Lady of the Dunes Identified But These 3 Questions Remain

Almost 50 years ago, a walker found a woman’s body on the dunes inside the Cape Cod National Seashore in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Until recently, she was the state’s oldest unidentified homicide victim. This week the Boston division of the FBI announced a major break in the case. Using investigative genealogy, they identified the “Lady of the Dunes” as 37-year-old Ruth Marie Terry from Tennessee.

As explained in the FBI’s press release, investigative genealogy is a unique method that can generate new leads for unsolved homicides, as well as help identify unknown victims. It combines the use of DNA analysis with traditional genealogy research and historical records to generate investigative leads for unsolved violent crimes.

However, in a press conference about the identification, FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Joseph Bonavolonta emphasized a couple of things. One, not only was the FBI “not getting access to any DNA results stored within private databases,” but also that they had “no interest in obtaining actual DNA results from these companies.” For those worried about any invasions of privacy.

The FBI’s press release and Agent Bonavolonta’s statement were informative. However, it still left three questions unanswered. At least. There are more, but these were the main ones.

Before we look at them, though, let’s revisit the case and what complicated identifying the victim in the first place.

The Lady of the Dunes

On July 26, 1974, a walker discovered a woman’s body near the Race Point Ranger station at the Cape Cod National Seashore. Someone had posed the victim on a beach blanket with a pair of Wrangler jeans and a blue bandana under her head.

They’d crushed the left side of her skull, cut off her hands, removed some of her teeth, and nearly severed her head off. As Agent Bonavolonta noted during his press conference, “It was a brutal death.”

Due to the lack of blood at the scene, investigators theorized she’d been murdered elsewhere. They also guesstimated she’d been murdered anywhere from 10 days to three weeks beforehand. It’s also long been believed, as Agent Bonavolonta reiterated during his press conference, that the killer “presumably removed her hands so that there’d be no fingerprints to identify her.”

It would’ve made their job a lot easier, and perhaps resulted in the killer’s capture, if they’d had fingerprints to work with. But it didn’t deter them.

Agent Bonavolonta explained that “investigators with the Massachusetts State Police and Provincetown Police Department have worked tirelessly to identify her through various means, including neighborhood canvasses; reviews of thousands of missing persons cases; clay model facial reconstruction, and age-regression drawings.”

But it was advancements in science and the use of investigative genealogy that finally identified the Lady of the Dunes. It solves one aspect of the decades-old case, but many questions still remain.

Why was Ruth Marie Terry in Massachusetts?

I’m sure now that they know who she is, this is a question investigators have asked too. Unless they know she had relocated there or something. It wasn’t addressed in either the press conference or the release, though.

All Agent Bonavolonta said was, “At this point in time, we can tell you she was born in Tennessee in 1936. Ruth was a daughter, sister, aunt, wife, and mother. Investigators have also determined that in addition to Tennessee, she had ties to California, Massachusetts, and Michigan.”

If they know why she was in Massachusetts, they’ll perhaps find new people to question they hadn’t before. Let’s hope that turns up more information.

Was she the extra in Jaws?

Several years ago, author Joe Hill theorized the movie Jaws might hold a clue as to the identity of the Lady of the Dunes. It was filmed in Massachusetts, after all.

It was a bandana on an extra’s head in one of the beach scenes that sparked his theory. Along with other physical details he knew about the victim. For instance, her age was guestimated to be between 25 and 49, she had auburn or red hair, and she was in good shape. The Jaws extra fit all of that.

The Lady of the Dunes had been found with a blue bandana and Wrangler jeans. The extra wasn’t wearing Wranglers, but she did have auburn hair and a blue bandana. As far as the jeans go, Hill pointed out she easily could’ve worn a different brand for filming and had on the Wranglers the day she was murdered.

The other problem, which could also explain the lack of blood where her body was found, was where Jaws was filmed in relation to where the body was found. Filming primarily took place in Martha’s Vineyard, not Provincetown.

However, since the body was moved, perhaps Terry was visiting Martha’s Vineyard and was in the movie? Perhaps that’s why her killer moved her body to Provincetown? He feared she’d be identified —or they would be— if he discarded her in Martha’s Vineyard?

Who killed her?

And, of course, the most obvious question remains: who killed the Lady of the Dunes, now identified as Ruth Marie Terry?

Hopefully, now knowing who she was, new leads will open to investigators that will help them finally solve this case and bring peace to Terry and her loved ones.

For More Info

To see other photos of Ruth Marie Terry, as well as a physical description and details of her death, visit her seeking information page: https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/ruth-marie-terry.

If you have any information concerning this case, please contact the FBI’s toll-free tipline at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or the Massachusetts State Police at 1-800-KAPTURE (1-800-527-8873) or submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov or MSPtips@pol.state.ma.us.

Check-In

Are you hopeful with this break in the case that they’ll bring her killer to justice?