A vacant house on the 300 block of 53rd Street in Fairfield sat with an overgrown front yard for weeks, hiding what a nearby resident found there on September 15: the partially skeletalized remains of a woman. More than six weeks later, investigators still don't know who she was, and the Jefferson County Coroner/Medical Examiner's Office is now asking the public for help putting a name to her.
A Discovery In An Overgrown Yard
According to wbrc.com, someone who lived nearby found the human remains in the overgrown front yard of the empty house at around 11:20 a.m. The Fairfield Police Department took the lead on the investigation, and an autopsy was planned both to determine a cause of death and to begin working toward identifying the remains, per the same report. At the time, investigators said they did not know the person's identity or how she had died.
Weeks later, the coroner's office released new detail suggesting just how long the remains may have gone unnoticed. The remains may have been at the house for weeks before being discovered, according to ABC 33/40, which also reported the updated case details as of this week.
Estimated Height, Age, and a Distinctive Detail
Investigators believe the remains likely belonged to a Black woman approximately 5 feet 5 inches tall and between 20 and 65 years old, the station's report notes. The cause of death remains undetermined, and officials have not said whether foul play is suspected.
The detail investigators are leaning on hardest involves old facial trauma. The coroner's office is asking the public to call if they have a missing woman in their family or circle of friends who previously suffered severe facial injuries and had surgical hardware placed in the front and left side of her jaw, per the same account. That kind of hardware is typically installed to stabilize bone after a serious break, and officials are hoping someone recognizes the description from a loved one who went missing.
An image released alongside the appeal does not show the actual remains recovered in Fairfield. The image is not a real photo of the recovered skeletal remains — it shows orthopedic hardware similar to what was found in this case, the report states.
A Pattern Of Unidentified Cases In Jefferson County
This is not the first time the coroner's office has turned to the public for help putting a name to unidentified remains. Back in April, officials sought help identifying a body found in Adamsville that also involved surgically installed hardware, in that case anterior cervical stabilization hardware found in the neck of an adult male, according to al.com. Anyone with information in that earlier case was also directed to call the coroner's office, as wvtm13.com reported at the time.
For the Fairfield case, anyone with information or leads pertaining to the unidentified woman is asked to contact the Jefferson County Coroner/Medical Examiner's Office at 205-930-3603 to speak with a deputy, according to the Jefferson County, Alabama unidentified persons listing. Until someone comes forward, the woman found in that overgrown Fairfield yard remains nameless.
