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What Did Construction Workers Find in Hell’s Kitchen?

March 27, 2025 / 44:28

This episode covers the discovery of a teenage girl's remains in a New York City basement, the investigation into her identity, and the complex family history surrounding her life. Key discussions include the circumstances of her death, the role of mobsters in the area, and the identification process that ultimately reveals her name as Patricia McLone.

On February 10, 2003, construction workers found a concrete slab in a basement on West 46th Street, which led to the discovery of a female skeleton, later dubbed Midtown Jane Doe. Detective Gerard Gardner and forensic experts determined she was likely a young woman aged 15 to 21, with clues suggesting she had a troubled past.

Investigators theorized that she may have been a runaway from the Midwest, drawn to the dangerous environment of Hell's Kitchen. They focused on the evidence, including a watch and a ring with initials, which pointed to her identity. Despite extensive searches, initial attempts to match her with missing persons were unsuccessful.

In 2011, a potential match emerged when a woman recognized the sketch of Jane Doe as her missing sister, Judy O'Donnell. However, DNA tests later ruled out this connection. The investigation continued, leading to the eventual identification of the victim as Patricia McLone through genealogical DNA analysis.

Patricia's complicated family background, including a secretive father and a mysterious husband named Donald Grant, raised further questions about her life and death. The episode concludes with a call for information about Patricia's past and the ongoing search for her killer.

TLDR

A teenage girl's remains are found in NYC, leading to the identification of Patricia McLone and uncovering her complex family history.

