JENNIFER HAMMOND - 18 yo (2003) - Douglas County NY

State police say fragments of a human skull found in woods in
northern Saratoga County appear to be from a child 10 to 12 years old.
State Police Maj. William Sprague declined to say who found the
bones on Tuesday. He said technicians will try to get DNA from the
bones as part of attempts to identify the person.
Sprague declined to speculate whether the bones could be linked to a
specific missing person case. He said the age of the bones is unknown,
but they don't appear to be from an ancient burial ground.
He said lab testing will likely take four to six weeks.

The discovery of what appeared to be most of a small
human skull Monday in remote woods off Fox Hill Road had State
Police searching for other human remains Monday and Tuesday.

Police are trying to determine from whom the bones came and
whether the remains can be linked to any area missing persons
cases, such as the 2007 disappearance of Jaliek Rainwalker, a boy
from Greenwich.

State Police Maj. William Sprague said Tuesday night that the
skull fragments are "recent" and do appear to be from a prebuscent
child, but police do not believe they are those of Rainwalker.

He said police do not know from whom they came, but more
information in the case was to be released Wednesday.

A large portion of a skull, missing its teeth, was found,
officials said.

Trooper Maureen Tuffey acknowledged that "bone fragments" were
discovered, and she said it was being investigated whether they
were human. It was unclear who found them.

Neither Cambridge-Greenwich Police Chief George Bell nor State
Police investigators involved in the Rainwalker case would comment
on the matter Tuesday afternoon.

Saratoga County District Attorney James Murphy said the State
Police forensic identification unit is involved in the matter as
well.

He said investigators are trying to determine how old the
fragment is, how long it's been in the woods and to whom it
belonged. DNA tests will be done to try to match it with DNA
samples from people who have been reported missing.

"We do have a number of missing persons cases in the area," he
said. "It's still too early to say. There are lots of questions.
It's going to take some significant time."

Washington County District Attorney Kevin Kortright said he
understood that the Rainwalker case was one of several for which
the skull fragments were to be analyzed for a possible link.

"Whenever they discover human bones, they try to compare them to
any of the missing persons cases they have," he said.

Fox Hill Road is a long road that runs northwest from Greenfield
to Great Sacandaga Lake. The skull was found in a sparsely
populated area near where the towns of Edinburg, Providence and
Greenfield meet.

15 State
Police vehicles lined the road near the town line as of late
Tuesday afternoon.

New York State Police are investigating the discovery of a child's skull in rural Saratoga County.



DNA testing will be used to help
police match the skull, which was found over the weekend, to missing
person cases.

Twelve-year-old Sara Anne Wood went
missing from Herkimer County in August of 1993. Lewis Lent is in prison
for her murder after pleading guilty. Wood's body was never recovered.
Lent had told authorities he'd taken her to Raquette Lake. An
exhaustive search there turned up nothing. Another theory investigators
looked into was that Lent might have taken Wood to his home in
Massachusetts.
Herkimer County District Attorney
Michael Daley, now a Supreme Court Judge, prosecuted Lent. He is aware
of the discovery of the skull, but says it's too premature to speculate
whether it could belong to Sara Anne Wood.
"It's too
premature to speculate; I'm sure NYS Police will conduct an exhaustive
investigation and when the individual is identified, I hope it will
bring closure to the family of a missing child somewhere in this region
of the country," said Daley.
Another child, 12-year-old Jaliek Rainwater went missing from north of Albany in November of 2007.

State Police investigating the discovery of human
remains earlier this week in rural Saratoga County were forced to
suspend their search for more remains on Wednesday because of
rain.

State Police Maj. William Sprague said investigators would return
to the scene where skull fragments were found - off Fox Hill Road
near the Greenfield-Edinburg town line - as early as Thursday, if
the weather allows.

"The ground out there right now is extremely soft, and we didn't
want to risk pushing something down so far into the ground that we
couldn't find it," Sprague said.

Authorities were alerted to the remains earlier this week and spent
Monday and Tuesday searching the wooded area.

Only skull fragments have been found, and at least one more day is
needed to complete a search of the area, Sprague said.

"The obvious question is, 'Where are the rest?'" he said.

Police believe the remains are those of a child between 10 and 12
years old.

DNA tests done on the remains will help police determine the age
and sex, but results could take at least a month to produce.
Officials have asked that those tests be expedited.

In the meantime, State Police sent information about the discovery
to authorities across the state looking for insight on open cases
that could provide a starting point for an investigation.

Sprague said several police agencies from across New York have
already contacted State Police, but no solid connections have been
established.

"At this point, there are no links to any open cases," he
said.

Police have secured the scene where the remains were found and
continue to guard the isolated area to prevent any tampering.

Police are searching for clues after a child's skull was found in a remote section of Saratoga County.
Those bones were found in a wooded area in Greenfield on Monday.
Investigators say it'll take several weeks to complete DNA tests.
Area police are eager to find out if the discovery helps close one of several open cases.
However,
police are leaning less and less toward the case of Jaliek Rainwalker,
the 12-year-old Greenwich boy who disappeared in November 2007.
As a team of state police investigators were searching in the woods
off Lake Desolation Road, Cambridge-Greenwich Police Chief George Bell
was hoping that he had the break he's been waiting two years for.
"Hopeful and very optimistic that it was Jaliek," Bell said.
Police believe Jaliek was killed, but they've never found his body.
When a Northville man discovered a child's skull in the woods this week, Bell and state police immediately thought of Jaliek.
Bell says investigators will compare DNA taken from Jaliek's
toothbrush with DNA taken from teeth found in the woods to determine
conclusively if it's Jaliek, but he's not holding his breath.
"I'm being told right now that it doesn't appear to be him. Still, we have to confirm through DNA," Bell said.
Police named Jaliek's adoptive father, Stephen Kerr, a person of
interest in the weeks after the boy disappeared. Kerr has maintained
his innocence.
Bell faults Kerr for not reaching out to police when news of the skull discovery spread.
"I think being concerned adoptive parents of Jaliek, that they'd at
least make a call or have their attorney call myself or somebody else
associated with the case and just say, 'Hey, look, we have these bones
in Edinburg, could this be our son?' We've heard nothing from them,"
the chief said.
Saratoga Springs police are watching closely.
There are several missing persons cases that police could be considering as they try to figure out who the bones belong to.
Fourteen-year-old Tammie McCormick was last seen while on her way to Saratoga Junior High in April 1986.
In addition to Jaliek and Tammie, Sara Ann Wood's body is still
missing. Wood was 12 years old when she was kidnapped while walking
home from church in Herkimer County. That was back in August 1993.
Lewis Lent confessed to Sara Ann's murder, but never revealed where he buried her body.
Lent is now serving a life sentence.

A skull found by hunters in a New York
State park have been identified as that of an 18-year-old from Douglas
County, who went missing when she was selling magazine subscriptions in
a trailer park in 2003.
Jennifer Marie Hammond's skull was found by hunters in Lake Desolation State
Park, about 40 miles north of Albany, earlier this week, Saratoga
County, N.Y., Sheriff James Bowen said at a Thursday press conference,
according to the Schenectady, N.Y., Daily Gazette.

Douglas County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Cocha Heyden said Thursday
evening she had no direct knowledge of Hammond, but would talk with her
department's investigators this morning.

The last address where Hammond lived before 2003 is a home on Jared Way near the eastern edge
of Roxborough State Park. No one immediately returned a call to the
telephone number listed for the home Thursday evening.

Hammond was identified by matching three teeth still affixed to her skull to dental records, Bowen said.

Hammond
was traveling in the Wilton, N.Y., area selling subscriptions for a
company calling Atlantic Circulation. She was dropped off at the Creek
and Pines Trailer Park and was not seen again.

Authorities said the death has been classified a homicide.

Hammond's remains were found about a mile off the rural road running through the
state forest preserve near Greenfield, according to the local district
attorney's office.

Her skull, missing the lower jaw, was initially thought to be a child, possibly a local 12-year-old boy
missing since November 2007.

Searchers are back in the woods looking for more bones or other evidence, according to Saratoga County
District Attorney James Murphy III.

The sheriff said Hammond was last seen by coworkers in August 2003, but wasn't reported missing
until more than three months later. She had gone missing before, he
said.

Her return bus ticket home to Colorado was never redeemed
and her belongings were found in a hotel near Albany, Bowen told local
reporters Thursday afternoon.

Her body was found about 12 miles away from where she was dropped off to sell magazines.

Hammond's only local public record is a 2002 reckless driving ticket in Douglas
County. She pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of operating a defective
vehicle.

National missing persons websites stated she sometimes
went by the nickname “Moonbeam” and had a peace symbol tattoo
surrrounded by a ring of fire on her left hip.

