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Valentine Jane Doe

2022/8/29
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The episode introduces the case of Valentine Jane Doe, found murdered in Key West, Florida, on February 15, 1991. The victim was later identified as Wanda Kirkham, an 18-year-old from upstate New York, through forensic genetic genealogy.

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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com slash Forensic Tales. Behind every massacre, there lies a reason. Sometimes they're obvious. Many mass murderers have similar traits. Sensation-seeking, lack of remorse, impulsivity, need for control, and predatory behavior. But other times, massacres are almost impossible to explain.

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Follow Anatomy of a Massacre on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your favorite shows so you don't miss an episode. You know what happened? Now, let's uncover why. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. February 14th is known as Valentine's Day around the world.

a time to celebrate joy, companionship, and love. Lovers dress up in fancy clothes, eat at expensive restaurants, bouquets of flowers are exchanged. But in 1991 in Key West, Florida, Valentine's Day was no time to celebrate. An innocent young lady was found lifeless, half naked, and dragged across the dirt.

This is Forensic Tales, episode number 139, The Valentine Jane Doe Story.

Thank you.

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola. Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.

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Key West is an island in the Strait of Florida. It's the southernmost city in the United States and the westernmost island connected to the state of Florida by a highway. Key West Main Street, Duval Street, stretches slightly over a mile, crossing from the Gulf of Mexico to the Straits of Florida and the Atlantic Ocean. It's a place known for water sports, booming nightlife, and beautiful sandy beaches.

Many describe Key West as one of the most unique places to visit in the U.S. Each year, it attracts tourists from all over the country. In the early 1990s, crime was common in Key West, especially violent crime.

Compared to mainland Florida, Key West had a significantly higher rate of violent crimes, including rape, assault, and murder. The most dangerous parts of Key West, Florida, were towards the southern end of town. The reason behind the increase in violent crime isn't apparent.

It might be simply because many tourists visit Key West. Unfortunately, so do many young people. Both tourists and young people mixed together are often key targets for violent and property crimes. Although violent crime was common in Key West, what happened on Valentine's Day in 1991 still managed to shock the entire state of Florida.

On February 15, 1991, a group of windsurfers walked along U.S. Highway 1 after spending the day at the beach. U.S. Highway 1, known as the Overseas Ocean, is the only route from Miami to Key West. On their way back, they passed Bahia Honda State Recreation Park.

To Key West locals, this area off U.S. Highway 1 on West Summerlin Key was known as the Horseshoe. It was a place regularly used as an illegal campground. People would set up a campsite near the beach, even though camping in this particular area was prohibited. Around 8.15 a.m., the windsurfers came across something near mile marker 35 of the highway.

As they got closer, they realized what caught their eye. A body. Near mile marker 35 of US Highway 1 was the naked body of a young female. She was found lying face down on the ground in a small pool of water. The only piece of clothing she had on was a bathing suit top.

But the bathing suit top wasn't around her chest. Instead, the top was wrapped around her neck like it had been used to strangle her. When Monroe County officials and Florida State Police officers arrived on the scene, they discovered that the female victim had been strangled with her own bathing suit top and also had been badly beaten.

Since her body was found on a dirt trail in a heavily wooded area off the main highway, investigators theorized that whoever did this attempted to conceal her body. She'd been killed somewhere else and then had her body dragged to where the windsurfers found it.

Not far from her body, the police found the rest of her clothes scattered across the wooded area. They found a blue, purple, and red striped knitted long sleeve sweater and blue big yank knee length denim shorts. But the piece of clothing that most stood out to investigators was the victim's shoes.

They found a pair of size 6 moccasin-style shoes with red stitching, leather fringe down the back, and turquoise-style beadwork. The moccasins resembled something that someone who might be Native American might wear.

The reason why the moccasins were so surprising was that this was Key West, Florida. People in Key West aren't typically walking around in moccasins. It's always sunny and it's always 80 degrees. They're walking around in flip-flops and sandals. So the shoes told the investigators that their victim probably wasn't from Key West.

