Unidentified Teen Girls' Remains Found - 12-16 yo Caucasian - Harrisonburg (S of Monroe) LA

Catahoula Parish deputies are investigating how the remains of a young female found in a wooded area north of Harrisonburg came to be there.Sheriff James Kelly said the remains had been incorrectly connected with a missing person case out of Houston, Texas.“(The remains) are that of a young, white female, between the ages of 12 and 16,” Kelly said. “She was less than five foot, four inches tall, with long, thick brown hair. She also appeared to have braces on her upper teeth with pink rubber bands.”Kelly said the remains appeared to have been in the location they were found between three weeks and six months.Deputies received a call Friday from a hunter who said he had discovered what appeared to be a human skull.Deputies at the scene confirmed that the remains were human, Kelly said.Forensic pathologists from Louisiana State University were called to the site and determined that the remains were “likely that of a young female” who was small-framed and had long dark hair.Dr. Mary Manhein, director of the LSU FACES (Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services) Laboratory, said the victim’s skull had a noticeable gap in her teeth.“Her upper right canine appeared to have not (come in) yet,” Manhein said. “So, likely, when she smiled, there was a hard-to-miss space in her smile on the right side.”This is not the first time a body has been found in Catahoula Parish.In March 2006 Catahoula investigators met with Ouachita Parish detectives in an effort to sort through and quilt together fragments of a cold case involving a murdered woman.Kelly, then a Catahoula Sheriff’s investigator, met with the Ouachita Parish investigators to try to meld together both departments’ information about the death of Catherine Robinson, 52. The victim’s remains were recovered Oct. 1, 2005 in the Boeuf River in a wildlife preserve north of Enterprise after a fisherman found the body. She was believed to have been strangled.Robinson, who had no known permanent address, was said to have stayed at sites around southern Monroe and West Monroe. She had no known connections to Catahoula Parish.Kelly said Robinson’s case has yet to be solved and no suspects were arrested in connection with her death.Kelly said Robinson’s case is completely unrelated to the case of the deceased child found over the weekend. He said the FBI was contacted and are assisting deputies with the case.Kelly said the remains have not been identified and no local agencies have reported any missing persons that match the description of the victim.Kelly said he expects the identity of the victim and cause of death to be determined within the next few days.He asks with information that might be connected to the case to contact the Catahoula Parish Sheriff’s Office at (318) 744-5411.

The team at the FACES Lab is currently analyzing the remains of a young female found Saturday in the woods of Catahoula Parish. The Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services Laboratory, or FACES Lab, provides identification services for law enforcement by using age-progression technology to help identify missing or unidentified children and adults. Mary Manhein, FACES Lab director, said she received a call from the Catahoula Parish Sheriff's and Coroner's offices Friday night asking for her team's assistance with identifying a human skull found by a hunter in the woods near Harrisonburg. Manhein said she and the team drove to Harrisonburg on Saturday morning and spent the day searching for the rest of the remains, which were located in the same general area as the skull. "Sometimes you don't find everything," she said. "In this case, we were able to find most of the remains." Manhein said the team brought the remains back to the University where they did further testing and discovered they belonged to a young white female. "We know she's been dead from anywhere between three weeks and four to six months," she said. "She was also between the ages of 12 and 16 years old." Manhein said the team discovered the girl was shorter than 5 feet 4 inches, had thick brown hair and wore braces on her teeth with pink rubber bands. Little is known about what may have happened to her, Manhein said. "Nobody knows who she is. We put out bulletins, but no one's been reported missing in that area," she said. "We don't know if she was a runaway or if she was abducted." But Manhein said they were able to determine from the victim's dental records that she had a gap in her smile. "That's a real identifier," she said. "Because she has such good dental work, we can tell she was well taken care of." If the victim is not identified within the next few weeks, Manhein said the team will conduct DNA tests on the remains and enter them into a national online DNA database for all missing persons and unidentified remains.
http://www.lsureveille.com/news/faces-lab-receives-skeletal-remains-1.2366935

The discovery of unidentified human bones in the Catahoula Parish woods has prompted the creation of a new federal database.Sheriff James Kelly said the FBI has created an e-mail data bank linking investigators to dentists and orthodontists in the area.Dental reports from the skull of a young girl whose body was found by a hunter Oct. 8 have been shared with dentists and orthodontists in all neighboring states.No match has been made yet, Kelly said, though the e-mail did elicit a returned phone call from a Brookhaven doctor who promised to spread the word.“We continue to have the FBI, the State Police and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children working with us,” Kelly said. “Every resource that is available to us is on it.”The case has been labeled a “suspicious death” because, in part, no children in the area have been reported missing.Kelly said law enforcement doesn’t yet want to divulge the cause of death for fear of hindering their investigation.“There is a lot we’ve been doing,” he said. “We just haven’t had a match.“We were sure hoping that by this point we would know.”The remains were sent to the LSU Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services Laboratory where Director Mary Manhein said she believes the girl to be between the ages of 12 to 16, 5-feet-four-inches tall or shorter and with thick, brown hair.Manhein also said the remains had been in the woods anywhere from a few weeks to several months.The teen had braces with pink bands on the top row of her teeth.Anyone with information about the remains is asked to call the Catahoula Sheriff’s Office at 318-744-5411.

Because I don't completely understand how dental records work this may not be an issue. My daughter had braces and when I was really sick we missed 2 months of appts. She developed a (temporary) gap between her front teeth. Braces need regular tightening. They actually spread the teeth apart it they aren't tightened regularly. If this girl had been missing for awhile..... or I suppose it can happen after death?

