Police in New York have identified the remains of “Midtown Jane Doe,” found encased in concrete at a former Hell’s Kitchen hotspot two decades ago, thanks to a boost involving DNA from a victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The skeleton was found by construction workers in February 2003 in the basement of a building that housed rock-n-roll club The Scene before it closed in 1969, The New York Post reported.
Investigators found a connection via investigative genealogy with a woman who died on September 11, 2001. That ultimately led to an identification — Midtown Jane Doe was Patricia Kathleen McGlone, a Brooklyn girl who was 17-19 years old when she disappeared.
Detectives said she grew up in Sunset Park, attended Catholic school and then a public high school — but just for eight days before she married a man in his early 30s in the late ’60s and disappeared.
Construction workers found the body when the skull rolled out on the floor while they were working. Further investigation revealed a wristwatch, some children’s toys, and a signet ring bearing the initials PMcG.
Investigators believe McGlone was strangled, bound with electrical wire, wrapped in a carpet, and then cemented into the basement.
“Now we can start the next phase of the investigation — finding the killer,” Detective Ryan Glas of the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad told The Post.
Glas said the DNA led to a 90-year-old woman in Florida, who recalled her sister babysitting cousins in Brooklyn in the 1960s. Now they’re looking into McGlone’s mystery husband.
“We’re still working on getting information on him, trying to verify what his situation was with her,” Glas said. “At this point in the investigation, what I can say is, he does have a connection to where she was found.”