The body was sent to the Monroe County Medical Examiner's office for an autopsy. She had no ID or anything to identify her. So investigators hoped that an autopsy could reveal her identity and determine a cause of death. They reported the victim as having brown hair and greenish brown eyes. She was believed to be white, but the medical examiner wasn't sure if she could be of different ethnicity.

Based on the autopsy, the examiner thought she might have had a child at one point in her life. She also had ovarian fallopian tube cysts and suffered from salpingitis, inflammation of the fallopian tubes usually caused by a bacterial infection. From the condition of her teeth, the medical examiner believed she was a non-smoker and was well cared for.

He thought she could be anywhere from 16 years old to 25 years old. The victim had a lot of other identifiable characteristics that the police thought might help figure out who this woman was. She wore a Timex watch with a silver band on her right wrist. In her ears, she wore six non-matching earrings.

Two earrings were in her left ear, one silver ball and one white imitation pearl. In her right ear, she wore four non-matching earrings. Besides the distinct jewelry, she also had tattoos. Tattoos are an excellent way for investigators to identify John and Jane Doe's. They're unique to the person and can be shown to family members to identify them.

She had the word love tattooed on her left shoulder inside of a heart, and she also had a cross tattoo on the skin between her index finger and thumb finger on her left hand. One more aspect of her physical appearance stood out to investigators, and that was the tone of her skin. During the autopsy, they noticed that she didn't have any tan lines.

On the surface, this might not seem like a big deal, but to investigators, this was a big tip. Since she didn't have any tan lines across her body, this confirmed their suspicions that she wasn't from Key West, Florida. The moccasin shoes and the lack of tan lines don't scream out Key West.

People living or spending a significant amount of time in southern Florida all have tan lines because they spend a lot of time in the sun. But this woman didn't have any, which was a red flag to investigators. The woman killed wasn't from Key West. The autopsy revealed that her cause of death was strangulation and the manner of death was a homicide.

The pathologist noted in his report that she'd been sexually assaulted and beaten before being strangled to death. He believed that the bathing suit top found wrapped around her neck was the weapon used to strangle her. Her body also showed defensive wounds, which suggested to investigators that she tried to fight back from her attacker.

Investigators searched missing person databases to see if anyone matched their victim's physical description, but they couldn't find anyone matching this woman. Because of the moccasins they found at the crime scene, they wondered if she might be Native American.

So investigators reached out to local Native American tribes throughout southern Florida to see if they could identify her. But all their efforts turned up empty-handed. No one from the local Native American tribes had reported anyone matching her description missing.

Although the windsurfers discovered her body on February 15th, investigators believed she was killed the day before on Valentine's Day, February 14th. This theory was supported by what some witnesses told the police they saw that evening. Without identification, the police began referring to the case as Valentine Jane Doe.

Several witnesses reported seeing a young woman hitchhiking along U.S. Highway 1 on February 14th. The first witness said she saw the woman northbound on Highway 1 near mile marker 10 on Big Copet Key. Another witness said she saw the woman farther down the highway at mile marker 15.

By these witnesses' accounts, she was last seen heading north near mile marker 17 at around 6.30 p.m. on the 14th, a spot nearly 20 miles from where her body was found. After the last sighting around 6.30 p.m., the hitchhiker was never seen again.

Besides seeing the female hitchhiker, two more witnesses from the Horseshoe area told Monroe County investigators that they saw a suspicious truck driving along Highway 1 around the same time the woman was hitchhiking. Both witnesses provided the police with two independent descriptions of the suspicious truck. They described an older model white pickup truck with a camper shell.

One witness said they saw the white pickup truck on February 14th. The other witness said that they saw the same truck in the area two or three days before. Both witnesses said that the older model white pickup truck driver was driving suspiciously and that he didn't seem to know where he was going. According to them, it was almost as if they were driving around aimlessly.

The police put out a bulletin for the public's help in identifying the driver of the white pickup truck. But in the days following, no one came forward and the police weren't able to find the driver. Investigators fingerprinted Valentine Jane Doe to see if her fingerprints could generate an identification. When the fingerprints were submitted to CODIS, our national database, they didn't get a hit.