Jenny Hammond was a bright Douglas
County teenager who wanted to see the United States and earn summer
money when she went to upstate New York in 2003 as part of a crew
selling magazine subscriptions, her mother said Friday.
On Monday, a hunter in Saratoga County, N.Y., found Hammond's
remains six years after the 18-year-old was dropped off at a trailer
park in Ballston Spa, N.Y., to sell subscriptions. She was never seen
alive again.
Her death is being treated as a homicide, said Maj. William Sprague of the New York State Police.
"It is absolutely the most horrible thing that could happen to any
parent's life," said Hammond's mother, Valerie Tiller. "It was
devastating."
Tiller, a longtime elementary school teacher originally from Douglas
County, said she came home Thursday evening to an answering machine
message from New York detectives asking that she call.
At 7 a.m. Friday, they called her and told her Jenny's remains had been found.
"I'm so grateful that she will not be forgotten," said her mother,
who now lives in Texas. "She will be buried in Colorado. Colorado is
where she grew up. Her friends will be able to say goodbye."
On Aug. 1, 2003, Hammond was traveling in the area with other young
people selling subscriptions for a company called Atlantic Circulation.
She was dropped off at the trailer park, and when her ride returned two
hours later, she was not there.
Sprague said Friday that the hunter found a partial skull, a jawbone and six teeth, three of which had "unique dental work."
Police already had dental chart
Aware of the individuals who had disappeared in the area, the State
Police quickly focused on Hammond, whose family had previously provided
investigators with Hammond's dental chart.
"We were fortunate that three teeth had unique dental work," Sprague
said. "We are sure that these are Jennifer's remains. I believe it
offers relief to the family, but we won't have satisfaction until we
find out who is responsible."
Sprague said DNA tests will also be used to verify the findings. On
Friday, Valerie Tiller gave authorities a sample of her DNA to be
compared with DNA from the remains.
Tiller described her daughter as having an outgoing, friendly personality. She loved the arts.
She attended Castle Rock Middle School and then Douglas County High School in Castle Rock.
She loved to act and acted in musicals in high school, her mother said.
"She wanted to see new places"
Hammond had a friend who had sold subscriptions, and selling
subscriptions appealed to Hammond because "she wanted to go out and see
the world," said Tiller.
"She told me she wanted to see new places. She anticipated she would make a little summer money," Tiller said.
During her summer in the East, Tiller said, Hammond would call her
at least once a month. But before she disappeared, she told her father,
Davis Hammond, that she wanted to come home, and Davis Hammond bought
her a bus ticket back to Colorado, Tiller said.
At the time, Tiller and Davis Hammond were going through a divorce, Tiller said.
"She had never been away from home except on family vacations, and I
just assumed she was homesick for her family and her sister," said
Tiller, referring to Jenny's younger sister, Julie, who is 19 and
attending college in Colorado.
Hammond was missing for three months before a police report was
filed, according to Saratoga County Sheriff James Bowen. She had left
the magazine group before without telling others, only to return later,
he said.
Tiller said her then-husband had given Jenny permission to sell the
subscriptions during the summer. But Tiller said in retrospect she
doesn't believe selling door-to-door subscriptions is safe.
Company has no information
"Magazine sales were not, and are not, a safe situation for anyone,"
Tiller said. "It is not safe for people to go to strange areas and
knock on strange doors."
Sprague of the New York State Police said Atlantic Circulation has been cooperative.
Candra Misal, a supervisor at the York, Pa., company said the firm
received numerous calls Friday about Hammond but that Hammond's name is
not in their system.
"I tried to locate her information, and I was unable to," Misal said.
Tiller said that after her daughter's disappearance she went through grief counseling.
"I was told if I believed she was dead, I should accept it," Tiller
said. "But I felt if I accepted it, it was like I was giving up.
"I know where she has been. She has been in heaven."
Davis Hammond declined comment Friday.

Remains identified as missing Colorado teen

9:25 PM, Oct 29, 2009 | comments

http://www.9news.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=125989&catid=339

Skull found in N.Y. is Douglas County teen's Victim, 18, disappeared while selling magazines in 2003

By Joey Bunch The Denver Post
Publication: The Denver Post
Date: Friday, October 30 2009

A skull found in a New York state forest this week belongs to an 18-year-old from Douglas County who went missing after she was dropped off to sell magazine subscriptions at a trailer park 12 miles away in 2003.

Jennifer Marie Hammond's skull was found Monday by a hunter near Lake Desolation in the foothills of the Adirondacks, about 40 miles north of Albany.

To read more: http://www.allbusiness.com/environment-natural-resources/ecology/13348947-1.html

Search to resume Tuesday for skeletal remains

By DREW KERR dkerr@poststar.com |
Posted: Monday, November 9, 2009 12:00 pm

GREENFIELD -- Authorities on Tuesday will resume their search efforts in Greenfield, where the remains of a missing Colorado teenager were found two weeks ago.

