Unsolved murder of two American teens in 1978
The murders of Kerry Graham and Francine Trimble are a currently unsolved double murder that occurred in December 1978, when both girls—aged 15 and 14 respectively—disappeared after leaving their homes in Forestville, California, to visit a shopping mall in Santa Rosa. Their remains were discovered in July 1979 approximately north of Forestville, concealed within duct-taped garbage bags and buried within an embankment of a heavily overgrown woodland area located beside a remote section of Highway 20, from the city of Willits.
Due to the advanced state of decomposition of the girls' remains, the specific cause of death of each victim has never been established, although both girls' deaths have always been considered to be a homicide. Furthermore, Graham's body was mistakenly identified as that of a male until genetic testing proved otherwise.
The bodies of Kerry Graham and Francine Trimble would remain unidentified until November 2015, when their identities were confirmed via the use of DNA profiling. The case itself remains one of the oldest cold cases within Mendocino County.
Disappearances.
Graham and Trimble both resided in Forestville, California. The two girls were next-door neighbors and inseparable friends, having known one another since they had become acquainted while attending elementary school. On December 16, 1978, the two girls left their homes, reportedly to visit the Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa, with Graham having informed her mother of her intentions to shop for Christmas gifts prior to leaving her household. Neither family ever heard from their daughter again.
Within 24 hours of her disappearance, Trimble's mother had filed a missing person report on her daughter with the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office; Graham was reported missing to the same sheriff's office on Christmas Eve the same month. Family members of both girls informed investigators of their fears that their daughters had become the victims of foul play, perhaps having been kidnapped prior to their departing to the mall from the Trimble residence, and possibly by someone they knew, as there were no signs of a disturbance having occurred at either girl's residence, and makeup was found arranged upon a dresser in Trimble's bedroom. In addition, neither girl had taken any personal possessions from her household prior to her disappearance, and although Graham was known to have previously run away from her home, at the time of her disappearance, she had recently undergone an operation to remove her appendix, and was still physically recovering from the procedure, having also left her prescribed antibiotics in her bedroom. Nonetheless, neither family could completely discount the possibility the girls may have hitchhiked to various regions, including New Jersey, or as far as Nova Scotia, Canada.
Initially, investigators concluded Graham had arrived at Trimble's home on the date of the girls' disappearance when no other member of Francine's family had been present within the household, and that the two girls were likely together at the time of their disappearance later that day. Furthermore, although investigators initially concluded the most likely explanation for the girls' disappearance was that they had been runaways, they could not discount the families' theory both girls had been abducted from Trimble's home. As no signs of a struggle were noted within the Trimble household, had this been the case, the two girls would have either known their abductor, or been taken from the residence at gunpoint. The aunt of Francine Trimble would later recollect that on one occasion, out of sheer desperation, her family had contacted a psychic in the hope of obtaining information regarding the girls' whereabouts and welfare.
Discovery.
The unclothed, skeletal remains of Graham and Trimble were discovered by two tourists traveling to Fort Bragg, California on the afternoon of July 8, 1979. Following a minor argument within the car, the two tourists had stopped their vehicle on private land near the Jackson Demonstration State Forest, alongside Highway 20 in Mendocino County, approximately 12 miles west of Willits and 80 miles from the girls' residences. One of these individuals exited his vehicle to briefly walk in the vicinity where the two had parked. Venturing into a steep, heavily overgrown area near James Creek, this individual located a human skull protruding from a shallow grave in brush midway down an embankment of the creek, a short distance from the road. The tourists left a can of soda at the side of the road to mark the location of the remains and drove to the city of Willits, where they reported their discovery to the police.
Responding to the tourists' discovery, Mendocino County sheriff's deputies extensively searched the area in and around James Creek, finding numerous skeletal remains later determined to belong to two individuals. Both victims had been bound with duct tape and concealed within plastic, before being buried in a shallow grave. Sections of duct tape, hair, and numerous bones were scattered in the vicinity of this grave—indicating the bodies had been disturbed by wild animals. Investigators would subsequently conclude the two victims had been murdered elsewhere, and their bodies later buried at the scene of their discovery, with this act most likely occurring after nightfall. No clothing was present with either set of remains, although a solitary shell earring depicting a bird—later determined to belong to Francine Trimble—was discovered at the scene.
Following a two-day search of the crime scene, in which approximately 90 percent of the victims' bones were recovered with FBI assistance, the remains recovered from the embankment alongside Highway 20 were sent to the coroner's office to undergo a thorough forensic examination.
Investigation.
Initial examination.