Investigators also submitted her fingerprints to several missing person databases in Florida and across the country, all of which came back without a match. Even when they combed through the missing person databases looking for any record of a girl who looked like her, they got nothing. There weren't any missing person reports of a young female matching her description. Whoever this Jane Doe was, nobody reported her missing.

Throughout the investigation, the police received countless tips from the public. They sat down and interviewed the windsurfers who discovered her body, but they were ultimately ruled out. Next, they canvassed the area where the body was found to see if anyone heard or saw anything suspicious on February 14th.

But the police didn't find anyone besides the witnesses who saw a young woman hitchhiking, and they weren't even sure if that hitchhiker was their Valentine Jane Doe. Investigators searched the crime scene for evidence. Next to Valentine Jane Doe's body, crime scene investigators found blood and drag marks on a nearby dirt road.

The blood and drag marks suggested that she had likely been killed somewhere else, and then whoever killed her dragged her body and dumped her where the windsurfers found her. But unfortunately, authorities didn't find solid evidence at the scene besides blood and drag marks, not any evidence that could identify her or any evidence left behind by her killer.

In the early 1990s, criminal investigations were very different than how they are today. Back then, the police relied on blood typing, finding fingerprints, and just good old-fashioned detective work. They couldn't always rely on forensic testing. Instead, they had to walk the streets to try and find potential witnesses.

At this particular crime scene, they didn't find much. They found a small amount of blood, but all they could do with it at the time was identify the blood type. They also dusted for fingerprints, but as far as fingerprints go, they had nothing to compare them to.

Valentine Jane Doe's fingerprints didn't match anyone in CODIS or any missing person database. So essentially, the fingerprints were useless. But even if the police could find more promising evidence, they wouldn't have a way to test it. In 1991, police departments didn't have the type of advanced DNA testing we see today.

Throughout the investigation, Florida police officers generated over 4,000 pages of investigative documents about the case. They also received over 600 tips. To generate new leads, they featured Valentine Jane Doe's story on many different TV shows, including the popular shows Unsolved Mysteries and Crime Watch Daily. They also set up a tip line to help bring in new information.

But all of their attempts turned up empty. Police still didn't know who their victim was and how she ended up strangled to death along U.S. Highway 1. Valentine Jane Doe's body was kept in a vault inside a Florida state morgue.

Since she didn't have identification, the police couldn't send her body to her family for a proper burial. It's impossible to have a funeral when the victim doesn't even have a name. And because no one came forward looking for her, the police had no choice but to hold on to the body.

So instead of a funeral where friends and family could come and mourn their loss, her body sat in a vault labeled Valentine Jane Doe. Unfortunately, this is how the case sat for decades. Despite the tips, despite the exposure on television shows, despite the tip line and the fingerprinting, no one could figure out who this woman was.

Throughout the years, over 600 tips and leads were sent in to the police. The fresh tip would come in, police would investigate it the best they could, but nothing turned up. This process happened month after month, year after year, and eventually the case turned cold.

Several years into the investigation, Florida police reached out to a NCMEC forensic artist for help.

NCMEC, or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, is a national reporting center for all issues related to the prevention and recovery from child victimization. This organization fights against child abductions, child abuse, and exploitation.

The police decided to reach out to this organization to see if one of their forensic sketch artists could help generate a facial reconstruction image of what Valentine Jane Doe would have looked like if she had been alive. If they had a sketch of her, they could run it across TV and local media to see if anyone recognized her.

Even if no one reported her missing, someone out there had to know who this person was. Maybe she was someone a person worked with. Maybe she was a neighbor or a friend. Even if only one person recognized her, that could become the tip the police needed.

Based on the autopsy photos, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, their forensic sketch artist, created a sketch of what she might have looked like when she was alive and before her injuries.

They made an image of a young woman, a young girl, I should say, in her late teens with short brown hair. They gave her the same greenish brown eyes she had at the time of her autopsy, and they also put her in a similar sweater that she was last seen wearing. They showed her with similar mismatching earrings she wore in both ears to help stand out.

It was the best they could do to circulate an image of what she might have looked like before being murdered. The sketch was circulated everywhere. Police posted the image throughout Key West. They showed it on local and national TV news stations. The National Center of Missing and Exploited Children also showed the image.

