a facial reconstruction of Lucy Doe, made by Alexander Artist
Discovered June 23rd, 1976

SOLVED

Lucy Doe is a formerly unidentified body.

In the afternoon of June 23rd, 1976, twenty-one year old Henry Redwood was walking through the woods in Trenton, New Jersey when he came across the body of a woman. The woman had been shot multiple times in the face, hindering recognition. It was believed she'd been dead anywhere between a week to several months. She was 5'6 (roughly), a redhead. Her eye color could not be determined due to the decomposition of her body.

Henry ran out of the woods, found a payphone, and called the police. They arrived and were unable to identify the woman. She was nicknamed Lucy Doe by police, having been nicknamed after Officer Thomas Wright's deceased daughter, Lucy Wright, who had been murdered three years prior at the age of ten. Lucy Doe was buried in St. Mary's Cemetery on May 29th, 1977, after remaining unidentified for eleven months. Her grave read;

LUCY DOE
BE AT PEACE SWEET GIRL

Later that year, a man named Edward Tomlin came into a Trenton police station, confessing to the murder. He said he didn't know the girl's name, but she had an accent that he could only describe as 'un-American'. He said he killed her after she refused sex from him and then dumped her in the woods. He'd killed her on April 29th, 1976. Edward would be imprisoned and found guilty of the murder.

As for Lucy, several leads were pursued in an attempt to figure out her identity. An isotope analysis was conducted in 2011, and after this she was believed to be from either England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales. Several missing person's cases were then pursued in those countries and they were able to rule out a multitude of missing girls as being Lucy Doe.

Finally, on July 25th, 2021, forty-five years, one month, and two days after her discovery, she was announced to have been officially identified using genealogy testing as Orla Bridget Cantwell. Orla was born the sixth of nine children in Kinsale, Ireland, where she grew up in a very catholic family. It's also worth noting that she was deaf in her left ear. Orla had always been very rebellious by nature, once burning the bible when she was sixteen, which led to a severe beating from her father. She ran away in January 1976, three days after turning seventeen. Her parents never reported her missing, as she'd left a note behind. It's unclear how she'd ended up in New Jersey.

"I grew up hearing this story from my father, who also grew up hearing this story from his mother, Orla's sister," Kallie Charles said in a 2022 interview for the show The Does Of The World. "My mysterious great aunt who ran away from her home and was never seen by anyone ever again. From what I know, my grandmother and other family members always hoped that Orla was out there, happy, living her life, maybe with a family of her own. I always hoped someday I'd meet her. I always thought she was so cool for running away, I still do, actually."

Orla was buried in Kinsale alongside her parents on August 14th, 2021, her grave reading;

ORLA CANTWELL
BE AT PEACE SWEET GIRL
January 20, 1959 - April 29, 1976

May Orla Cantwell rest in peace.

an undated photo of Orla