On August 14th, 1977, blackberry pickers in Everett, Washington, found the body of a young woman hidden in the brambles off the roadside. She had been shot 7 times with a .22-calibre rifle directly in the head, completely disfiguring her face.
It was found that the woman had been dead for five days, left out in the summer heat, which only furthered her decomposition and the challenge of identifying her. The investigators found that the woman was 5’10”, weighed around 155 pounds and had light reddish-brown hair. She carried no purse, no driver’s license or form of identification.
She wore a pastel tank top with blue, green, and pink stripes, a pair of denim cutoffs and blue and white Mr Sneaker brand tennis shoes in a boy’s size 7. She also had a Timex watch with a yellow face and a leather band on her left wrist. The only property she had on her person was 17 cents, an empty plastic bag and an open pack of Marlboro cigarettes.
On August 13th of the same year, one day before Precious Jane Doe was discovered, David Roth was arrested while the police were on the way to a different call. An officer stopped Roth for a traffic violation on US Route 2. His Chevy Nova was searched after the officer got a whiff of cannabis within. Inside several bags of cannabis were found along with gun clips with 59 rounds, a bundle of peacock feathers and a loaded .22 calibre Marlin rifle. Roth was briefly charged with a weapons-related charge before being released on August 15th.
That same day, Roth confessed to a friend that he had killed a hitchhiker, but either out of fear or disbelief, the friend didn’t tell the police until August 29th. But when the friend reported Roth to the police, they began building a case against Roth.
His arrest came on January 18th, 1979, charged with the murder of the woman known only as Precious Jane Doe. Roth claimed not to know her name or anything that would help identify her. On November 29th, 1979, Roth was sentenced to 29 years for first-degree murder. He would serve the full sentence, getting released in 2005.
Three years after his release, Roth would be approached by a team of cold case investigators to help identify the still unknown woman he had murdered in 1977. He continued to assert he knew nothing about her but expressed regret over her murder and wished he could properly atone for what he did to her family. Roth would die from cancer in 2015, never finding out the identity of his victim.
Initially, it was thought that Jane Doe was between the ages of 25 and 35 due to her frame, and a sketch of what her face may have looked like was released to the public during the first investigation. No leads were generated from the sketch.
The efforts to identify her were started again in 2008 after The Doe Network inquired into the case. Her remains were exhumed to try to gather a DNA sample and do further examinations to see if anything new could be found about her. They managed to find that the estimated age of 25 to 35 was off by possibly two decades, and she was likely between the ages of 16 and 19. This new age range was introduced by the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children. They made an updated composite sketch in 2016.
The University of Texas extracted a partial genetic profile from a femur; four further attempts were made to gain a complete genetic profile. The partial they had didn’t get any hits in the Combined DNA Index System.
A team of 16 genealogists working pro bono managed to identify Precious Jane Doe on June 16th, 2020. She was Elizabeth Ann “Lisa” Roberts. They had used samples of her hair for genetic testing, which led to her biological family, who then led them to Elizabeth’s adoptive family.
Elizabeth Ann Elder was born on November 3rd, 1959, to parents Mary Guignard and Stanley Elder in Hood River, Oregon. She was put up for adoption after her biological parents divorced; she was adopted at age two by Tony and Dolly Roberts of Roseburg, Oregon, taking their last name. Her biological mother would go on to remarry and have two other children, while Tony and Dolly adopted two other daughters.
One of those sisters, Tonya, just ten when her big sister vanished, described her relationship with Elizabeth, “I looked up to Lisa as my big sister, who would spend time with me and play with me downstairs […] we had a really good bond because we were both adopted.”
At age 17 and 8 months, Elizabeth ran away from home in the summer of 1977, following a disagreement with her parents over a confiscated bag of marijuana. It was rumoured that the disagreement was over Elizabeth being adopted, but her father stated that Elizabeth knew she was adopted. Tony reported Elizabeth missing to the Roseburg Police Department on July 25th, 1977.
Several weeks after leaving, Elizabeth called home from a payphone in Everett, Washington, asking for money. When asked if she’d come home, Elizabeth said that she’d think about it. Her parents sent a check to a branch of Seafirst Bank in Everett, but it was never cashed.
Elizabeth was last seen alive on August 9th, 1977; she was thumbing for a ride as she walked south on Bothell-Everett Highway, near Silver Lake. 20-year-old David Roth picked her up in his Chevy Nova as he was driving towards the lake. According to him, they drove to a hidden spot near Mariner High School, shared a beer before Roth propositioned Elizabeth for sex. She refused, saying she only wanted to go home. Roth offered Elizabeth a peacock feather, possibly to distract her, before strangling her with a bungee cord because she refused to sleep with him. When Elizabeth was dead, Roth dragged her to the bushes before shooting her 7 times with his .22 calibre rifle.
Just to repeat before this post ends, Elizabeth’s life was ended brutally because she didn’t want to sleep with a stranger, a stranger who she likely thought would be helping her get closer to home.
That’s all for this case. Thank you for reading!