Initially, the sketch seemed promising. As soon as it was published, the police received a lot of new tips. They got a lot of people calling in to say that they thought they knew who she was, or she was someone they had seen before. But when the police looked into each of these tips, no one seemed to match.

One specific matter troubled investigators the most throughout the years. No one reported this young woman missing. Somewhere out there, she needed to have parents, family, neighbors, friends. People out there knew who this girl was. But why didn't anyone report her missing?

For years, investigators looked through missing person files. They even utilized all of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children databases to try and figure out who she was. But they kept ending up back exactly where they started. No one reported her missing.

The only facts the police knew for sure was that she was a female, possibly white, maybe not, may or may not have carried a baby to full term. She didn't smoke. She had two unique tattoos and wore Native American style moccasins. The lack of tan lines told them that she probably wasn't from the Key West area.

Plus, the police had already spoken to everyone who lived in Key West, and no one who lived there reported anyone matching her description missing. It was like she appeared in Key West out of nowhere, was killed, and now no one knows who she is or what she was doing hitchhiking along U.S. Highway 1. By 2020, the investigation had come to a complete stop.

Almost three decades had passed, and the real identity behind Valentine Jane Doe was still a mystery. But then Florida police decided to try a new tactic. With all their previous attempts failing, they turned to forensic genetic genealogy. In 2020, word about the power of forensic genetic genealogy was spreading like wildfire.

Police departments across the country were learning about how this new method was finally solving cold cases. Forensic genetic genealogy combines advanced DNA testing with traditional genealogy to help identify missing people and criminal suspects. It works by uploading a DNA profile into a direct-to-consumer or private DNA database.

Once the profile is uploaded, genealogists look for potential matches. A possible match is usually a relative of the person whose DNA they uploaded. When an unknown person leaves DNA at a crime scene, police first upload the DNA to CODIS to look for a match. But not everyone has their DNA profile in CODIS.

If you've never been arrested for a crime before, then chances are your DNA isn't in the national DNA database, at least here in the United States. So once the police don't get a hit through CODIS, they can take the DNA profile and compare it to other DNA profiles in direct-to-consumer DNA databases like Ancestry.com and 23andMe.

Sometimes the police get a direct hit. The unknown DNA profile matches someone who previously submitted their DNA to one of these databases. But other times they don't get a direct hit. Instead, they get a hit on a family member. In other words, the DNA matches a relative of the person they're searching for. Sometimes it can be a close match like a parent or a sibling.

Other times, it's a smaller hit. Maybe they can only identify a distant relative. In that case, the police turn to genealogists. This person can then create a family tree based on the hit and generate a possible suspect list from that family tree. Once the police have a family name, they can narrow the list down by identifying potential suspects.

They do this by looking at things like, was this person alive at the time of the crime? Did they live in the same area? Were they the appropriate age? Too young? Too old?

Once they answer all of those questions from the family tree that they created, they can usually narrow down a suspect list to two, three, maybe four individuals. And sometimes they can even get it down to just one person who usually turns out to be the suspect.

Police in Florida were especially aware of how different police departments across the country were using forensic genetic genealogy to solve their cold cases. So they wondered if this technology could also be used to identify Valentine Jane Doe.

In 2020, Detective Vince Weiner of the Monroe County Major Crime Unit reached out to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to see if forensic genetic genealogy could be used. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement agreed to look into the case and immediately began performing tests. This was a case the state had been wanting to solve for years.

The State Department took Valentine Jane Doe's DNA and sent it to Parabon Nanolabs. Parabon Nanolabs is a Virginia-based private lab specializing in advanced DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy.

Since it opened in 2016, Parabon Nanolabs has helped law enforcement agencies across the country solve many cold cases, and they've been able to identify decades-old John Doe cases. When Parabon Nanolabs received the DNA, they uploaded it to various databases.

Almost instantly, they got a hit on two family members related to the DNA sample. Two relatives of Valentine Jane Doe had submitted their DNA to a family ancestry website. Once they had the family name, their search got smaller until they finally found a name, Wanda Deanne Kirkham.