The initial autopsies conducted upon the remains recovered from James Creek revealed little accurate forensic information about the victims beyond the fact both had been approximately 14 years of age, likely of Caucasian race, and that the two victims had likely been murdered on or about December 8, 1978. However, the coroner was unable to determine whether the victims' remains were male or female, but after further examining the remains with the assistance of a forensic pathologist, declared one decedent had been male and the other female. By 1980, the results of all tests conducted upon the remains had been concluded. The results of these initial examinations also established several approximations of the physical statistics of the victims, including their sexes, ages and heights, and although the actual cause of the victims' deaths could not be determined due to the advanced state of decomposition and the lack of any evident trauma upon the largely skeletal remains, both the coroner and the forensic pathologist could not exclude the possibility that each victim had been strangled to death.
Although both victims were correctly determined to be of Caucasian race, both the coroner and the forensic pathologist determined they could not be completely sure of the specific ethnicity, or the precise gender of one of the recovered bodies, which was initially determined to be that of a male. The initial autopsy reports also erroneously concluded the two victims may have been related, stating there was a "high probability" the two decedents were a brother and sister.
The first victim to have been recovered from the crime scene (later identified as Francine Trimble) was estimated to have been between and tall, possibly in height. The age of this victim was initially placed as being between 10 and 20 years old—perhaps being no older than 14. Her remains were found with a single earring of a bird, presumed to be handmade and constructed from a shell-like material described as being often seen in the works of "hippies and Native Americans."
The second victim recovered from the crime scene and the subject originally believed to have been a male (later identified as Kerry Graham) was inaccurately estimated to have been between and tall, possibly in height, when in reality, Kerry Graham had been just in height. The age of this victim was also initially placed as being between 10 and 20 years old—perhaps being no older than 13. As had been the case with the first body recovered from James Creek, this decedent also had light brown hair, and had received excellent dental care in her lifetime, having never undergone a tooth filling procedure.
Following their initial autopsies, the girls' remains—informally known simply as "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" among homicide detectives—were interred in a cement crypt in the Russian River Cemetery in the city of Ukiah.
Developments.
By 1985, the remains recovered from James Creek had remained unidentified for six years. The same year, all evidence pertaining to the case was submitted to the FBI to undergo further examination, although the case would largely remain cold for the following 15 years. Nonetheless, on several occasions between the years of 2000 and 2011, the decedents' remains would be exhumed to undergo further forensic analysis in an effort to determine their identities.
Speculation as to the accuracy of the initial theory of a probable relation between the victims first arose in 2000 when a further examination of the decedents' dental charting revealed dissimilarities too great for the pair to have been biologically related. The initial assumption the victims had been related was first questioned by a forensic odontologist named Jim Wood who, having closely examined the jawbone of each victim, concluded the jaw structure and actual dentition were too dissimilar for the decedents to have been related, and further opined his belief that both victims had most likely been female. This belief that both victims had not been related was formally confirmed via an examination of the victims' mitochondrial DNA the following year, which conclusively determined that the two victims had not been maternally related.
Despite these revelations, speculation remained the decedents may have been in a romantic relationship, which may have been a reason why they were together at the time of their deaths. As no contemporary missing persons reports of a male and a female missing since late 1978 or early 1979 existed in California which matched the physical characteristics of the decedents, theories remained that the pair may have hitchhiked to California, perhaps from as far away as the Midwestern United States, and possibly as runaways.
Facial reconstructions.
Beginning in the 1990s, several forensic facial reconstructions of the decedents were created and released to the media depicting reconstructions of just how the two decedents may have physically appeared in life. Initially, these reconstructions had been in the form of clay sculptures created using three dimensional photographs of the victims' skulls to create forensic models of the physical appearances of their faces. With advances in technology, these clay sculptures would be replaced by digital reconstructions of the decedents—still believed to have been a male and a female—that were released to the media in the early 2000s.
In July 2012, the National Center for Missing &amp; Exploited Children released updated, digital renderings of the victims' faces. These renditions had been obtained with the assistance of a forensic anthropologist, who—via performing a modern CT scan upon the skulls of the two decedents—had been able to construct a more accurate digital, three-dimensional reconstruction of the victims' faces as they had most likely physically appeared in life. This forensic examination had also narrowed the ages of both victims to being most likely aged between 13- and 15-years-old at the time of their death, although the anthropologist did not question the original 1980 conclusion that one of the victims' skulls had been that of a male.
This entire process was covered by the BBC America network, who had paid to have the victims' skeletalized remains exhumed in 2011 in order to produce a documentary detailing ongoing cold case investigations within the United States and worldwide as part of a series they had commissioned titled "Naming the Dead". This documentary had detailed just how the National Center for Missing &amp; Exploited Children utilize modern technology, the work of forensic artists, the Internet, and general law enforcement determination in the hopes of identifying unidentified child murder victims, and the methods currently used to do so, with these two decedents intended as being the primary case focused upon within this program within the series.
Identification.
Some contemporary missing persons reports had erroneously listed the date of Graham and Trimble's disappearance as being 24 December 1979, whereas Graham had been reported missing by her mother on 24 December 1978. Furthermore, all primary sources pertaining to the two decedents had listed Graham's remains as being those of a male until DNA testing conducted in 2014 concluded