Forensics Journal - Stevenson University 2010 | Page 14

STEVENSON UNIVERSITY

The fate suffered by Princess Doe is, unfortunately, not unique – far
from it, in fact. There are literally hundreds of cases nationwide with
characteristics similar to those of the Princess Doe case. The Doe
Network,12 a website dedicated to cases involving both missing persons and unidentified human remains, lists over 100 cases of females
whose bodies were found alongside or close to interstate highways
(as was the case with Princess Doe).13 The Maryland Missing Persons
Network website14 was established specifically in response to one
woman’s obsession with finding the identity of a Jane Doe discovered
in 1991, in a culvert alongside Interstate 270 in Frederick County,
Maryland. In fact, the Maryland Missing Persons Network site also
lists and depicts Princess Doe, owing to her possible connection with
Maryland.

apart from the fact that the decedent was eventually identified, one
of those cases fits the aforementioned pattern very closely: the body
of Tonya Gardner, a Pennsylvania resident, was found alongside
Interstate 70 near the exit for Maryland State 94 in Howard County
in 1996. She was finally identified eight years later,15 although the
question of how—and by whose hand—she met her demise has yet to
be satisfactorily answered.
The creator of and driving force behind the Princess Doe website,
Travis Riggs, is a native of Blairstown, New Jersey, and now makes
his home in Baltimore, Maryland; he administers the website on his
own time and at his own expense. Riggs was just four years old when
Princess Doe’s remains were found. “I was too young to remember
the specifics [of the murder], but I do remember how scared everyone
was. . . . We lived in a place where people rarely locked their doors
and then we suddenly had a murder. This was a total unknown. Blairstown is such a quiet place; you would never expect to see something
like this happen.”16 His primary and indeed sole motive in establishing the Princess Doe website is simply to find a name for the victim,
and then find out who killed her.

Clearly, there is a pattern that links many of these cases, which have
in common the victim’s sex (female), location found (near an interstate highway), and, most disquietingly of all, the fact that all of the
victims’ identities still remain a mystery. To its credit, Doe Network
volunteers have assisted in resolving several dozen previously open
cases, involving both missing persons and unidentified remains. Also,

The administrator of the Maryland Missing Persons Website, Kylen Johnson, also volunteers for the Doe Network site, and she was instrumental in helping to identify
Tonya Gardner’s remains.
15

16

“Remembering ‘Princess Doe’” by Jacqueline Lindsay, The Warren Reporter, July 14, 2007. http://blog.nj.com/warrenreporter/2007/07/jacqueline_lindsay.html.

17

New York State Department of Correctional Services, Inmate Population Information Search, http://nysdocslookup.docs.state.ny.us/GCA00P00/WIQ3/WINQ130.

These highlights of Speirs’ investigative efforts are culled from the America’s Most Wanted website, www.amw.com/missing_children/case.cfm?id=44823, and merit recounting herein. Travis Riggs says that the pimp is Arthur Kinlaw. “In 1998, Lt. Stephen Speirs, of the Warren Co. [New Jersey] Prosecutor’s Office, was assigned to the case. He
immediately began looking through the evidence and information—making it his mission to find Princess Doe. . . .That year, Lt. Speirs received a phone call from N.Y. authorities who had some interesting information. A former prostitute and her pimp were arrested in Calif. The cops told Lt. Speirs that the woman had been charged as an accomplice in at least one murder committed by her pimp—and while cooperating with police, she’d told them the pimp was responsible for the beating death of a teenager in
a N.J. [cemetery]. N.Y. cops told Lt. Speirs she’d be willing to talk to him about the murder. . . .Lt. Speirs traveled to Rikers Island Prison to meet with the woman. She told
him the killer was a big-time pimp in Long Island who preyed on runaways and throwaways. She said he lured Princess Doe into his pimping business—but she was naive, inexperienced, and [of no value] to the pimp. Several times, he tried selling her to other