Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office exhumes body of ‘Jane Doe’ nearly 5 decades later

Max Marcilla
·2 min read
2

WARRENTON, Va. (DC News Now) — It’s been nearly five decades since a woman was found dead underneath a school bus in Fauquier County and still, to this day, no one knows who she is.

That could soon change.

The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, was believed to be a Black woman who was in her early to mid twenties when she was found dead. She was buried at the Warrenton Cemetery and remained there from the late 1970s until this past Friday.

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That’s when Jane Doe’s longtime resting place no longer became her final one.

Alongside the Fauquier County sheriff, detectives, several community leaders and the sheriff’s chaplains, Jane Doe’s remains were exhumed.

“We are all energized and very excited to be able to take another look using new technology,” said Jeffrey Long, the public information officer with the Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office.

Long said thanks to a grant from the Department of Justice, the Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO) can revisit a death investigation that left them without answers for decades. Jane Doe was found in a rural area underneath a school bus between Opal and Bealeton.

“To have someone that we know is here in our county who died alone, who died without any kind of sacred rituals that go with death … we’re going to ensure she receives the respect that she deserves,” Long said.

FCSO thinks that is possible. DNA testing has improved dramatically and not only in how it’s collected.

“Our sample populations to be able to match the DNA is just so much larger now,” Long said.

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As Jane Doe’s DNA heads to the FBI, the goal of the community in Fauquier County remains. They want to find out who she is and give any surviving family and friends a chance to properly say goodbye.

“They just really hope that we [can] bring some closure and some healing to whoever her family may be,” Long said.

Long told DC News Now that it is unlikely the medical examiner would be able to figure out the cause of death (which has never been determined) all these years later. However, he said figuring out who Jane Doe is could help spark that part of the investigation as well.

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