Scary Cold Cases: The Lady Of The Dunes
Wikimedia CommonsPolice photo of the body found near the Race Point Dunes in Massachusetts from the infamous “Lady of the Dunes” cold case.
In July of 1974, a girl out walking her dog near the Race Point Dunes in Provincetown, Massachussets saw a body not far from the road. The auburn-haired woman was face down, missing both hands and a forearm, and her head nearly severed. Her skull was crushed, and she’d been sexually assaulted – possibly after death.
Police found her Wrangler jeans and blue bandanna under her head. There were two sets of footprints leading to the area, and tire tracks not far away. Examiners estimated she’d been dead close to two weeks. Though the victim had some extensive and costly dental crowns, some of her teeth were missing.
“I don’t believe she was a poor innocent,” Detective Warren Tobias told the Boston Globe. His speculation places the victim as Rory Gene Kesinger, an inmate who landed in prison on robbery and assault charges. She’d escaped before her trial with the help of an accomplice, and police had never located her.
Another possible lead in 1981, when investigators learned a woman who looked like the victim had been with mobster Whitey Bulger around the time she presumably died. Bulger was known for removing his victims’ teeth, but a definitive link remains to be made.
Serial killer Hadden Clark has given a confession to this unsolved murder. However, he is also a paranoid schizophrenic who refuses to tell the police the woman’s name.
Universal PicturesA still from the movie Jaws, which (theoretically) may show the victim on the left in a blue bandanna.
In regards to the woman’s identity, there’s been recent speculation that the Lady of the Dunes could have been a movie extra in the film Jaws. Filmed in June of 1974 – 100 miles from Provincetown, Massachusetts – Joe Hill (son of author Stephen King) told an FBI investigator that during the film’s “July 4th Crowd” sequence, he saw a woman fitting the woman’s description wearing a blue bandanna and jeans.
It may be far-fetched, but in a cold case such as this, no stone can remain unturned.
Enjoy this article on history’s most infamous cold cases? Next, see if you can shed any light onto these unsolved murders or discover if this book has really solved the Black Dahlia case.