Good point cindmo, but in this case she had a gap because she is missing an incisor so it's not caused by the braces. I really can't believe nobody has come forward yet. Surely a girl with braces has a family who is looking for her and would be surfing the net for anything all the time. I've been through quite a few of our missing girls on here and Alexandria Lowitzer had pink braces but I read an article where investigators said the remains are not the missing texas girl. Dental records don't match. Seems such a coincidence though as Spring, Texas is only 300 miles away. Maybe the dentist looked at the wrong record or something and it actually is her.

kiwimom wrote:Good point cindmo, but in this case she had a gap because she is missing an incisor so it's not caused by the braces. I really can't believe nobody has come forward yet. Surely a girl with braces has a family who is looking for her and would be surfing the net for anything all the time. I've been through quite a few of our missing girls on here and Alexandria Lowitzer had pink braces but I read an article where investigators said the remains are not the missing texas girl. Dental records don't match. Seems such a coincidence though as Spring, Texas is only 300 miles away. Maybe the dentist looked at the wrong record or something and it actually is her.

Hopefully DNA can sort it out if it gets to that point, but ya you would think if they were paying the Orthodontist they care enough to keep looking...although I suppose she could have been kidnapped/run away a couple of years ago and just now died/was murdered.

Remains of girl found in Catahoula Parish have yet to be identified


By Zack Southwell • zsouthwell@gannett.com• October 21, 2010
Catahoula Parish Sheriff James Kelly said investigators have made progress in the investigation into the remains of a young girl found by hunters earlier this month.
"Since no local agency had any missing persons reported, the FBI and state police were contacted to help us," Kelly said. He said the identity of the girl has yet to be determined.Dr. Mary Manhein, director of the LSU FACES (Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services) Laboratory, who is assisting with the investigation, said cases such as these are difficult.Kelly said deputies have been working with the National Center for Missing or Exploited Children to determine the identity of the remains.He said investigators have also created an e-mail databank, linking dentists and orthodontists, to see if they can help investigators identify the dental records of the remains."We have already eliminated four or five teens based on dental records," Kelly said.Manhein said a facial reconstruction may be the next step in determining the girl's identity.The remains are that of a young, white female, between the ages of 12 and 16, according to Kelly. He said she was less than 5 feet, 4 inches tall, with long, thick brown hair. She also appeared to have braces on her upper teeth with pink rubber bands.Kelly said the remains appeared to have been in the location where they were found between three weeks and six months.For any information that might be connected to the case, contact the Catahoula Parish Sheriff's Office at (318) 744-5411.

My son had braces and he had to have them tightened every 8 weeks so I would think that if this girl went missing 6 months ago there would be a dentist out there who knows she was missing as he would have tried to contact her about missing her appointments, so it makes more sense if this is the remains of someone who went missing closer to 6 weeks ago IMO.
It seems strange nobody has come forward yet. I don't know if this has been on national TV - NG or something, but it needs to be. The longer nobody comes forward the more I think she could have been a tourist.

THE REMAINS OF A BODY FOUND IN THESE WOODS IN CATAHOULA PARISH BELONG TO TWELVE YEAR OLD LEXIS K. ROBERTS. NOW THAT SHE'S I-DED, WE'RE LEARNING MORE ABOUT THE DAYS LEADING UP TO HER DISAPPEARENCE. "LEXIS WAS LAST SEEN IN THE COMPANY OF HER MOTHER, SUELLEN ROBERTS AND THOMAS SANDERS"WE'RE TOLD THEY WERE TAKING A ROAD TRIP FROM LAS VEGAS-WHERE THEY LIVED-TO ARIZONA."THEY WERE LAST SEEN NEAR THE GRAND CANYON ON SEPTEMBER 5TH.
"THEY WERE SEEN ON VIDEO CHECKING INTO A HOTEL" THAT'S THE LAST TIME THE THREE OF THEM WERE SEEN-UNTIL LEXIS' REMAINS WERE FOUND HERE. SOMEHOW A HAPPY TWELVE YEAR OLD GIRL-WAS DUMPED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS IN LOUISIANA. "I TRIED TO TELL MY DAUGHTER THAT I DIDNT FEEL IT WAS RIGHT, YA KNOW, TO GO WITH THIS PERSON SINCE SHE'S ONLY KNOWN HIM FOR 2 MONTHS."MARY HAD HER DOUBTS BEFORE THE TRIP BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T TRUST SANDERS."HE HAD BURGLARY AND THEFT CHARGES AND HE USED VARIOUS ALIAS'S AND SOCIALS AND THAT HE HAD A CHARGE IN LOUISIANA OF SEXUAL NATURE WITH A MINOR."DESPITE THAT, AUTHORITIES AREN'T NAMING ANY SUSPECTS AT THIS TIME-AND BOTH SANDERS AND SUELLEN ROBERTS ARE STILL MISSING. SHERIFF KELLY SAID THE NEXT STEP IS TO FIND SUELLEN AND SANDERS-AND FIND OUT HOW LEXIS K. ROBERTS WOUND UP HERE.

See the Lexis thread at;
https://justice4caylee.forumotion.net/murdered-children-f38/lexis-roberts-12-yo-and-her-mother-suellen-flagstaff-az-t8284.htm

I wish to leave this here another week and then move to Resolved-Other
as our coverage in the Murdered section takes precedence.