On a Sunday morning in September 1976 a young woman’s body was found partially wrapped in a white sheet beside Dogwood Road near the back gate of a cemetery in Woodlawn, Maryland. For decades she was known as Woodlawn Jane Doe; advances in DNA and genetic genealogy identified her in 2021 as 16-year-old Margaret Fetterolf, a mixed White and Japanese student from Alexandria, Virginia who had been reported missing in 1975 and described by family as a habitual runaway.

The autopsy concluded she died of asphyxiation after being beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled; her hands were bound behind her back. Toxicology detected chlorpromazine, an antipsychotic, and investigators noted distinctive items with her including a rawhide necklace with a turquoise-colored bead, two brass keys on a safety pin, and a crude arm tattoo with letters that might read JP. Pollen on her clothing suggested time spent in the Northeastern United States. A Ford Econoline van was seen near the scene about an hour before discovery but produced no resolution.

Baltimore County Police continue to treat this as an unsolved homicide and have not publicly named or arrested any suspects. Did anyone in the Woodlawn, Alexandria or Northeast communities recognize the necklace, keys, tattoo, or the van back in 1975–1976?