.
Teens Remains were found along Brazoria
County road in 1990
By: Richard Stewart (richard.stewart@chron.com),
Houston Chronicle
ANGLETON, TEXAS - A well-worn ring
from the 1975 class of Houston's Robert E.
Lee High School is the main evidence police
have to try to unravel a 16-year-old
mystery. It was found on the finger of a
skeleton at the end of a Brazoria County
road in 1990.
"It's not much to go on," said Manvel police
Detective Jay Coffman, "but it's about all
we've got."
In the nine years since the remains were
found, investigators have not been able to
tell what happened to the female victim, how
she got to be on a pile of debris or, more
importantly, who she was.
"Somebody's missing this girl," Coffman
said, holding the ring. Somebody is missing
the ring, too, he said, because he doubts it
originally belonged to the victim.
A medical examiner's report estimated that
the skeleton found on September 10, 1990,
was that of a girl about 17 years old, plus
or minus two years, Coffman said. She would
have been far too young for the 1975 class
ring to be hers.
"It could have been given to her by an aunt,
an older sisters, by anybody," Coffman said.
Richard Rosser, an investigator with the
Brazoria County Sheriff's Department, is
working with Coffman to solve the mystery.
"Back then, Brazoria County was a dumping
ground for bodies of people killed in
Houston," Rosser said. "It seemed like we
had at least one a month."
The skeleton was found by an Alvin man who
had pulled off the highway to find a place
to urinate. He told investigators that he
stepped behind a barricade and saw a skull
in an old tire.
Investigators have no clues as to how she
died. No traces of drugs were found in the
bone marrow. Medical examiners estimated she
had been dead six months to a year.
The victim was about 5 feet tall, plus or
minus 2 inches. Medical examiners said the
skeleton was probably that of a Hispanic
female.
Investigators looked at dozens of different
reports of missing teenage girls, but none
seemed to match the skeleton.
Three rings were on the skeleton's fingers.
One was silver with a scroll design, another
had a turquoise unicorn on it. But
investigators think the 1975 Lee High
School ring probably has the best chance of
leading to her identity.
A jeweler recently told investigators the
ring was a size 91/2 and had been resized
twice. The person it fit was probably about
175 pounds.
An ornate "L" inlaid in the blue stone could
have stood for the owner's last name or for
Lee High School. The company that made Lee
High School's rings doesn't have records
from 1975, Rosser said.
The Lee class of 1975 probably had about 150
girls, Rosser said. He would like to hear
from any of them who lost a ring or gave it
to somebody else. The skeleton is now at the
University of North Texas Health Science
Center at Forth Worth. That facility
operates the Texas Missing Persons DNA
Database, which, in turn, feeds information
about missing persons to the Combined DNA
Index System (CODIS), operated by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
If investigators get new leads, they can try
to test the DNA of relatives to identify
her.
"We would at least have a name," Coffman
said.
Anyone with information about this case can
contact Manvel Police Detective Jay Coffman
at 281-489-1212 or e-mail him at
jcoffman@manvelpd.org.
This and other cases are profiled online at
the Texas Department of Public Safety's
missing persons database:
www.txpdsdps.state.tx.us/mpch/
