The Cold Case of the Pierced Woman

Back in 1981, a body was found partially buried in some woods by a deer hunter. The body had been wrapped in what looked like a shower curtain and had decomposed to just a skeleton and what looked to be two gold nipple rings inside the chest cavity and two small gold rings between the thigh bones. The coroner's assumption based upon the locations of the rings relative to the body and their size was that the woman had had pierced nipples and outer labia.

The coroner at the time had determined from examination of the skeleton that the body was that of a Caucasian woman about five feet nine inches tall, probably between twenty and thirty, and had never had children. The coroner wasn't able to determine a cause of death as there was no evidence of any damage to the bones. He filled in the cause of death as "undetermined but possibly murder."

He estimated time of death at somewhere between two and three years. He based that upon the fact that there was no hair on the skull because it had all decomposed. He couldn't be more accurate because the burial site was subject to flooding every spring and the moist soil could have delayed decomposition of the body or sped up decomposition of the hair.

Careful examination of the shower curtain by the crime lab techs had found a few blonde hairs trapped in two folds in the shower curtain. The folds apparently had kept the hairs from becoming moist and that had preserved them. The coroner put the hairs in a sealed test tube and they went into the case file along with his report of the autopsy.

Harry, the detective assigned to the case, searched through the missing persons files for Tennessee and the surrounding states, and found three missing blonde women who matched what little he had of the victim's description. Unfortunately, none of the three were reported to have pierced nipples or pierced labia.

Harry figured he couldn't find a missing woman with body piercings because at that time, body piercings were not common for women. After WWII, ear and nipple piercings became popular in the gay male community, but if a woman got pierced anywhere except for her earlobes, it was likely she was part of the BDSM culture and the BDSM lifestyle was considered to be immoral by most people. Women who lived that lifestyle never told anyone anything about what they did. It was likely only the person who did the piercings, her doctor, and her husband or other partners in the lifestyle knew she was pierced.

Since tattoos fall into the same realm of body modification, Harry did talk to the owners and artists in all the tattoo parlors in the area, but came up with no information other than that they didn't do piercings. They did know how piercings were done though. Piercings weren't technically illegal at the time. It was the equipment used to pierce the body that was the reason they didn't do piercings.

The piercings were done by using a large-bore, extremely sharp, hollow needle without an attached syringe. The large diameter cut a hole in the tissue rather than just opening it, and also was large enough to accept the stem of the jewelry that was to be placed through the hole. The needle was pushed through the body part, the stem of the jewelry was inserted into the end of the needle, and then both the needle and the stem of the jewelry were withdrawn from the body part and the jewelry secured in place.

Since these needles were designed to be used by doctors to drain deep soft tissue absesses, in Tennessee and most other states at that time, they were legally regulated medical equipment and only someone with a medical, veterinary or pharmacist's license could buy them.

Tattoo parlors had to obtain a license in order to operate and were subject to four unannounced inspections per year. No owner of a tattoo shop would risk the inspector finding any needles in his shop or any other indication that piercings had been done there. If that was the case, the tattoo shop would lose its license and it was likely at least the owner would be arrested for illegal possession of medical equipment.

A couple shop owners told Harry that they'd heard rumors of some people in the BDSM and gay communities who had access to needles and did piercings. Harry didn't really believe they didn't know the locations where such piercings were done or who did them, but he didn't have any proof otherwise and no legal way to force them to tell the truth.

Since Harry didn't have a name for the victim, he and the coroner did the best they could. The coroner took tooth and bone samples from the corpse and then sent samples to the TBI lab for DNA analysis and sequencing if possible. He also x-rayed the skull from multiple angles in hope of obtaining a dental match sometime in the future even though he knew that without a name, a dental match was a long shot.

Once the coroner said he'd done everything he could, he held the skelatal remains for a month and then sent them for cremation and subsequent burial.

The FBI DNA lab had been able to sequence the DNA from the samples and had confirmed the victim was female, but had no DNA on file that was a match. That wasn't surprising to Harry because DNA was still in its infancy and very few female DNA profiles were on record.

Harry's last effort on the case was to ask the FBI to send out a nation-wide alert to law enforcement relative to any missing blonde females under the age of thirty who had pierced nipples and labia. When six months of waiting didn't turn up anything, Harry boxed up everything and put the box in the cold case section of the evidence locker. That's where it sat until Harry turned over his cold case files to me, Detective Richard Owens of the Knoxville, