TV show to feature Boulder's Jane Doe
'Most Wanted' plans to tape segment on 51-year-old mystery
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News
October 8, 2005
BOULDER - Jane Doe, the subject of one of the city's enduring mysteries, will be featured on a
national television show and during a simulated resurrection at a very old cemetery.
Jane Doe is the petite blonde whose body was found by hikers near Boulder Falls, west of the
city, 51 years ago.
She had been flung down a 29-foot highway embankment, and her identity remains unknown.
"America's Most Wanted" is doing a segment on Jane Doe and will come to Boulder on Oct. 23 to
film the annual "Meet the Spirits" resurrection at historic Columbia Cemetery.
Thirty of Boulder's most notorious and famous dead people will be represented. Among the
scholars, scalawags and shady ladies are bounty hunter Tom Horn; photographer "Rocky
Mountain Joe" Sturtevant; the University of Colorado's first female professor, Mary Rippon; and
prostitute Marietta Kingsley.
People who pay their $10 to watch the re-enactments - and who dress in black as mourners -
may be part of the upcoming segment of America's Most Wanted.
Jane Doe's description was sent across the nation in the 1950s, and several families made the
trip to Boulder to see if she was the daughter, sister or mother they had lost.
But it seemed she didn't have a friend or family member in the world.
This June, forensics experts made public the reconstructed skull and facial features of the
woman, based on an exhumation of her body and careful work by renowned forensics sculptor
Frank Bender.
They hope the publicity will lead to someone finally identifying her, or even to the killer's capture.
Eleanor Wedum, a senior at Fairview High School in Boulder, will portray Jane Doe both during
the cemetery tour and on the television segment expected to air in November.
Wedum has played a part ever since her mother, Kathryn Keller, originated Meet the Spirits in
1993. Wedum first played a 7-year-old mountain girl who died of typhoid, then played a 14-year-
old whose suicide over a troubled romance was front-page news decades ago.
"But all her life, she aspired to play Jane Doe," Keller said.
Meet the Spirits started as a fundraiser to pay for repairs from the almost annual damage done
to Columbia Cemetery by high school and college students each Halloween, Keller said.
Former Boulder County Sheriff George Epp played Boulder's first sheriff; the city manager
played a long-dead city manager, and so forth.
"We're showing that the cemetery is filled with people who had real lives and real stories, as a
way to say 'Please don't vandalize,' " Keller said.
Meet the Spirits is sponsored by Historic Boulder and the city of Boulder Parks and Recreation
Department. Proceeds benefit Columbia Cemetery and Historic Boulder.
There will be a display of a two-toned 1954 Pontiac, near the grave of Jane Doe. The headstone
marking the young woman's final resting place was removed in 2004 for safekeeping.
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Boulder's most famous dead people
• What: "Meet the Spirits" resurrection
• When: Noon to 5 p.m. Oct. 23.
• Where: Historic Columbia Cemetery, Ninth and Pleasant streets on University
Hill.
• Tickets: Historic Boulder, 4735 Walnut St., Boulder, beginning Oct. 17 and by
calling 303-444-5192 (credit card); also, the day of the event at the cemetery
gates.
http://www.historicboulder.org/
info@historicboulder.org
http://www.boulderjanedoe.com/
• Costs: $5 for seniors and people under 16; and $8 for groups purchased in
advance.
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