Independent researcher and author Christie Napurano says new high-tech test could identify nameless teen girl brutally murdered 30-years-ago… and help convict two suspected killers

In the late summer of 1982, the mangled body of a teenage girl, her face bludgeoned beyond recognition, was found in a cemetery in the rural farm town of Blairstown, New Jersey.  Her brutal murder immediately captured the sympathy of the local townspeople, who dubbed the nameless young victim "Princess Doe." The case grabbed national attention and kept millions on the edge of their seats waiting for a resolution that never came. 

Today, thirty years later, Princess Doe remains as nameless and faceless as the day she was found, but investigators are hopeful that two new high-tech DNA tests may at last reveal her identity and that of her killer(s).

Christie Napurano, author of The Untold Story of Princess Doe, is one of the nation's top independent researchers into the Princess Doe murder and one of the only persons outside law enforcement who has been given access to the Princess Doe case files, which include three decades-worth of forensic data including interviews conducted in 1982 by Lt. Eric Kranz, one of the first Blairstown police officers on the scene after the body was discovered.

 "A new Free Form CT Scan of the skull by Smithsonian scientists recently revealed an up-to-date composite of what Princess Doe may have looked like," said Napurano. "In addition, the investigators are awaiting the results of the Isoscapes test, which will reveal where Princess Doe resided during her lifetime, and where she resided just before her death."

Napurano says she hopes her novel, based on the known facts of the case, will help bring attention to this 30-year-old unsolved crime.

 "With enough attention focused on the case, perhaps a witness who knew the suspects or the victim will step forward and provide new information sufficient to obtain a conviction and establish the identity of Princess Doe," says Napurano.

Napurano, along with the case's lead investigator, Detective Lieutenant Stephen Spiers of the Warren County Prosecutor's Office, was a keynote speaker at the July 15th Princess Doe Memorial Service held in Blairstown, NJ, which marked the 30-year-anniversary of the discovery of Princess Doe's body.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christie Leigh Napurano was born in 1982, just weeks before the discovery of Princess Doe's body in Blairstown, NJ's Cedar Ridge Cemetery. While growing up and attending Blairstown Elementary School and North Warren Regional High School, Christie heard the tale of Princess Doe many times and it always haunted her.

Upon reading news articles in 2007 about the 25th anniversary of Princess Doe's death, Christie became fascinated by the fact that after two and a half decades, Princess Doe's identity still had not been discovered. She wondered how it was possible that no one, including family members, had ever claimed this girl or reported her missing; and was incredulous that after all this time, law enforcement was no closer to giving Princess Doe a much-deserved identity.

Christie hopes that the release of her novel, The Untold Story of Princess Doe, which is based on the known facts of the case, will help bring attention, justice and dignity to the girl that was found in the Cedar Ridge Cemetery all those years ago.

When not writing or researching cases of missing women and children, Christie works as a public relations executive in Hawthorne, New Jersey.

She is a 2004 graduate of Syracuse University.