After nearly three decades of searching for Valentine Jane Doe's true identity, they finally found it. She was identified as 18-year-old Wanda Kirkham. Wanda was born in upstate New York in 1973.

Unfortunately, very little is known about Wanda's childhood. Most details about her life have been provided by a cousin who grew up with Wanda in upstate New York. Wanda's cousin told the police that she was the only cousin who would play with Wanda and spend the night. According to the cousin, Wanda's parents didn't let her get out much or leave the house to play with friends.

Since she wasn't allowed to leave, Wanda spent much time alone inside of her parents' house. She didn't socialize or get much interaction with people other than her parents. According to Wanda's cousin, Wanda decided to run away from her parents' house when she was 16.

But when Wanda left and ran away, her parents never reported her missing to the police. In fact, no one reported her missing. Even after she'd been gone for months at only 16 years old, they never called the police. That's why the police couldn't identify her by missing person reports. Wanda's information was never logged.

According to Wanda's cousin's statements to Monroe County Police, Wanda may have been abused by her parents, and that's why she decided to run away. And maybe that's why they never reported her missing. Her cousin told the police, quote, no one really talked about it back then, and no one ever did anything, end quote. Wanda's cousin was referring to the abuse.

The cousin said, quote, no one in the family knew when she left and no one is sure how she got to Florida. She was 16 and had never been out in the world, end quote. She continued to say, quote, when her mom got sick, there were attempts to locate Wanda. Her dad said she ran off and was living in Mexico, end quote.

The police could never confirm these allegations of abuse or much of anything related to Wanda's childhood. By the time they identified Wanda as Valentine Jane Doe, Wanda's parents were both dead. So the police could never sit down with them to find out more about their daughter, like why she ran away or what motivated her to come to Key West, Florida.

Once Monroe County investigators and Florida state officials identified Wanda, the next step was to identify her killer. Investigators were hopeful that the same DNA testing that identified their Valentine Jane Doe could be used to find the person who killed her. And turns out they were right.

Monroe County detectives and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement submitted unknown DNA collected at the 1991 crime scene in Key West. At the time, the police were only doing blood typing on DNA found at crime scenes. Now, in 2020, that same DNA evidence could be used for forensic genetic genealogy testing.

Investigators uploaded the unknown DNA sample to the same genetic databases they did with Wanda's DNA, and they performed the same process. They uploaded the sample to the databases and then looked for relatives. But instead of getting relatives of the suspect, they got something far better. They got an exact match.

The DNA collected at the 1991 crime scene was a perfect match for Robert Lynn Bradley. But before investigators could celebrate, they needed to ensure they were right.

So Monroe County police officers, alongside Florida state detectives, immediately began trying to track down Robert Lynn Bradley. It had been almost 30 years since Wanda's murder, so they had no idea where he could have gone or ended up since then. Could he still be in Key West? Was he in Florida at the time of the murder?

After an exhaustive search for Bradley, detectives got the answer they dreaded. He wasn't still living in Key West. Robert Lynn Bradley was dead. When detectives finally tracked down Bradley, they discovered he died in 1992, just one year after Wanda's murder.

Bradley was found murdered in a ditch in Toronto County, Texas in 1992. He had been shot twice in the back of the head. Since the police couldn't sit down and interrogate Bradley, they needed to find another way to confirm he was in fact Wanda's killer. Detectives in Florida contacted authorities with a Toronto County Sheriff's Department in Texas.

They needed to find out if they still had any of Bradley's DNA from 1992, and it turned out they did. Since Bradley was a homicide victim himself, his body was sent to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy. During the autopsy, they collected samples of his DNA for testing and analysis.

After it was finished, the medical examiner's office kept and stored a small sample of his DNA. Saving a murder victim's DNA is fairly common in homicide cases. So when Florida detectives contacted the medical examiner's office in Texas to see if they still had any of Bradley's DNA, they did.

It was only a few tissues of DNA, but it was enough to be tested. His DNA was flown from Texas to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's crime lab. At the crime lab, scientists compared DNA obtained from Wanda's crime scene in 1991 to Bradley's DNA from his own crime scene in 1992.