Episode

44:28
00:00:01
a gruesome Discovery in a New York City basement is a teenage girl and the decades long mission to restore her
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identity a tangled family tree filled with deception an iconic Rock Club mob shakedowns tied to gangsters who would
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later find themselves on The Sopranos this is the story of a woman who for more than two decades was known only as
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the Midtown Jano it's Monday afternoon February 10th 2003 and construction workers are clearing
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debris from a basement of a rundown 5-story building on West 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan a neighborhood known
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as Hell's Kitchen now this place is in pretty bad shape and the only reason the workers are even down there is because
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the restaurant next door arranged to rent part of the basement just for storage so they're doing their thing
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when one of them notices something weird in the corner behind this old boiler it's this big rectangular concrete slab
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like 6 feet wide 5T long and taller than your standard cinder block and it looks
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just all kinds of wrong like it definitely doesn't belong here and in a place like New York where lifers have
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seen it all that is saying something so a worker takes a sledgehammer to this thing and instead of the solid thud that
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you would expect to hear when you like hit concrete there is this echoing sound that tells them it's hollow inside and
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with the blow the cement starts breaking apart until they see brown fabric poking
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through and when they pull on it a human skull starts popping out now the worker
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notifies the NYPD and detective Gerard Gardner who just started his shift and is next up in rotation to catch a case
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head straight to the scene now he knows right away that this is not going to be a routine investigation New York City
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has more than its fair share of homicides don't get me wrong but cases involving skeletal remains are rare here
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so he calls in the City medical examiner forensic anthropologist and when they dig through that concrete to the dirt
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below they find a skeleton like curled up in the fetal position all wrapped up in a rust colored carpet this was
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literally a concrete coffin mhm and more like a tomb I mean there is no bottom to
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it per se like whoever did this might have put the body down or maybe even dug into the floor a little bit and then
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what they did was they poured cement right over the top almost as if they were building some kind of foundation
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now at first glance investigators don't see any obvious signs of trauma on this skeleton but they have no doubt that
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this is a homicide well yeah someone encased in conrete kind of speaks for itself yes but theoretically I mean they
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could have died from something nonviolent like an overdose and then whoever was there like panicked and
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covered it up whatever but that's not even a consideration here because the victim was hogged tied with panty hose
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and an electrical cord which is also wrapped around this person's neck but even though they have a huge potential
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clue about the cause of death like with these things they've still got their work cut out for them the concrete might
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have helped to preserve the skeleton but what they're dealing with is just that bones there is no flesh there is no
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muscle nothing and even the bones aren't in great shape like the outer Surface starts like peeling away on them kind of
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like old paint shipping off of a wall so an ID is going to be difficult however they do find some pretty promising Clues
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they discover that this person had long fingernails and the victim is wearing a tan bra there's also a glittery fabric
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with red and yellow sequin that they think might come from some kind of clothing which all hints to them that
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this might be a female now the Anthropologist can also get a pretty good sense of this person's age the
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victim's wisdom teeth haven't totally come in yet which usually happens between like 17 years old and 25 years
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old and their collar bone isn't fully fused meaning that this person's bones were still growing when they died and
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while they don't find a purse or ID the victim is wearing two pieces of jewelry that could be huge for identification so
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there is a 1966 bll of a watch on their wrist and a yellow metal signant ring on
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their right pinky finger with the initials PM lowercase c g now everything get gets hauled into the lab and a
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couple of days later detective Gardner gets an update on the findings that starts painting a clearer picture they
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can now confirm that this definitely is a female victim a young woman between 15
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and 21 years old somewhere between 410 and 5'4 she had a narrow face petite build and reddish brown hair some of
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which was still attached to the skull according to America's Most Wanted her pointy chin and the shape of her skull
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and the eye sockets LED them to believe that she was likely white now looking at
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her pelvic bone the Anthropologist thinks it's unlikely that she ever had children although they can't be sure but
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it is her teeth that really tell an interesting story because she had expensive dental work done on her back
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teeth but her front teeth were starting to rot before she died it makes me wonder if she left home or was somehow
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like taken from family or caretakers well before she died like she's young at some point somebody cared enough to get
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her that expensive dental work but then somewhere along the line something changed right now investigators theorize
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that she might have been one of the kids who maybe ran away to New York City chasing Big Dreams or something but
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whatever she was looking for I mean obviously she found something very different and that idea isn't totally
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out of left field so the detective who's working the case now Ryan glass he told
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our reporter Nina that this part of Hell's Kitchen specifically like including this very building which is
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301 West 46th Street was known for drugs and sex work it's right by the Port Authority Bus Terminal which is often
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the first stop for young people coming into the city but that also makes it a magnet for Predators looking for
