Jeanne Geneva Overstreet, a nineteen-year-old girl who’d been missing from Tucson, Arizona since 1982, has finally been located. Or, rather, she was located only fourteen months after her disappearance, and it wasn’t until now that they identified her body. Her skeletal remains turned up near a highway in Pima County, Arizona.
The cause of death couldn’t be determined and I suppose the case will be closed now that identification has been established. It’s a shame, because there’s a good chance this poor girl was murdered. At least Jeanne’s family knows what happened now. They had a memorial service for her yesterday.
The Charley Project Blog 
She’s not the only one that it has taken so long for. I just try to look at the positive and say well, at least now the family knows, at least there is a name. I know there may not be a court case or a conviction, but I still think there is some satisfaction in knowing that there has been a death instead of wondering for ages. Colleen Orsborn comes to mind quickly as well in terms of victims found but not ided for a long time. It’s a shame but it seems that every year there are more cold cases cleared.
Jean Marie Stewart was another. She was found a month after her disappearance, in a town like 20 miles away, but the cops never made the connection.
Michael Reapp as well. I realize he was most likely a killer, but if he had been ided sooner, maybe something would have come out of it in terms of his wife and daughter. I don’t know though, if would have said anything while he was alive, but what was it, 13-14 years before he was ided? I always wonder about unclaimed bodies with very strong identification purposes, like major dental work or distictive tattoos. Someone has to know.
Peggy Sue Houser was another. Given her very unusual dentals – she still had baby teeth at age 19, she should have been ID right away. But it took nearly 30 years.
There was a boy in Pennsylvania named Martin Burkle. He was kidnapped from the gas station he worked at and killed and was found after only a couple of days, but he wasn’t id’d for like 20 years.
Hi,
The case that got to me the most was Bambi Lynn Dick, 17. Known for over 25 years as Amarillo Jane Doe.
Bambi vanished from the Quiet Riot and Axe rock concert at the Col Ballroom in Davenport, Iowa on September 29, 1983.
On October 8, 1983 the body of a teenage female was found strangled and dumped in a ditch along U.S. Highway 287 north of Amarillo, Texas. She had only been dead for 24 to 30 hours prior to discovery.
.Investigators had an abundance of information.
Her clothes: Britannica blue jeans, size 5; a white bra; pink panties with Thursday stitched in red; and white cotton socks. Her blouse and shoes were missing and not located with her body.
Her jewelry: Three rings on her fingers: a gold diamond friendship ring; a man’s gold wedding band with tape on back; and a gold ring with a garnet stone and a diamond chip on the side.
Her contacts: She wore blue-tinted contact lenses.
And she had one special physical feature that should have quickly identified her; an extra nipple under right breast.
What she did not have was a name. And as it turned out by the time Amarillo detectives started looking outside of Texas, Bambi no longer had a missing person file.
Bambi’s parents, Edward and Evelyn Dick, reported her missing right away, and just as quickly Davenport police labeled her a runaway. Even though the last people to have seen her told conflicting stories. When Bambi turned 18 on January 4, 1984 the investigators said she is no longer a minor – an closed her case.
Amarillo Jane was not buried in a pauper’s grave. A grave site, casket, clothing, flowers, and headstone were donated by the citizens of Amarillo. A video of the grave side service at Memory Gardens Cemetery was made.
If she was ever identified they wanted her family to know that she got a proper burial, and that although they did not know who she was; they cared.
Article like the one titled, ‘There is so much to know about the girl with no name,’ were periodically published, but no leads were ever developed.
Then in early February 2009, Paul Dick, Bambi’s brother, posted a description of her on the North American Missing Persons Network. On Feb. 13, Teresa Sprague of Victorville, California called the Amarillo Special Crimes Unit. She thought she had a possible match to their Jane Doe.
DNA tests confirmed that Amarillo Jane was in fact Bambi Dick.
When Bambi’s family learned how kind the people of Amarillo had been they decided to let her rest at Memory Gardens Cemetery. But now she has a different headstone, one with her name, her picture and her birth date
Wow….this case has gotten very little press here. I have never heard of this case at all and I was born and raised here.
Hi L,
There really was very little information available.
I found one article, dated April 2010, in the Arizona Daily Star. In it they state that Jeanne’s case was closed. I think that’s a mistake on the part of the reporter, what she should have said was inactive.
Jeanne’s case is just like that of Ima Jean Sanders, 13. Ima vanished from Warner Robins, Georgia on August 1, 1974. Two years later the remains of a young teenage girl were located in some woods outside Macon, Georgia.
In December of last year, 37 years after she vanished, the remains were identified as being those of Ima. She had been murdered by serial killer Paul John Knowles.
For all those years the GBI had Ima’s remains in a evidence locker but they were not publicly listed anywhere and no facial reconstruction had ever been done.
Just like Jeanne’s skeletal remains, Macon Jane’s was not placed at Doe or listed on NamUs. In both cases there was no way for the general public to look and possibly say, “gee I think I know that girl.”
Here is my take and news reports on both cases.
Jeanne Geneva Overstreet, 19.
Ima Jean Sanders, 13.
A letter to my childhood friend Jeanne G. Overstreet, Dear Jeanne I’ve thought of you everyday, remembering being in school, hanging out on the playground, talking about horses and more.
I am so sad this was done to you, you were one in a million, and you will be in my heart forever. I believe that the person who took you from us will get a special kind of hell to be in, in this life and the next.
I found the investigator on your case, who also wrote a book on your story. He thinks he knows who took you but cannot prove it. I don’t understand how the county could have left you right here all these years and never once tried to find out who you were and get you back to your family.
Love always Ms. J!
Kathy F.
Could you tell me the name of the book that was written about Jeanne? I went to high school with her and am honored to have called her a friend.
I never had the pleasure to meet Jeanne but I do have the pleasure of being named after her Jeanne was my aunt and exactly 3 years from the date she disappeared I was born at which point my grandmother said I looked just like her Jeanne thus how I got my name growing up I was told I was just like her a wild child with a free spirit!