Wilma June Nissen - California/Iowa
Body identified after 27 years
Wilma June Nissen of California was found in a ditch in Lyon County in 1978.
By JENNIFER DUKES LEE
REGISTER CORRESPONDENT
February 17, 2006
Rock Rapids, Ia. - The woman without a face now has a name.
Twenty-seven years after she was found dead and partially clothed in a Lyon County ditch, authorities have identified the woman as 23-year-old Wilma June Nissen from California.
The break in the case came despite the fact that the woman's face had badly decomposed by the time she was found, investigators were able to retrieve only two fingerprints from her body, and most of her closest relatives - including her parents - are now dead.
Lyon County Sheriff Blythe Bloemendaal said the break gives new life to a cold murder case.
Authorities figured out who she was after taking a long shot by resubmitting her prints to the national fingerprinting database. A match came back "100 percent positive," Bloemendaal said.
Investigators say they have new leads to follow in finding a murder suspect, though they wouldn't elaborate.
The announcement, made at a press conference in the Lyon County sheriff's office, showed a tender side of law enforcement officers here. Former Sheriff Craig Vinson, now 87, still visits the woman's grave, marked "unidentified female."
"I'll tell you what, this young lady was never forgotten by this man," said Bloemendaal, gesturing toward Vinson, who attended the press conference. "And she was not forgotten by us."
Nissen's body was found Oct. 4, 1978, in a ditch along a gravel road between Larchwood and Inwood, in far northwest Iowa.
She was only partially dressed, wearing green khaki pants, an inexpensive gold and silver ring, and a pair of white zippered boots.
Her lower jaw and all but two of her teeth were missing when she was discovered. Authorities believe she had been dead for about two months.
The case has remained open while investigators pursued numerous leads during the years, Bloemendaal said. The case most recently landed on the desks of Dan Moser of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and Jerry Birkey, a county sheriff's detective.
Investigators submitted the woman's prints to the federal database in 2000, but found no matches. The prints were submitted again this year and matched Nissen, who had been fingerprinted after being picked up for prostitution in California in the 1970s.
Since then, authorities have pieced together part of her life history.
"She was a very troubled youth, a runaway . . . a young girl living on the street trying to get by," Bloemendaal said.
He said Nissen also went by the name "Boots" Wellington and lived in Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Beach and other California cities. Investigators are trying to determine where she was between 1975 and the time of her death. Her father, Charles Nissen, died in 1986, and her mother, known by many names including June Bradford, died in 2003. Other leads have been difficult to track because many people who knew Nissen are now dead, Bloemendaal said.
"It's quite disheartening to come to this point after 27 years, and not have someone to tell it to," he said.
As far as investigators can tell, no one ever filed a missing-persons report for her.
If no one else cared, former Sheriff Vinson did.
He visited her grave again three days ago. He and Bloemendaal hope the county will pay for a new marker with her name.
"She was just a young girl who needed help," Vinson said.
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