. Taylor has included this case in her book Forensic Art and Illustration, in which she confessed to having experienced difficulties in creating her sketch of the decedent as the only frontal photograph made available to her at the time was of one taken after the victim had received extensive reconstructive cosmetic treatment at the Huntsville Funeral Home in order for her facial features to be sufficient to be viewed in an open-casket funeral. Taylor further explained that a scaled photograph of the girl's necklace was not made available to her, and she was forced to estimate the size of this item of jewelry for the facial reconstruction she produced. Within the decade prior to Walker County Jane Doe's identification, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children constructed and released two facial reconstructions of how the victim may have appeared in life. The first facial reconstruction was released in 2012, and the second shortly after the 35th anniversary of her murder. All facial reconstructions were created with the aid of studying mortuary photographs taken of the victim. Sherri Jarvis is depicted third from the left. ==Identification==

In 2020, the Walker County Sheriff's Office partnered with Othram Incorporated to attempt to identify Walker County Jane Doe via genetic genealogy. Initial attempts to extract usable genetic materials from her remains were unsuccessful, but testing on her preserved tissue samples yielded usable DNA, which was used to generate a genetic profile of the victim and construct a family tree. Using this family tree, the victim's living relatives were identified and located. DNA swabs from these individuals were used to confirm the identity of Walker County Jane Doe in 2021. On November 9, 2021, the Walker County Sheriff's Office publicly announced the identity of Walker County Jane Doe as 14-year-old Sherri Ann Jarvis, who had run away from Stillwater, Minnesota in 1980. Her identification had previously been announced in late September 2021 by forensic artist Carl Koppelman, who had produced several forensic reconstructions of the victim, and who announced that her identity was temporarily being withheld to give her family sufficient time to grieve privately. Jarvis was known as "Tati" to her friends. She had been removed from her home and placed under the state's custody at age 13 due to habitual truancy and had run away shortly after her 14th birthday. Her final contact with her family was in the form of a letter penned to her mother from Denver in August 1980. In this letter, Jarvis indicated that she was frustrated with being placed in state custody but intended to eventually return home. At this formal announcement, a statement from her family was read, expressing gratitude for "the dedication" of all who had worked to identify Jarvis and to "provide [the] long-awaited, albeit painful answers" to their questions as to her whereabouts, adding that they took comfort from the fact she had been identified. This statement also thanked those who had visited her grave while she had remained unidentified and emphasized the family's wish for her murderer(s) to be brought to justice. and investigators have stated discovering Jarvis's identity has given them "some positive leads" of inquiry that they are actively pursuing. ==Other hypotheses==

Gender of perpetrator Some individuals have speculated that Jarvis may have been assaulted and murdered by a female assailant as opposed to a male. This hypothesis was initially suggested by journalist Michael Hargraves, who based this assumption upon the fact that no semen was found upon or within Jarvis's body, or at the actual crime scene, and that the only sexual assaults conclusively proven to have been committed upon the girl were performed by aggressively forcing an object or objects into her bodily orifices. Hargraves elaborated his hypothesis by stating that men who commit crimes of a sexual nature are typically known to bite their victims upon sensitive areas of the body as opposed to the shoulder, as had occurred in this case. The act of male perpetrators of murders committed with a sexual motivation occasionally collecting souvenirs from their victims was also noted to be inconsistent with this case, as the necklace Jarvis had worn was still present upon her body. although the bite mark found upon Jarvis's shoulder was inconsistent with Lucas's dentistry. No prime suspects have been named in this murder, although police have considered the possibility that the victim was murdered by a serial killer. One of the women, aged between 20 and 30, was found on October 15, 1980, in Houston. She was a black female with possible Asian heritage, and had died approximately three months prior to the discovery of her body. A second female was also black. This decedent was estimated to be between 16 and 26 years old. Her body was discovered beneath a bridge in Houston in December 1980. ==Exclusions==

The information compiled by the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System states the following individuals were each positively excluded as being Walker County Jane Doe prior to her 2021 identification. ==See also==

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