An unidentified woman, discovered in 1973 in Loudoun County and buried as Jane Doe, was recently exhumed to attempt identification with new DNA technology. Current law precludes burying an unidentified person, so Jane Doe’s remains are in limbo at a local morgue. Loudoun County’s pushing to change Virginia law.
In 1973, the body of a woman in her 20s was discovered in Loudoun County, Virginia.
At the time, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said that she had been killed, but they were not able to identify her body.
“They did not know who she was,” said Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall in a Nov. 7 meeting. “She was buried as a Jane Doe, and that was legal to do that 25 years ago, to bury someone as a Jane Doe.”
Recently, the sheriff’s office got the court’s permission to exhume Jane Doe’s remains to use improved DNA technology to attempt identifying her.
“The medical examiner’s office was able to get viable DNA from her,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Sawyer, of the sheriff’s office. “Obviously, there’s not a direct match sample, since they weren’t taking DNA samples back in 1973, so working through genealogy takes time.”
However, after changes in the law, it’s now illegal to bury an unidentified person — and Jane Doe’s final resting place, for now, is in limbo.
“She cannot be legally be reinterred — she is now in the regional coroner’s office in Manassas,” said Randall. “They cannot reinter her, although we did exhume her after 25 years.”
As the sheriff’s department continues their work to find out who Jane Doe was, and ultimately determine who killed her, there are concerns about treating the deceased with respect.
“In the interim time, before we have her identified, we really don’t feel like it’s an appropriate or respectful situation to just have her body in the morgue,” Sawyer said. “We’ve worked with a funeral home, to have a headstone, a service, and everything else to give her the respectful burial that she deserves.”
However, he continued, “The Chief Medical Examiner said, ‘Well, you can’t have the body, because we don’t have a name.’”
For now, Randall has asked staff to work on adding a policy statement to the county’s 2025 Legislative Program. Those changes to the law would allow bodies that have been exhumed for the purposes of DNA-gathering or investigation to be reinterred, even if they still can’t be identified.
The board will vote on this addition to the legislative program in the next few weeks.
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