The woman without a face now has a name.

Twenty-seven years after she was found dead and partially clothed in a Lyon County ditch, authorities have identified the woman as 23-year-old Wilma June Nissen from California.

The break in the case came despite the fact that the woman's face had badly decomposed by the time she was found, investigators were able to retrieve only two fingerprints from her body, and most of her closest relatives - including her parents - are now dead.

Lyon County Sheriff Blythe Bloemendaal said the break gives new life to a cold murder case.

Authorities figured out who she was after taking a long shot by resubmitting her prints to the national fingerprinting database. A match came back "100 percent positive," Bloemendaal said.

Investigators say they have new leads to follow in finding a murder suspect, though they wouldn't elaborate.

The announcement, made at a press conference in the Lyon County sheriff's office, showed a tender side of law enforcement officers here. Former Sheriff Craig Vinson, now 87, still visits the woman's grave, marked "unidentified female."

"I'll tell you what, this young lady was never forgotten by this man," said Bloemendaal, gesturing toward Vinson, who attended the press conference. "And she was not forgotten by us."

Nissen's body was found Oct. 4, 1978, in a ditch along a gravel road between Larchwood and Inwood, in far northwest Iowa.

She was only partially dressed, wearing green khaki pants, an inexpensive gold and silver ring, and a pair of white zippered boots.

Her lower jaw and all but two of her teeth were missing when she was discovered. Authorities believe she had been dead for about two months.

The case has remained open while investigators pursued numerous leads during the years, Bloemendaal said. The case most recently landed on the desks of Dan Moser of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and Jerry Birkey, a county sheriff's detective.

Investigators submitted the woman's prints to the federal database in 2000, but found no matches. The prints were submitted again this year and matched Nissen, who had been fingerprinted after being picked up for prostitution in California in the 1970s.

Since then, authorities have pieced together part of her life history.

"She was a very troubled youth, a runaway . . . a young girl living on the street trying to get by," Bloemendaal said.

He said Nissen also went by the name "Boots" Wellington and lived in Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Beach and other California cities. Investigators are trying to determine where she was between 1975 and the time of her death. Her father, Charles Nissen, died in 1986, and her mother, known by many names including June Bradford, died in 2003. Other leads have been difficult to track because many people who knew Nissen are now dead, Bloemendaal said.

"It's quite disheartening to come to this point after 27 years, and not have someone to tell it to," he said.

As far as investigators can tell, no one ever filed a missing-persons report for her.

If no one else cared, former Sheriff Vinson did.

He visited her grave again three days ago. He and Bloemendaal hope the county will pay for a new marker with her name.

"She was just a young girl who needed help," Vinson said.

Link: http://www.dmjuice.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060217/NEWS01/602170370/-1/JUICEARCHIVEart


 

 

Has this been on the "Cold Cases" series on Court TV yet?  I have heard about this case several times.  It's terrible not to be able to identify a 23-year-old woman until 27 years after her death, but it is STILL better late than never! 

After a few years of search and no word, it is 99.99% certain the person is dead.  Even if a person doesn't want to be found, it is nigh impossible to evade detection for very long.  To do so, you need friends in high places.  Remember the rich kid from Connecticut who committed a series of rapes when he was a teenager?  His rich parents were able to smuggle him to Switzerland and he hung out as a ski bum for something like fifteen years.  However, even he was caught and brought to justice.

There is no statute of limitations on murder.  With enough detective work and perhaps DNA evidence, I hope they can catch the scumbag who killed Ms. Nissen, if he himself is even still alive.

Even if no one gets brought to justice, knowing for sure is still better than NOT knowing.

One of my ex-girlfriends is STILL techically "missing."  She went "missing"  three years ago from a ferry en route to Seattle from Victoria, BC.  Surveillance cameras showed her getting on the boat.  Her belongings were found on the boat, but no sign of her. 
This happened in March, 2003.  I found out because I was trying to track her down in September, 2003.  I hadn't seen her or heard from her in ten years!
I know her family held a funeral service for her in abstentia, and does some kind of Catholic memorial vigil at their church every year.
I don't think there was any foul play.  Cherene had bipolar disorder, and I think it was a suicide.
However, it' is 99.999% certain nothing of her will ever turn up.  Not from the depths of the middle of Puget Sound.  The thing is, with no body to identify, you can be 99.999% sure, but never 100% sure and the tiniest inkling of doubt will always eat away at family and loved ones!
:o

I don't recall her being shown on Court TV as far as I know, although I do KNOW that she was profiled on the Doe Network long before she was ID'd as Wilma Nissen. I've always visited the Doe Network, which profiles international cases that are from Europe and different parts of America. They have sections for Missing and Unidentified persons, but they only take missing persons cases from up until 1997, they don't go past 1997. For Unidentified people, they take UID cases from 2005 and 2006...

Sorry to hear about your ex-girlfriend... :( ... hope she's found alive and well!

No...her case hasnt been on the cold case tv show.
im sorry to hear about your gf too....
sadest  part of her case is no one ever bothered to even fill out a missing persons report....pretty wrong.
sometimes its hard to know which is worse thu...not knowing...or knowing that your loved ones life ended in a way that no ones should ever should.....

No...her case hasnt been on the cold case tv show.
im sorry to hear about your gf too....
sadest  part of her case is no one ever bothered to even fill out a missing persons report....pretty wrong.
sometimes its hard to know which is worse thu...not knowing...or knowing that your loved ones life ended in a way that no ones should ever should.....

Oh, I forgot about this thread.  I didn't read the date on the initial post.  Thought it sounded eerily familiar...because it was!

That particular girlfriend who I went out with in the early '90s had bipolar disorder.  On either pole, those afflicted can do shocking and impulsive things without thought of consequence.  My guess is that she had a falling out with her boyfriend, went into a depressive tailspin, and leapt from the ferry on the way back.  Imagine what you could do if you didn't have to worry about consequences!  I know nearly nothing about the years between our break-up and her suicide.  Perhaps she had been on the brink several times prior, only there had been somebody there to help her through the impulse and calm down. 

Slim chance her remains will ever turn up.  I don't know how her family feels.  They're hardline Catholics and probably want something to put in the ground, even it's little more than deteriorated femur.  As for me, I like to think of her spirit as freed from the suffering she endured in life.  Let the sea forever conceal the corporeal residuals.

i am living with and in love with Krissi the daughter of the woman found. Her life is a long and strange story and could not just be a "Cold Case"show but also Law and Order SVU as well. Hell her story would make a good mini series.  It is hard not knowing your birth mother but then when you find out who she is then you find out she was murdered right after you were born. The funny thing about no missing persons report is Wilma was the foster daughter of the people who adopted Krissi.She doesn't want pity just wants to know what happened and wants everyone to remember others who disappear in our lives.  Never forget about people no matter what the circumstances they go through. If someone goes missing then follow up on them.    Krissi remember I love you