When I first read about Upham Girl, all people knew about her was that she was a skeleton found under a tarp by rabbit hunters near the Upham exit of I25, close to Hatch, NM. Her body was discovered on March 10, 1985. She had curly blonde hair and blonde pubic hair. She had a pitting bone disease that the coroner believed would have been visible, and she also had notable issues with her spine that probably caused her pain or discomfort. She had pink painted nails and clothes on her person. Beyond that, there was little information on her. It seemed she would be yet another unidentified woman, lost to time.
My heart ached for this young girl who was left in the desert to decompose, with no name, no closure to her family, and no justice for her killer. So I was really excited when I learned that Upham Girl was identified as Dorothy Harrison. Dorothy got her name back!
The real Dorothy looks nothing like her composite. This could partly explain why no one identified her for 37 years. The real Dorothy had reddish-blonde hair, hazel eyes, flared nostrils, and a small scar by her nose. At only 95 pounds, she was a small girl. She was only 16 when she died.
Her identification is all thanks to the efforts of Melissa Agullo, a Dona Ana County sheriff who got Dorothy’s cold case and pushed for her to be identified through DNA.
Agullo first reached out to Ansley Cotter at the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. Cotter put her in touch with Ed Green, the founder of Astrea Genetics. This is a small, private company that works to get DNA from bones and rootless hair, something that was not possible until the last decade. Using bone powder from Dorothy’s left femur, Astrea Genetics was able to extract billions of tiny DNA fragments. They then sequenced these fragments to get a clear result, just like the result you or I might get from submitting a sample to Ancestry.
Next, they connected with Innovative Forensic Solutions. This company helped process the DNA into a database to match it with people who were reported missing. They came up with a match to Dorothy Harrison, missing from Kansas since 1984. Her family had no idea she had been a Jane Doe in southern New Mexico for all this time. They were apparently devastated by the news.
Unfortunately, the details of what happened to Dorothy are still murky. She was last seen when she got into a car with two women her family did not know on July 25, 1984, in Wichita, Kansas. She was only 16, but she had left home before. This would be the last time, however. She was “in with the wrong crowd.”
Dorothy first went to LA. She called her family in August 1984 and told them where she was. A month later, she called again and said she was in El Paso but planned to come back to Kansas. This was the last time anyone would hear from Dorothy – at least, anyone who has come forward.
Dorothy was vague about who she was with or why she went to these places. Maybe she was exploring the world with her two friends, but it is more likely she was being trafficked. Identifying the two women she left Kansas with would be tremendously helpful, but also unlikely, especially after all this time. Her family only caught a brief glimpse of these women and I’m sure they have given the police all the details they can remember about them and their vehicle.
Dorothy is believed to have been murdered between September 10, 1984 and January 10, 1985. I believe they reached this date range based on when she called home and when her time of death was estimated based on her remains. I can’t find details on how she was killed, but her cause of death is listed as homicide.
Dorothy may have fallen victim to a violent pimp who didn’t want her to return home to Kansas. Her death reminds me of the Albuquerque prostitute murders in the 1980s – particularly that of Danessa Howard, who planned to return home to Mobile when she was strangled by her pimps and posed on top of a washing machine in an apartment complex laundry room. It could be Dorothy met the same fate as Howard.
Another possibility is that she was involved with drugs and was killed over a drug-related dispute. Without knowing how she was killed, it is hard to come up with relevant theories.
Dorothy is survived by her parents and five siblings. They were devastated to learn what had happened to their little girl. They would really like justice, and Dorothy deserves it. She was only a young girl, caught up and over her head in a dark world that hates women. She did not deserve to die the way she did and to lie unidentified and unclaimed for so long.
https://www.yahoo.com/now/dorothy-typical-teenager-daso-identifies-233114104.html
https://www.krqe.com/news/new-mexico/the-upham-girl-has-been-identified-37-years-later/