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vulnerable teens cops even nicknam the area the Minnesota strip because so many of the girls being trafficked there were
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runaways from the Midwest and the basement that she was buried in has its own interesting history so it was home
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to a Speak Easy prohibition than a rock Club in the 60s okay but at least with this watch Being from' 66 we know that
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this body is at least from like the 60s oh yeah it's definitely not like that old but they can tell that she has been
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there for a while so her skeleton is mostly intact but some bones were missing like smaller ones from her like
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hands feet stuff that could have maybe been carried off by rats and speaking of rats when labex process the scene they
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find this like whole little ecosystem that developed around her remains maggot casings rodent bones a nest and there
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were also animal and human hairs in the carpet that she was wrapped in and then there's like this random collection of
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items that they find mixed in with everything pieces of Sears brand feed and weed bag scraps of wrap poison
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wrapper like a plastic green toy soldier some duct tape and a dime from 1969 the dime is so crusty and corroded
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that they can barely make out the date but they do was that all buried with her or did it just like end up with her over
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time right so okay that's hard to say some of it was definitely in the mix with her remains like the Sears bag and
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the toy soldier and that dime were actually in the rug with her which makes me think that maybe they were just kind
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of lying on whatever carpet that like she was ended up being rolled up in or I mean it's also possible that she had
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those things on her like who knows but the other stuff like the rap poison rapper probably that stuff came like it
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was more in the concrete I mean it's really like kind of a show down there but all of this stuff still helps create
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kind of a rudimentary timeline like those little green army men they became huge in the 50s when everyone got
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freaked out about lead poisoning from the metal ones but then the dime tells us that she couldn't have been killed
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before 1969 then the rap poison rapper that brand didn't even exist until the late
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'70s so taking everything into consideration they think she was killed sometime in
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the 70s maybe the 80s but they're leaning more toward the 80s given the history of crime in that stretch of the
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city now even after the medical examiner whose name is actually Dr happy even after Dr happy checks everything out he
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can't find any injuries that definitively show how this person died but given the electrical cord around her
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neck doctor happy is thinking that it was probably strangulation and while they don't know for sure if she was
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sexually assaulted nothing seems to point to that actually her bra was still properly in place not like pulled down
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or messed with and they also find scraps of dark Fabric near her hips and legs that might be from pants or shorts along
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with some buttons so right now they have no name no suspects and no motive and they're like two decades behind all they
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can do for now is try to build a profile of what kind of person could have done this police believe the killer had to be
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someone who knew that building inside and out probably a regular in the neighborhood they would have needed to
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know their way around concrete as well and that particular basement and there's actually a few ways to access this
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basement from inside the building plus a steel trap door that opens to a neighborhood parking lot but they don't
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think that this was just some random person who wandered in I mean think about how much time it would take to
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construct something like this tomb as we calling it this is a place that her killer felt comfortable in well and it's
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not just about burying her right like unless this basement already had concrete stored in it they'd have to
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haul that down there making multiple trips in and out like make the concrete yeah detective glass estimates that they
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would have needed at least 50 bags of concrete to basically make this thing that she's encased in and what was this
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building in the80s so it's a little hard to tell at first but it might have just
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been a reg regular basement back then like TBD will kind of get there but this building in general like investigators
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at the time quickly realized that it was never a kind of place where people would
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stay long like by the time they're canvasing in 2003 the place is practically empty there aren't any
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long-term residents even the superintendent is fairly new and the first floor is just an adult video store
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and some of the upper floors are completely blocked off and they do end up finding one guy who worked in the
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area back in the'80s but he can't tell them anything useful about the space so with no witnesses to work with Detective
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Gardner shifts Focus to the physical evidence starting with that bull of a watch he's hoping that the serial number
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might lead them to whoever bought it but according to New York Post reporter Al Gart that is a total dead end it turns
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out that Boulevard just randomly assigns serial numbers for insurance like they don't actually track the purchases at
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all so they move on to what they think is actually their best chance at identifying her that ring so Gardner
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teams up with the FBI and starts searching Nationwide for missing persons with PM CG in their initials now based
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on their timeline and what they know so far they look for people born on or after 1958 and they get 11 names back
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but after comparing things like race and age and other characteristics they have
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to eliminate every single one so next they dig into arrest records checking out every woman with those initials
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who's been charged with a crime across the country and they're doing this thinking that maybe she could have been
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involved in sex work or maybe drugs and if that's the case maybe she had a run in with law enforcement so that search
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gives Garder another 500 names to chase down but still even with those 500 names
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he gets nothing you know what doesn't make sense to me about the sex worker Theory though like in so many cases