When the results came back, they were a match. The DNA found at Wanda's crime scene in 91 matched Bradley's DNA collected at his own murder scene in Texas one year later, therefore confirming that Robert Lynn Bradley was indeed Wanda Kirkham's killer.

Authorities learned that Robert Lynn Bradley may have temporarily lived in Miami, Florida in late November 1990 and stayed in Florida through 1991. So Bradley was in the area around the time of Wanda's murder. They also conducted a background check on him to see if he'd been linked to other violent crimes in the past.

When they looked into his background, they discovered he had a previous assault case in California. In this case, Bradley was convicted of domestic assault on his girlfriend at the time. So it appears that Wanda's murder wasn't Bradley's only assault against a woman. He had a history of violence.

In June 2020, Monroe County officials announced that Valentine Jane Doe had finally been identified as Wanda Kirkham, and her killer had also been identified as Robert Lynn Bradley. At the press conference, Florida officials announced that no criminal charges would be filed in the case since Bradley was killed a year after murdering Wanda.

The case of Valentine Jane Doe is officially considered closed and solved. But is Wanda's case really closed? Wanda's remains were kept in a vault inside the Monroe County morgue throughout the investigation. After her identification nearly three decades later, her remains were sent to her family back east.

Finally, she could have the proper funeral and burial she deserved back in 1991. For decades, Bradley's name was completely unknown to law enforcement. Finally, her case may be officially closed by Monroe County officials, but is there justice? Because her killer is dead, he will never be criminally held responsible.

and Wanda's surviving family members will never be able to confront him in court. The motive for Wanda's murder will likely never be uncovered. Bradley is dead. Authorities will never get the chance to ask why. Why did he do this? Did he know her? Did he kidnap her? Did he lure her?

For many, like myself, Wanda's murder was likely a crime of opportunity. Sometime after Wanda ran away from her parents' house in upstate New York, she found herself in Florida and eventually ended up in Key West. On February 14, 1991, Bradley saw Wanda hitchhiking by herself along Highway 1 in the Florida Keys.

He may have even driven by her a few times to make sure she was alone. Once he felt confident, he pulled over to the side of the road and offered her a ride. Trusting him, Wanda accepted the ride and got inside Bradley's car. Sometime after they started driving, Bradley assaulted her. After sexually assaulting her, Bradley began beating her.

Wanda started to fight back from the defensive wounds found on her body, but she was ultimately strangled to death with her own bathing suit top. Bradley then dragged her body off the main road and dumped it in the area known as the Horseshoe near Mile Marker 35 on Highway 1. This explains the blood and drag marks the detectives saw at the crime scene.

The next day, February 15th, the windsurfers discovered her body. She was found lying face down in a small pool of blood. She was completely naked except for the bathing suit top still wrapped around her neck. Authorities don't know if Wanda Kirkham was Bradley's only victim. Until now, they haven't been able to link him to any other sexual assault or homicide.

but with the growing use of genetic genealogy, he may be linked to other unsolved murders. Wanda Kirkham's case became the first case in Florida in which an unidentified deceased person was successfully identified through forensic genetic genealogy.

Since the success of Wanda's case, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Genetic Genealogy Program has agreed to take on more unidentified person cases. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's website, each case takes roughly three to four months to solve, and the cases they take on will be limited to homicide victims only.

The department also wants to make sure that local law enforcement does all the DNA testing they can before they submit cases to the department to be tested with genetic genealogy. If there isn't enough DNA remaining in the case to be tested, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's lab has the capabilities to test fresh bone samples.

Wanda Kirkham's case is only the beginning of the power of forensic genetic genealogy. This advanced type of DNA testing can solve the coldest of cold cases and to help identify people who have been left nameless for years, sometimes even decades. By many, genetic genealogy is considered a game changer for law enforcement.

Without genetic genealogy and the technology held by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Parabon Nanolabs, Wanda Kirkham's murder would still be unsolved. And she would still only be known as the Valentine Jane Doe. To share your thoughts on Wanda Kirkham's story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook.

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