COLD CASE: GILPIN COUNTY 'PYRE KILLING' OF 1952

A carpenter scavenging for wood discovered the scorched remains of a woman beneath a burnt log in Gilpin County on Sept. 30, 1952 - a case dubbed the "Pyre Killing."

She may have died elsewhere.

"Jane Doe 1952" was incinerated on what was described as a gentle slope off Colorado Highway 119 near Black Hawk, then a humble mining village. 

The Rocky Mountain News reported a note found tacked to a cabin door in neighboring Central City said: "I don’t expect to get out of this alive."

Seven decades have passed and the savage slaying has never been solved - and the woman has never been identified.

The scavenging carpenter, Charles Damoth, 31, of Central City, was ruled out as a suspect after a lie detector test in the days following the grisly discovery - as well as an injection of "truth serum" sodium amytal the next year. “He told the truth,” George G. Priest, district attorney for the First Judicial District, said.

Others were ruled out, too - as was dubious evidence "discovered" by morbid members of the public who swarmed the crime scene.

The Gilpin County Sheriff's Office received hundreds of tips and checked leads through the Denver Police Department, FBI and local law enforcement agencies in Colorado and beyond for several years.

A wax death mask was crafted from the woman's skull by Detective Dexter Landau, a Denver police artist, with the assistance of Charles G. Grover, a retired Denver dentist, and a sketch of the wax image was broadcast far and wide.

"Jane Doe 1952" was described as about 5-foor-2, 25 to 30 years of age. Her hair was curly brown hair. A locket and large ring found on the body. “The only things left recognizable were her legs, one breast and her teeth,” Gilpin County Sheriff Kenneth McKenzie said. She may have been Hispanic.

The United Press reported: "A few scraps of material were found nearby, including a piece of cloth dotted with sequins, the sole of one shoe, a necklace, ring and an empty lipstick container."

The log pyre, about eight inches in diameter and seven feet long, was burned "almost completely through," the News said. It had apparently been hauled to the site as there were no trees nearby.

The sheriff said the woman "was killed someplace else and carried up there to be burned or stunned and put under the log and burned to death.”

 [Photo: Colorado Bureau of Investigation]