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we've covered where the victims were sex workers The Killers just dumped them somewhere on the side of the road in an
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alley ditch they didn't even try to hide what they've done or what they did and like if they did do that like Lisk like
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they did try to hide the victims were like super super hidden close together or at least buried Outdoors but this guy
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he went to extreme lengths to try to make sure like she would never be found not even by accident right like like to
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your point there are serial killers even that emmo is a little off but there actually was one of the first potential
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suspects at least that we know of that they look into was someone who targeted sex workers and someone who took
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elaborate steps to hide their bodies or at least make sure that like these bodies couldn't be tracked back to him
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now this guy is among New York's most notorious serial killers Joel riffkin riffen terrorized women all over the
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city in Long Island from the late ' 80s into the early 90s and the only reason he stopped was because he got caught
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driving with a missing license plate of all things like that he could have gotten caught for and when he did get
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caught police found a decomposing body in his pickup now he ended up confessing to killing 17 women though he was only
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ever convicted technically of nine murders now what we know about him is he strangled his victims all of whom were
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sex workers or women struggling with addiction and he was super calculated about disposing of their bodies like and
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the thing about him is he used different methods each time which made it really hard for investigators to connect these
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crimes and get this according to biography.com with his second victim he actually put her dismembered head arms
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and legs into buckets and then filled those buckets with concrete and dump them into the East River and a Brooklyn
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Canal now only catch is that riffkin was known for leaving bodies outside in water in woods near
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highways sometimes he put them in oil drums but as far as we know he never stashed anyone away indoors and I'm not
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exactly sure how or if they ruled him out back then I know detective glass interviewed him years later after he
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inherited the case but in 2003 even though they're interested in him they don't seem to really focus on him
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Gardner tells algart that there's time riffkin isn't going anywhere like he's serving over 200 years in prison yeah
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but anything could happen like what if he dies I guess in my my opinion why wait well at the time I think they were
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wanting to know more about their victim who the Press is calling Midtown Jane Doe I think they want to figure that
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part out before going to him and we've talked about this before right like you try and get like all your ducks in a row
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so you know when someone's lying you have all the facts like they might get only one shot at those interviews and
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without solid information about who she is they would be at a huge disadvantage I mean truthfully they still don't even
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know when she was killed but according to America's Most Wanted they do catch a break with that when they send crime-
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scen soil samples to the lab mixed in with some dirt they find a torn up clothing label and after Tech like clean
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it up and look at it under a microscope they can see seals showing that it was made by the international ladies garment
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Workers Union so detective Gardner reaches out to them hoping that they can date this label and when he gives them
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the numbers and the letters and all the things on the seal they tell him that it
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could not have been made before December 1987 so like late ' 80s or even the early 90s and that's making sense to
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investigators I mean at the time like ' 80s 90s New York was in the grip of a drug epidemic that was driving violence
00:16:13
to levels that they'd never seen before we're talking like 1,00 plus homicides a
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year except like it's feeling great except that timeline might not be accurate it takes a while but they
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eventually end up learning that the estimate was wrong the clothing label the dates that they were given were
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completely off manufacturing records show that it could have been made as early as the 60s so we're back there
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that adds almost what three more decades to the estimated time frame of her death
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yes but for some reason even though they they're putting the label at the 60s police still seem pretty set on the idea
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that this victim was killed in the80s I don't know why but like that's their thinking at the time so what they do is
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they have an artist create a reconstruction of her face using detailed measurements from her skull
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they get her featured on America's Most Wanted which is like Prime back then but
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no one recognizes her now they managed to determine that the human hairs in the carpet belong to a blonde male probably
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a white guy but they can't say who that guy is was there like a lot of hair um detective glass described it as
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like a pinch like about what you would clean out of hairbrush but they don't know I mean if it's the killers or if it
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was just like mixed up with everything else like it's not going to be like the nail in the coffin for someone right
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like that's not going to be the clencher so fast forward a little bit over the years the emy's office checks Midtown
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janeo against various missing people and at least one possibility does gain some
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Traction in August 2011 a woman named Moren is online when she comes across the sketch of Midtown Jane Doe and as
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she later tells Long Island press reporter jacqulyn guchi it stops her in her tracks because she thinks it looks
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just like her missing sister Judy odonnell who vanished in 1980 while pursuing her dreams of becoming an
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actress and a singer in New York City and it's not just her looks that strike Moren as similar she knew that Judy had
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been living on the streets in Hell's Kitchen she knew that she' been arrested for sex work which remember is the going
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theory about Midtown Jane Doe plus they both expensive dental work that just seemed to stop like their lives took a
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sharp turn but but what about the ring Judy odonnell doesn't match the initials not hers but those are Judy's