Saratoga County Sheriff James Bowen said a group of 15 to 20 officers will be involved in the search, which will focus on the same wooded area off of Fox Hill Road where a hunter found a skull on Oct. 26.

http://poststar.com/news/local/article_663f3b2a-cd51-11de-aa5b-001cc4c03286.html

Review all Atlantic Circulation, Inc. complaints

Atlantic Circulation, Inc.

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/atlantic-circulation-inc-c147051.html

Red by IMFO.

Skull fragments identified as missing Colo. woman

Published: Thursday, October 29, 2009

On page two: http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2009/10/29/news/doc4aea10e5308cd568324678.txt?viewmode=2

...."The heavily wooded site is off an unpaved section of town road, about 20 miles from the Milton trailer park where Hammond was last seen, at the corner of Geyser and Middle Line roads. Police said it’s too early to tell if there’s a connection, but her case bears striking similarity to that of then 19-year-old Christina N. White, whose badly decomposed remains were found at Daketown State Forest in Greenfield on March 10, 2006. She was last seen in the Geyser Road-Rowland Street area of Milton on the early morning of July 1, 2005.

The sheriff’s office announced that an examination of White’s skeleton revealed she was stabbed to death. The site where she was found is off Lake Desolation Road that turns into Fox Hill Road, where Hammond’s remains were found.

Sprague also declined comment when asked if Monday’s discovery points to local a suspect, perhaps someone familiar with back country roads.

“It's way too early to speculate on anything like that,” he said."....


Start of article: http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2009/10/29/news/doc4aea10e5308cd568324678.txt?viewmode=default

Considered a homocide on page 2.

http://www.allbusiness.com/environment-natural-resources/ecology/13348947-1.html

A comment from an Examiner article ( http://www.examiner.com/article/another-child-is-missing-from-a-magazine-sales-crew-new-york-city ):

Peter Henderson Jr. · New Milford, Connecticut

Hi all,

The risks associated with these Magazine sales company’s go far beyond being ripped off or drug use.

In 2009 18-year-old Jennifer Marie Hammond's skull was found by hunters in Lake Desolation State Park, about 40 miles north of Albany, New York. She was a homicide victim.

Jennifer, who was originally from Colorado, was last seen by coworkers in August of 2003. She was traveling in the Ballston Spa, N.Y. area selling subscriptions for a company calling Atlantic Circulation. She was dropped off at the Creek and Pines Trailer Park, and was never seen again.

Her return bus ticket home to Colorado was never redeemed and all her personal belongings were found in a hotel near Albany, but because of the nature of these company’s it was three months before Jennifer was reported missing. Her case was already cold by the time authorities were notified.

Jennifer, who went by the nickname “Moonbeam,” was a free spirit. Described as being a bright teen, she wanted to see the United States and earn summer money. That’s the hook all these company’s use.

Instead she ran into a killer.

And yes this has been going on for many, many decades.

Pretty Marry Ann Switlaski, a petite, blonde 16-year-old Catholic high school student has been missing since 7/15/63 from Chicago, Illinois. It was the summer between her junior and senior year.

She was last seen by friends going to a local church carnival.

Two days after her disappearance Mary Ann’s parents received a short letter postmarked from Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

In the letter, Mary Ann stated that she was fine and that she was going to earn some money to help her family out by selling magazines and would be sending some home soon. She wrote that she was, “experiencing a strange but educational experience.”.

It was a different era then, no NCMEC, no NamUs, no internet to spread the word, and the parents of missing children were pretty much on their own.

The first news report about Mary Ann attest to that fact. It did not read police request the publics assistance, instead The Chicago Tribune headline reads: "Mother Asks Help in Finding her Daughter."

Investigators believe that Mary Ann was recruited by a magazine door-to-door sales group. It is believed that the group she joined was headed to California.

In time Mary Ann’s case went cold. The pretty blonde haired girl - seemingly forgotten.

But as it turns out that’s not true.

Chicago Police Detective Mark Czworniak is now handling Mary Ann’s case. In addition to established investigative procedures he is using social networking sites in a effort to locate her.

In September of 2011 he created a new Facebook page for Mary Ann. There you will learn that she was never forgotten, and that a new generation of her extended family, most who were born after she vanished, continue to search for her.

If alive Mary Ann Switlaski is now 65, she vanished under unusual circumstances, her case remains - unsolved.

If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:

Chicago Police Department.
Detective Mark Czworniak.
312 744 8261.

Full missing person profile for Mary Ann at my link:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2753605518621&l=456f2ce3b0