On Halloween morning, October 31, 1958, a highway maintenance worker surveying a wooded drainage slope along Route 66 near Grand Canyon Junction in rural Coconino County, Arizona, discovered the skeletal remains of a young girl. The victim had been bound and discarded in the pine needles. Designated as "Little Miss X," she stood on official Arizona coroner dockets as the county's oldest unidentified decedent cold case for sixty-three years.
Discovery, Route 66 Corridor & Forensic Demographics
Pathologists estimated the decedent was an adolescent female between 14 and 17 years old, standing approximately 5 feet 1 inch to 5 feet 3 inches tall. She had been dead for approximately nine to eighteen months before recovery.
At the scene, investigators recovered unique personal items: a 10-karat gold ring inscribed with the initials "P.B.", a red sweater, and remnants of blue denim pedal pushers. In 1962, she was buried in the Flagstaff Citizens Cemetery under a marker reading "Unknown Female Child." For decades, Coconino County Sheriff's detectives chased runaway leads from across the American Southwest, but traditional fingerprint and dental checks never surfaced a match.
| Date / Period | Jurisdiction / Entity | Forensic Event & Milestone |
|---|---|---|
| Mid 1957 | Cleveland, Ohio | Fifteen-year-old Joyce Rochelle Jackson vanishes from her Cleveland residence. |
| Oct 31, 1958 | Grand Canyon Junction, AZ | Skeletal remains discovered off Route 66; cataloged as NamUs UP10754. |
| 1962 | Flagstaff Citizens Cemetery | Buried under "Unknown Female Child" marker; case remains active cold file. |
| 2018 | Coconino County SO | Remains exhumed; skeletal core submitted to DNA Doe Project for SNP extraction. |
| Mar 2021 | DNA Doe Project | Genealogists triangulate cousin lines to Cleveland, OH; Jackson family identified. |
| June 2021 | Coconino County Sheriff | Sheriff Jim Driscoll formally announces Little Miss X is 15-year-old Joyce Jackson. |