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grandmother's exact initials and Moren knows that Judy and their Grandma were super close and like there's nobody in
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her family that remembers a ring like that but Meen thinks that it would be like probable that Judy might have like
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found it somewhere and kept it to honor their grandmother like who knows so that
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October a forensic specialist compare Judy's dental records to Jane Do's but they can't say if it's a match one way
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or another and after being encased in concrete for God knows how long by this point her bones are so degraded that
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getting a viable DNA profile is like trying to get blood from a stone so all told they submit 33 different samples
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for analysis but it's not until 2015 that they're able to get an any sort of profile from Midtown Jane Doe and it's
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not until the following year that they can confirm that Jane do is not Judy odonnell which is shocking a surprise
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and like disappointing but at least they have DNA that they can work with now right yes it's great and they are even
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able to put it into codus but the sample is so small that scientists can basically only use it for direct
00:19:57
comparison but either you're right it's progress and in 2017 there is this renewed push to finally
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figure out who she is once and for all after a detective rediscovered the case while reviewing old unsolved files and
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he decided it was time to take a closer look so what they do now is they try to do isotope analysis which basically
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looks at the chemical makeup of hair teeth bones all of that to figure out where a person might have lived and
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based on what they do the results Point pretty strongly to one region the Midwest the Minnesota strip yes it's got
00:20:32
a name for a reason right but the Midwest doesn't like narrow down right it's not specifically Minnesota when
00:20:38
they checked missing persons reports were they checking from the Midwest or just like New York and the surrounding
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area they were checking everywhere all over across the country so obviously the isotope test didn't really move things
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along so when detective glass is assigned the case in 2022 he comes with totally fresh eyes no no preconceived
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notions about who she was or where she's from or how she got there and what do you know it gives him a different take
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his gut is telling him that Midtown Jane do wasn't a sex worker and that he thinks she was killed way before
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1980 and this Theory might have just stayed a theory but then something huge happens a lab called asraa forensics
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which specializes in analyzing Lo quality samples they managed to get a genealogy grade DNA profile from one of
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her foot bones so the nypd's new genealogist this woman named Linda Doyle she is brought on board and when they
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upload the sample they quickly yet two crucial hits they get a first cousin on her dad's side and a first cousin once
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removed on her mom's side that kind of match right off the bat is unheard of almost yeah really rare yeah and thank
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God though right like they are long overdue for a break and this is a big one because the paternal cousin's
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surname is Mone uh the uppercase M lowercase C uppercase G from The Ring yep so Linda starts doing what
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genealogists do best she's like digging into public records old newspapers obituaries court documents anything she
00:22:19
can dig up and get her hands on that might show her where these two branches of Jane Do's family tree intersects and
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after all of this research Linda can only find one person who fits the bill 16-year-old Patricia mclone she wasn't
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born after 1958 she wasn't a sex worker as far as we know and she wasn't from the Midwest she actually lived right
00:22:46
there in Brooklyn until she disappeared except Patricia was never reported missing and here's just a
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random twist so Patricia's paternal cousin who died a couple of years before genealogy tracked the family down he was
00:23:01
actually a retired NYPD cop and had worked as one Precinct away from where they found her body now I doubt that
00:23:07
they even knew each other doesn't seem like they were very like the whole family was like a super close-knit
00:23:11
family but it was just I thought it was so weird I don't know so while detectives have this tentative answer to
00:23:18
the question that's haunted them for so long they're now facing even bigger ones
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like who was Patricia what happened in her final days and how does a teenage girl just vanish without anyone looking
00:23:31
for her so as detective glass and Linda dive into the investigation they begin to uncover a story that has been buried
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literally for decades and to even try to understand it we have to go back to the
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beginning but fair warning you're going to need to buckle up because from day one Patricia's life was
00:23:56
complicated Patricia's dad Bernard mclone senr was a busy man to say the least by the time he hooked up with
00:24:03
Patricia's mom who was also named Patricia butet just caller Pat he had already been married twice he and his
00:24:10
first wife had two sons before they split then he remarried to this woman named Helen they had a son but while he
00:24:17
was still married to Helen Bernard and Pat got married in Virginia now he knocked about 5 years off his age on
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their application saying that he was 45 when he was nearly 50 and for some reason Pat added a year
00:24:31
saying she was 21 but she was really only 20 now Patricia is born on April 20th 1953 so this is about 10 months
00:24:39
after her parents so-called wedding if you can call it that since he's already married and at the time Bernard is still
00:24:45
living with Helen The Other Woman he's married to okay so we've got one man three wives uhhuh two of whom were at
00:24:53
the same time and at least four kids and a partridge and a pear tree like if going to need a flowchart to keep
00:24:59
everyone straight but trust me I'm giving you the simplified version though if you really want the messy details
00:25:05
there is a great article in Rolling Stone by the reporter Sarah weinman that breaks all this down but anyways even
00:25:12
though Bernard's two families live in the same Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn he somehow managed to keep his
00:25:19
double life a secret for years was that a secret from both women okay so nah interviewed Linda Doyle and based on
00:25:27
what we learned from her along with Sarah Wyman's article I'm pretty confident that Helen was completely in
00:25:33
the dark but with Pat I'm not exactly sure I mean Bernard obviously wasn't like living with her and Patricia so I
00:25:40
assume that would have been a red flag but he was a Long Haul truck driver so being gone for these long stretches like
00:25:47
wouldn't have been that weird either but at any rate in 1957 he apparently left Helen for Pat although when Helen died
00:25:55
of breast cancer a few years later her obituary still referred to her as Bernard's beloved wife so like make of
00:26:01
that what you will and then Bernard and Helen's son Bernard junor hold up can we
00:26:06
please like call them Junior and senior from here on you imagine like having a son and naming after you and the white
00:26:11
like and then having a wife whose daughter is named after her so sure Junior was in his teens when his mom
