Steven Spielberg’s iconic shark movie, Jaws, could be the key to cracking the cold case of a woman whose decapitated body was found over 40 years ago.
Investigators have been boggled by the mystery of a female body, dubbed The Lady in the Dunes, which washed up near Race Point Beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in July 1974.
However, a new theory puts forward the suggestion that the woman in question appeared in Spielberg’s pioneering first installment of Jaws, which hit cinemas a year later.
Discovered by a young girl walking her beagle, the woman’s naked body was lying face down on a green towel and her head was almost decapitated. A blue bandana was placed underneath her head and a pair of blue Wrangler jeans were folded next to her body like a pillow.
Pines of needles were found at the end of each arm and it is thought her hands had been severed to prevent identification.
The mystery woman was thought to be in her mid-to-late twenties, had reddish-brown hair worn in a ponytail and weighed between 140 and 150 lbs. Investigators found that the lady had dental work done costing an estimated $10,000 (£7,831).
Warren Tobias, a retired acting police chief in Provincetown who was assigned to the case, told People: ‘She was definitely posed there [on the beach]. She was lying out on a beach towel as if she was sunbathing.’
Despite technological advancements regarding DNA, the woman’s identity and killer remain unknown.
However, author Joe Hill, who happens to be Spielberg’s son, has brought the case to attention again with a new theory.
Hill theorises that the mystery woman may have appeared as an extra in the original Jaws movie, which was filmed in the waters around Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
At around the 54 minutes and 2 seconds mark, a woman wearing a blue bandana is seen and reportedly bares a ‘startling resemblance’ to a sketch composite of the woman.
Musing on his theory, Hill told the Washington Post in an interview this week: ‘My thing is writing ghost stories. I can’t tell if this is my imagination just doing the thing that it always does or if there’s actually something there.’
Tobias added of his idea: ‘Do I think it is her? I don’t know. Is there a resemblance? Yeah, I think some, but it was the ’70s. I mean hundreds of thousands of young women dressed that way — blue jeans and bandanas, with their hair down. Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? Probably not. Just the mathematical odds.’
Although Hill may be questioning himself, an FBI agent recently told him several years ago: ‘You know, it might be worth going forward with your theory. There might be something in it. Odder ideas have cracked colder cases.’
A convicted murderer in Maryland confessed to the crime about 20 years ago but the police didn’t believe him as his story didn’t add up.
It’s unlikely that the Jaws extra will be easily tracked down as studios rarely kept in-depth records in the seventies. The movie’s casting director has also passed away.
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