Buried Bones - a historical true crime podcast with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes · Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts

The Lady of the Dunes

·1 hr 3 min·4 clips

The autopsy finds sexual assault with a block of wood and eight gold crowns that someone tried to pry off.

1. Buried Bones covers the Cape Cod case known as the Lady of the Dunes, centered on a woman found at Race Point Dunes in Provincetown in July 1974. 2. Kate Winkler-Dawson hosts as a journalist who has written about true crime for 25 years, and Paul Holes joins as a retired cold case investigator who brings forensic analysis. 3. The episode asks how investigators could identify both the victim and the offender when the body is badly mutilated and found in a public beach setting. 4. Kate sets the scene at the Cape Cod National Seashore on July 26, 1974, with Martha's Vineyard and the filming of Jaws as nearby context. 5. A nine-year-old girl walking with a dog finds the body first, but she does not alert authorities at the time. 6. Leslie Metcalf, described as 12 or 13 years old, later comes across the same woman when a beagle bolts ahead on the Sand Access Road. 7. Paul describes the area as scrub pine brush where the body appears partly visible from the path, but still tucked into vegetation. 8. The police chief, James Meads, documents a light green terrycloth beach blanket, folded Wrangler jeans, a blue printed bandana, and pink toenails. 9. Meads estimates the victim is 5 feet 6 to 8 inches tall and about 140 to 150 pounds, with long auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail. 10. The initial scene notes say the woman is nude, nearly decapitated, and found with severed hands and one severed arm up to the elbow. 11. Paul focuses on the possibility that the body was positioned to resemble someone sleeping, with pine needles arranged where limbs would have been. 12. He points out that such staging could delay discovery because passersby might assume the woman was asleep in the brush. 13. The autopsy is delayed by July heat and dune flies, and investigators estimate death could have occurred four days to three weeks before the discovery. 14. The medical examiner finds evidence of sexual assault with a block of wood and determines the cause of death was a blow to the head. 15. The most useful identification clue is the victim's dentistry: eight gold crowns, described as New York style, with an attempted prying-off of the crowns. 16. Dr. Stanley Schwartz, the state dental forensic examiner, reconstructs the skull, which is missing a hand-sized chunk and shows a jagged eight-inch crack. 17. Meads and his team search the crime scene with bloodhounds, canvass local motels, send 5,000 dentists the records, and consult psychics. 18. The conversation stays measured and analytic, with Kate supplying case chronology and Paul breaking down what the scene and injuries suggest. 19. Listeners interested in forensic reconstruction, unidentified remains, and classic New England true crime would likely follow this case closely. 20. Listeners looking for a quick resolved case or low-detail discussion may skip it.

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