00:26:18
died so he moved in with his dad Pat and Patricia but if there was any stability
00:26:22
in their home it didn't last long in 1963 when Patricia was 10 senior died of a heart attack Pat became Junior's legal
00:26:31
guardian and he lived with her and Patricia for a while but in a brief account that he wrote about his life
00:26:36
titled sad but true he said that he was totally alone after his father died meanwhile as Patricia bounce between
00:26:45
public and Catholic schools her attendance got more and more spotty she had to repeat a grade detective glass
00:26:51
and Linda can't even locate a yearbook photo of her like she's not in any of them but they did find little fragments
00:26:59
of Patricia's life on other school records and a really troubling picture starts to emerge like at her first and
00:27:06
only semester at a junior high she transferred to in late 1968 she only showed up for 9 days of class and
00:27:15
obviously her teachers were concerned one of them noted that Patricia seemed well behaved but she questioned how she
00:27:21
ever was going to learn anything if she was never there and Pat was also reportedly worried and she told school
00:27:27
officials that she just didn't know who her daughter was skipping school with but I don't know how much attention she
00:27:33
was really paying to Patricia by then she had started dating another married man and I think he was living with them
00:27:41
now Patricia was totally closed off from her teachers though she did mention being interested in something she calls
00:27:47
Beauty culture which I'm thinking is probably like cosmetology but they didn't think that she seemed motivated
00:27:52
to continue her education but I don't know if motivation is the real issue here because I mean what really stands
00:27:58
out to investigators are the last few memos in Patricia's student file all dated
00:28:05
1969 including a report from March detailing a series of medical related absences and then another from May 8th
00:28:15
when she dropped out of school for good and officially her final departure was a
00:28:20
quote unquote medical discharge but this isn't Linda's first genealogy rodeo and
00:28:27
she knows exactly what that phrase was code for back then Patricia was pregnant wasn't she Bingo and this was all
00:28:34
happening during what was known as the baby scoop era after World War II when more and more girls and women were
00:28:41
facing unplanned pregnancies out of wedlock single motherhood carried a very heavy stigma not to mention the
00:28:48
financial burdens of raising a child alone and that combination of judgment and Desperation was The Perfect Storm
00:28:55
for exploitation many expectant mothers were wored or forced to give up their babies and some doctors saw it as a
00:29:02
business opportunity for a fee they would discreetly connect wealthy couples looking to adopt with vulnerable young
00:29:09
women who felt like they had no other choice so investigators think that the physician listed in Patricia's school
00:29:16
records might have been involved in one of these Shady operations in part because of a bizarre incident documented
00:29:23
in a daily news article so apparently a gunman burst into this specific doctor's
00:29:31
office on the upper west side one day at 9900 p.m. while the place was still like
00:29:36
buzzing with patients and staff and he robbed a patient of like $500 cash and night patience and cash is a major red
00:29:45
flag it's definitely raising eyebrows for Linda now word was that this doctor also performed abortions which to me
00:29:53
could explain the late hours and the cash but Linda doubts that anyone in Patricia's Catholic Community would have
00:30:02
sent her to a doctor for something like that so it's also possible that Patricia
00:30:06
had no plans to give up the baby that she might have had for adoption because her school paperwork had another
00:30:12
bombshell waiting for investigators it turns out that Patricia got married a day before she dropped out of school on
00:30:21
May 7th 1969 to a man named Donald Grant I mean did her mom have to sign off on that oh yeah Pat gave permission in fact
00:30:30
she was their official witness at the ceremony so where the is Donald Grant now exactly and who is he yeah I mean
00:30:40
they assume that he might be the father of her baby but investigators can't say for sure because they can't find a
00:30:47
single person who actually knew Patricia no friends no neighbors the few relatives that they're aware of have all
00:30:56
passed away so they don't have any details on how or when she met this Donald Guy all they can follow is this
00:31:03
paper trail so from the school records they go and pull the marriage license and it is basically just one giant red
00:31:11
flag for starters Donald was 32 when he exchanged vows with 16-year-old Patricia
00:31:18
so Pat was the witness at her daughter's wedding to this grown ass man yes cool cool cool but the age Gap isn't even the
00:31:27
big holy thing about this marriage license because guess what Donald put for his
00:31:35
address the building where Patricia was found 301 West 46 Street you got it what's so extra interesting is that
00:31:44
Donald's name is only listed at that address for one year in the 1969 city directory and Patricia isn't officially
00:31:54
linked to that building at all but it looks like their marriage like li like that's where it got mailed to so
00:31:59
investigators think that she probably lived there at some point and all of this fits perfectly with the new
00:32:06
timeline police are forming they now believe that Patricia was killed during the summer of 1969 hold up I know the
00:32:14
clothing label date was wrong but what about that rat poison rapper wasn't that from like the mid to late 7s yeah it was
00:32:22
later detective glass has a theory he thinks that the newer items like the rapper stuff like that that probably
00:32:28
shuffled into the original burial site somehow maybe during all the construction work that was going on I
00:32:33
mean that makes way more sense than Patricia being alive like into the 70s or even the 80s especially when you look
00:32:40
at all of the other evidence like the dime and the watch and all of that found with her remains so armed with their new
00:32:47
estimated timeline police decide to shift their focus to a place that they initially overlooked a place called
00:32:53
Steve Paul's the scene it was this like legendary rock club that operated in that very basement from the mid to late
00:33:02
60s and when I say legendary we're talking performances by Jimmy Hendrick the doors Fleetwood Mack this was The
00:33:10
Hot Spot even Andy Warhol hung out there and the layout of this place was unusual
00:33:17
like it was this massive Maze of brick walled Sellers and passageways but like everything else in that building the
00:33:26
scene was isn't destined to last by the late' 60s Brooklyn Mobsters were demanding protection money from the
00:33:34
owner and get this one of those Mobsters was Tony suro who is best known as Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos wait
00:33:43
are you saying the character Paulie Walnuts was based on him or that the actor himself the actually used to be a
00:33:50
mobster the actual guy used to be a mobster but like he's not a suspect the cement Patricia was found in like for a
00:33:58
minute it sparked all these Mafia rumors over the years but police don't think there's anything to that Sero is just
00:34:04
like one of the many bizarre footnotes in this story but before he became an actor he was a legit criminal known for
00:34:11
shaking down nightclub owners including Steve Paul but Steve didn't want to deal
00:34:15
with all the drama so he shut the club down in maybe July or August of 1969 so suddenly you've got this empty basement
00:34:24
no crowds no music no staff the perfect opport for someone to bury a body in concrete without anyone noticing someone
00:34:33
like Donald and again I ask who is Donald well all they know is that on the marriage license he listed himself as a
00:34:43
musician which could mean anything from like selling out venues to like playing in a subway station for tips like who
00:34:48
knows I mean it's possible he even performed at the scene right but whatever the case may be the fact that
00:34:54
he never reported his wife Patricia missing I think speaks volumes for investigators they're convinced that
00:35:01
Donald is the key to this whole mystery just like you but their luck has run out
00:35:06
because as it would turn out Donald Grant or at least the Donald grant that he claimed to be on the marriage license
00:35:15
doesn't [Music] exist in their marriage license affidavit Donald Grant said that he was
00:35:23
born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania on February 27th 1937 to James Edward Grant and Carrie Elizabeth Johnson who were
