In April 24, 1981 Three young men were walking along Greenlee Road in Newton Township, Troy, Ohio, when one of them, Greg, saw a hole in the road. In the pit was a coat made of deer skin. He jumped into the pit and tried to lift the robe because he was interested. And all of a sudden, he was startled and yelled. “Oh my God, that robe is worn by a woman.” That woman was huddled up in a ball and showing no signs of life. The three teens told the police right away.

Autopsy

In the afternoon, an autopsy was done on the body. A medical checkup showed that the woman had many cuts and scrapes on her head and neck.
Her body had been dead for 48 hours before it was found. But there were no signs of sexual abuse.
Between five and five and a half feet tall, the woman was thought to be between eighteen and twenty-six years old. It weighed between 125 and 130 pounds. She had reddish-brown hair that parted in the middle and was braided long on both sides of her head.

In terms of age, her size was the best. In other words, she followed the rules of good hygiene. She had scars on different parts of her body, though. There was nothing in her clothes or at the scene that helped figure out who she was.

Investigation of Case

Since her body was found 48 hours after she died, police have been able to use her fingerprints and teeth to figure out who she was. But no one who has gone missing or who has a criminal record has been found. The police did not have her fingerprints on file. The police drew a picture of her face right away and put it in several newspapers. The news was also shown on TV in the area. But none of this helped, and nobody came forward to say they knew the woman.

Over time, the woman got the name “Buckskin Girl.” Because the body was wrapped in deer skin when it was found. Her murder was something that was looked into later, and there was no news about who she was. Investigators say that she was killed far from where she lived, which made it hard to find her.

When her body was found, she had no shoes or socks on. But her feet were still clean. It showed that she had been killed somewhere else and her body dumped here. The police think that she may have run away from home and ended up with a sex killer. But this theory was thrown out because there were no signs of sexual abuse when the person was checked out by a doctor.

The “Buckskin Girl” grew less hot as time went on. Even though police and other officials kept looking into it. Along with her clothes and other things found at the scene, a sample of her blood was kept.

Theories

Her body was found on the town road instead of the main road, which showed that she was not a hippie.

Investigators also found connections between the Buckskin Girl murder and many other crimes that happened around the same time. In 1985, investigators briefly linked the murder of the Buckskin Girl to a string of murders of Caucasian women across the country. There were a lot of sex workers and erotic dancers among those who were killed. The name for these killings is “Red Head Murders.” But this idea was eventually shot down.

Some investigators also thought that Buckskin Girl was one of the young women killed by an unknown serial killer between 1985 and 2004. Most of the women who were killed were strangled, and after they were killed, their jewelry was taken away. Since Buckskin Girl also died by strangulation and her shoes and jewelry were not found at the scene, she was also thought to have been killed by the same serial killer.

In 1991, a group that had just been put together met in London, Ohio. The task force was made to look into attacks in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois that had not been solved.

There were more than a dozen people on the force.

Investigators were able to get the DNA of a woman who died in 1981 from a safe blood sample. This was possible because technology has improved and DNA analysis is being used more and more in criminal investigations. The government added this DNA sample to its database.

In 2001, the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory made a DNA profile of Buckskin Girl. In 2008, this information was added to the newly created National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) database, which gave law enforcement access to her fingerprints, dental records, and DNA information all over the country. With this information, it was clear that Buckskin Girl was not responsible for the disappearance of 226 girls and young women between the ages of 13 and 24. A sample of mitochondrial DNA was sent to the FBI in 2009 so that it could be added to the Combined DNA Index System.

Dr. Elizabeth Murray, a forensic anthropologist and professor of biology in Cincinnati, took over the NamUs case of Buckskin Girl the following year. She kept looking for the identity of the dead person.

The National Center for Missing Persons put up a website for forensic facial reconstruction in April 2016.

Identification

In 2016, the Miami County Police Department agreed to use forensic palynology tests to try to find out who killed the victim and what she was wearing. The US Customs and Border Protection Agency was the one who did the investigation. The results of the tests show that Buckskin Girl was either born in northern Mexico or spent some time there a year before she was killed.

On April 9, 2018, the Miami Valley Crime Laboratory said that the person who had died was Marcia Lenore King, who was 21 and from Little Rock, Arkansas. The DNA Doe Project and the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory worked together to look at her DNA and figure out who she was. In 2017, Dr. Murray contacted this organization, which was able to match a sample of King’s DNA to a sample sent by a first cousin for comparison. Her family didn’t give a statement to the press because they wanted to keep their privacy.

Her family hasn’t seen her since 1980. They never told the police that she was gone, but they kept looking for her on their own.

After the Buckskin girl was officially identified, a police spokesman told the media:

“Law enforcement never forgets anything, but it has taken a long time to get to where we are now. Marcia King has been found, and the person who killed her is being looked into. We’ve paid more attention to the last month of her life, when she went from Pittsburgh to Louisville.”

The Miami sheriff told reporters at the February 2020 base that he had found out where the Buckskin girl was two weeks before she was killed. The test will be done using NA technology, and the results could lead to information about a possible killer. He also said that the police department has always stood for fairness. He said that the murder case would be on their minds until it was solved. Do you know that they can find the killer very quickly thanks to modern technology?

Marcia’s mother was found living in the same house with the same phone number, hoping that one day her daughter would come back. This is a very sad fact.