BLUE ASH, Ohio — The Hamilton County coroner is asking the public's help in identifying three Jane Does from the past three years.
Dr. Lakshmi Kode Sammarco said investigators have been trying to identify a woman found in a mulch bed outside an Avondale apartment complex since 2018. Cincinnati Police said the woman died from a drug overdose — her body recovered by a playground outside 421 Glenwood Avenue May 31, 2018. Investigators believe she was dead for weeks before discovery.
The woman's estimated age is between 35 and 60, her height is 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-10 and her hair is brown. Her ethnicity is white or biracial, and she was wearing a gray tank top and gray pajama pants when recovered. A clay facial reconstruction completed by the Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigations shows what she likely looked like at the time.
Another woman was found in the passenger seat of a parked vehicle outside a Colerain Township Walmart Sept. 10, 2021. Officials said the woman was located near 8451 Colerain Avenue in a blue 1989 Buick LeSabre with a New Mexico plate. She is listed as 5-foot-9 and 179 pounds with brown, medium length hair and green eyes. Officials said she may have been white or hispanic, aged 35 to 65. When she was located, she was wearing a pink hoodie, black and white Westport shirt, gray sweatpants and multi-color Danskin Now tennis shoes.
Outdoor cameras show the car pulling into the parking lot Aug. 30. A receipt found in the woman's pocket was from less than 24 hours before she was discovered, but the receipt was not hers. Police found the man whose EBT card was used to purchase the item on the receipt, and he said he had no idea how it ended up in someone's pocket. Her cause of death is undetermined.
Most recently, a woman with distinctive tattoos was found Nov. 2 in the CUF neighborhood. Cincinnati Police said University of Cincinnati students discovered a white female aged 20 to 40 in the 2700 block of Enslin Street. The woman is listed as 5-foot-7 and 210 pounds with brown and blonde hair. The coroner has not determined her cause of death, but does not believe foul play is involved.
While foul play is not suspected in any of the cases, Sammarco said their families deserve to know who they are.
"This person didn't exist in a vacuum, right? This person had a mother and a father and maybe some siblings, maybe some extended family, maybe some children and all of these women, we would love to be able to identify who they are, be able to contact their families and let them know the status of their loved one," Sammarco said.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Hamilton County Coroner's Office at 513-946-8700 or Ohio BCI's Criminal Intelligence Unit at 740-845-2406.