00:35:31
also supposedly born in Pittsburgh so with all those specific details finding him should have been a breeze there is
00:35:38
no Donald Grant with that exact background no family matching that description in Pittsburg the guy police
00:35:44
are looking for is a ghost the only official record they can find of this very specific Donald Grant is the
00:35:51
marriage license itself and the only detail they can even verify from that is his address on West 46th Street which
00:35:57
remember he only showed up in one time in 1969 and then poof this guy vanished from the directory and here's what's
00:36:05
really interesting according to Sarah weinman's reporting there was a Donald Grant who was born on February 28th
00:36:13
1937 but he died when he was a baby not in Pittsburgh but in nearby Ohio so this
00:36:20
dude basically stole a dead baby's identity that's what it looks like detective glass is confident that
00:36:26
stealing the identity are not like Donald is an alias but Linda figures there has to be some kind of Kernel of
00:36:32
Truth buried in his affidavit so she tries every possible combination rearranging names and dates searching
00:36:39
every which way she can think of but no matter how hard she shuffles the pieces around there is nothing but dead ends
00:36:46
it's like Patricia never even had a shot like no one protected her she was surrounded by Liars yeah I mean and
00:36:56
honestly you can add her half brother junor to the liar list because police learned that he went on to use various
00:37:01
aliases and he got caught up in identity theft and embezzlement in his sad but true write up Junior blamed his crimes
00:37:08
on his stepmom Pat and the married man that she dated after his dad died now he didn't elaborate at all except to say
00:37:16
that they were both awful people and those were the people raising Patricia too when you think about it and I say
00:37:21
all of that to say it's Junior's fraud case that gives us the only documentation police can find that
00:37:29
mentions Patricia's disappearance so the company that Junior stole from sent investigators to interview Pat in June
00:37:36
of 1970 and somehow in the middle of answering questions about Junior Patricia comes up and Pat told them that
00:37:43
Junior's sister was a quote unquote addict who abandoned her 11-month-old baby and according to Pat Patricia just
00:37:51
took off moved away sometime in 1969 and no one has seen or heard from her since
00:37:57
oh wait I think I'm confused about this timeline how far along in her pregnancy was she when she dropped out of school
00:38:04
okay so she married Donald on May 7th then she drops out of school the next day May 8th so if you do the math
00:38:11
assuming what Pat said about the baby being 11 months old as of June 1970 was accurate Patricia would have been about
00:38:19
6 or seven months pregnant when she dropped out and she likely would have given birth around July or August of 196
00:38:27
9 which is right when the scene closed but beyond that I don't know if Pat ever had seen the baby or knew where the baby
00:38:36
was I mean this was literally just one random paragraph buried in a huge case File that had nothing to do with
00:38:42
Patricia I mean she again isn't even mentioned by name and Pat didn't even get Patricia's age right but I think the
00:38:48
fact that Pat acknowledged that her daughter was gone makes something else investigators discover especially
00:38:53
disturbing you see Patricia's father had left a small inheritance to her and Junior Pat was in charge of managing the
00:39:01
account until they hit like a certain age and in May of 1971 this is almost 2 years after police believed that
00:39:07
Patricia was killed Pat petitioned the court to release $250 from her account and Pat claimed that Patricia needed the
00:39:15
money to buy like work clothes for a new job that she'd supposedly gotten and we
00:39:19
actually have a copy of the petition that she filed and Brit I'm going to have you look at it because I think
00:39:24
there's something super interesting on it so look at Patricia's so-called signature and then I've got Pat's
00:39:34
signature there too uh they look pretty similar and you have Patricia's real signature which looks nothing like
00:39:42
Patricia's signature on I know this like request so the paperwork fills in some blanks but only some and that's the
00:39:52
problem because police are running out of leads detective glass tries reaching out to everyone he can think of members
00:39:58
of the Church of all Nations where Patricia and the alleged Donald supposedly got married he tried her
00:40:04
schools even staff and regulars from the scene but no one remembers Patricia and
00:40:10
no one remembers Donald which isn't that surprising I mean what are police even asking these people about him do you
00:40:19
happen to know some guy named Donald who we don't know anything about who might have been here around these times whose
00:40:25
name probably isn't really Donald by the right like whether he white or black or
00:40:29
tall or what his real age is like that is anyone's guess it's like asking for a ghost right literally all glass can do
00:40:36
is ask people if they knew a guy who used that name around that time in that area and every time he tries the answer
00:40:44
is always no but at least Patricia is coming into focus a little bit more after all the leg work investigators are
00:40:53
99.5% sure that she is definitely their Midtown Jane Doe But as Sarah weinman points out they can't just say like oh
00:41:01
well genetic genealogy says it's hurt like call it a day to officially confirm it they need mitochondrial DNA like the
00:41:08
kind that is passed down through the maternal line but who do you compare it to if everyone is gone literally
00:41:17
everyone I mean on both sides Pat senior Junior finding a sample is going to be tough but Linden detective glass go back
00:41:24
to the beginning back to someone who was on the early list of matches the maternal first cousin once removed so
00:41:30
this is Pat's first cousin and I'm going to call her Fiona now unfortunately Fiona died a few years ago but here's
00:41:38
where the story takes an incredible turn ironically thanks to a tragic twist Fiona's daughter worked at the World
00:41:46
Trade Center and she was killed in 911 and like many families Fiona gave a DNA sample hoping to identify her daughter's
00:41:54
remains among the rubble now that never happened but Fiona's DNA stayed in the database so they finally have something
00:42:02
to compare to Midtown Jane do and when they test it it is a match so amid all the uncertainty they finally know one
00:42:11
thing for sure this is Patricia mlon so here's where the case stands now the blonde male hairs from the carpet
00:42:20
haven't revealed anything yet but more testing is underway meanwhile the original building at 301 West 46 Street
00:42:27
is long gone it was demolished years ago to make way for a hotel and some apartments and as for Donald Grant
00:42:34
whoever he is or was he is the main suspect investigators are trying to figure out who he was and what happened
00:42:43
to the baby that Patricia supposedly had now they've already subpoena records from half a dozen of the largest
00:42:49
adoption agencies and there's no sign of a child of hers ever being placed up for
00:42:53
adoption but it could have been one of those like under the table deals that you mentioned totally every scenario is
00:43:00
possible every scenario is on the table right now but the lack of answers is frustrating for all that they have
00:43:05
learned about Patricia there is still so much that they don't know they still haven't been able to find even a photo
00:43:12
of her Junior didn't even acknowledge her existence in his sad but true write up and it is like she just got totally
00:43:18
erased from history her identification brings us closer to understanding what happened but her murder is still
00:43:25
unsolved and investigators want to catch her killer but they also want to know who she was so they're looking for
00:43:34
anyone who grew up near her childhood home 375 52nd Street in Brooklyn or anyone who went to school with her they
00:43:42
want you to contact them we've got a full list of the schools she attended and when on our blog post and I'm going
00:43:48
to put them down below as well someone out there had to have known this girl and she deserves to have her story told
00:43:55
so if you know anything about her about her family about Donald Grant or the scene anything at all please contact
00:44:02
Crimestoppers at 1 1800 577 tips and be sure to hit the Subscribe button for more stories like
00:44:10
this from crime junkie and don't forget we've got hundreds of episodes available
00:44:14
in our podcast feed just search for Crime junkie wherever you get your podcast [Music]

