Margaret Fetterolf (Woodlawn Jane Doe)

Case background and investigation

On the morning of September 12, 1976, the body of a teenage girl was discovered along a cemetery access road in the 5600 block of Dogwood Road, near Lorraine Park Cemetery in Woodlawn, Baltimore County, Maryland. She had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled, and her body was partially wrapped in a white sheet with her hands bound. According to case summaries, a grass seed bag had been forced into her throat, and toxicology detected chlorpromazine in her system, which investigators suggested may have been used to sedate her. A witness account cited in news reports indicated the body was left at the site between roughly 9:20 and 10:20 a.m., and a white van was reportedly seen in the area around that time.

The victim could not be identified through dental records, fingerprints, or early DNA testing, and for 45 years she was known only as the Woodlawn Jane Doe. She was described as a white female, roughly 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 9 inches tall and 149 to 159 pounds, with shoulder-length dark brown hair and brown eyes. Distinctive items and features included multicolored striped knee-high socks, a rawhide necklace with a turquoise bead, two keys on a safety pin in her pocket, and a crude tattoo on her left arm that appeared to read 'JP.' Investigators traced the grass seed bag to a Buffalo, New York manufacturer whose bags were reportedly distributed in a handful of Massachusetts towns, one of several leads that pointed away from Maryland. The case was entered in NamUs as UP1895, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children produced facial reconstructions, and the case was featured on America's Most Wanted, all without success.

The breakthrough came through forensic genetic genealogy. In February 2021, Bode Technology produced a usable extract from degraded DNA evidence and sent it to Othram, which used forensic-grade genome sequencing to build a genealogical profile. Genealogists then constructed family trees from public records and genealogy database matches, locating relatives that allowed Baltimore County Police to confirm the victim's identity. On September 15, 2021, police announced that the Woodlawn Jane Doe was Margaret Fetterolf, a 16-year-old from Alexandria, Virginia, born December 27, 1959. Fetterolf had been a student at Hayfield Secondary School when she disappeared in late summer 1975; according to news reports, her family believed she had run away and reported her missing, never learning that her body had been found across the Potomac in Maryland a year later. Her father died in 2018 without knowing what had happened to her, according to WMAR.

The identification transformed the case from an unidentified-person mystery into an active homicide investigation, but the murder itself remains unsolved. Detectives said they planned to canvass Fetterolf's former classmates, friends, and community in Alexandria to reconstruct her movements between her 1975 disappearance and her death, which authorities place on or about September 11, 1976. Baltimore County Police issued a renewed appeal for information in September 2023, stating that detectives continue to search for suspects. No arrests have been made and no suspects have been publicly named. Anyone with information is asked to contact Baltimore County Police at 410-307-2020 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7-LOCKUP.