On May 15, 1980, road maintenance workers clearing brush along Route 4A near the Castleton-Fair Haven town line in Rutland County, Vermont, made a horrifying discovery. Concealed in a damp, wooded culvert was the body of a young woman wrapped in green plastic garbage bags. Stripped of all personal effects and identification, she was known across northern New England for forty-three years as "Castleton Jane Doe."
Discovery, Autopsy Findings & Forensic Pathology
The autopsy conducted by the Vermont Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the victim was a young Caucasian female, approximately 18 to 25 years old, standing 5 feet 3 inches tall with auburn-brown hair. Cause of death was ruled a homicide resulting from blunt force cranial trauma and manual strangulation.
Investigators meticulously cataloged trace evidence: the heavy-gauge green plastic trash bags and ligature remnants. Despite widespread coverage in Vermont, New Hampshire, and upstate New York newspapers, no missing persons records matched her profile. Detectives exhumed her remains in 2012 to extract DNA, but degraded bone samples failed traditional CODIS STR testing.
| Date / Period | Jurisdiction / Entity | Forensic Event & Chain-of-Custody Record |
|---|---|---|
| Late 1979 | Manchester, New Hampshire | Nineteen-year-old Roberta "Bobbie" Simpson vanishes from her New Hampshire apartment. |
| May 15, 1980 | Castleton, Rutland Co., VT | Body discovered wrapped in green garbage bags off Route 4A; indexed as NamUs UP10757. |
| 2012 | Vermont State Police | Remains exhumed from Pleasant View Cemetery; initial DNA extraction attempts fail. |
| 2022 | VSP / Othram Inc. | Skeletal evidence transported to Othram for Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing. |
| Aug 2023 | Othram Lab | Genealogists build candidate pedigree pointing to Hillsborough County, NH roots. |
| Oct 2023 | Vermont State Police | VSP announces Castleton Jane Doe is Roberta Simpson; active homicide hunt launched. |