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 85
    Most heartbreaking
  • 85
    Biggest twist
  • 80
    Most shocking
  • 80
    Most surprising

Episode Highlights

  • A Gruesome Discovery
    Construction workers uncover a body encased in concrete in Midtown Manhattan.
    “This was literally a concrete coffin.”
    @ 02m 18s
    March 27, 2025
  • Identifying the Victim
    Investigators find clues suggesting the victim was a young woman with expensive dental work.
    “At some point, somebody cared enough to get her that expensive dental work.”
    @ 05m 30s
    March 27, 2025
  • A Shocking DNA Result
    DNA analysis reveals that Midtown Jane Doe is not Judy O'Donnell, a missing woman from 1980.
    “It's shocking, a surprise, and disappointing.”
    @ 19m 38s
    March 27, 2025
  • The Mystery of Patricia McLone
    Detective Glass and Linda Doyle uncover the complicated life of Patricia McLone, a girl who vanished without a trace.
    “They begin to uncover a story that has been buried literally for decades.”
    @ 23m 34s
    March 27, 2025
  • The Marriage License Red Flags
    Investigators discover alarming details about Patricia's marriage to Donald Grant, raising more questions than answers.
    “Donald was 32 when he exchanged vows with 16-year-old Patricia.”
    @ 31m 18s
    March 27, 2025
  • The Identity of Donald Grant
    Police struggle to find any trace of Donald Grant, suspecting he may have stolen a dead baby's identity.
    “The guy police are looking for is a ghost.”
    @ 35m 42s
    March 27, 2025
  • Patricia Mlon Identified
    Investigators confirm the identity of Midtown Jane Doe as Patricia Mlon through DNA matching.
    “Amid all the uncertainty, they finally know one thing for sure: this is Patricia Mlon.”
    @ 42m 09s
    March 27, 2025
  • Seeking Information on Patricia
    Authorities are looking for anyone who knew Patricia or her family to help solve her murder.
    “Someone out there had to have known this girl.”
    @ 43m 52s
    March 27, 2025

Episode Quotes

  • Someone encased in concrete kind of speaks for itself.
    What Did Construction Workers Find in Hell’s Kitchen?
  • They think she was killed sometime in the 70s, maybe the 80s.
    What Did Construction Workers Find in Hell’s Kitchen?
  • This theory might have just stayed a theory but then something huge happens.
    What Did Construction Workers Find in Hell’s Kitchen?
  • Patricia was pregnant, wasn't she? Bingo!
    What Did Construction Workers Find in Hell’s Kitchen?
  • It's like Patricia never even had a shot.
    What Did Construction Workers Find in Hell’s Kitchen?
  • This is Patricia Mlon.
    What Did Construction Workers Find in Hell’s Kitchen?

Key Moments

  • Concrete Coffin02:18
  • Victim Profile04:40
  • DNA Analysis19:20
  • Renewed Investigation20:02
  • Patricia's Complicated Life23:56
  • Disappearance and Inheritance38:56
  • DNA Match42:09
  • Call for Help43:52

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown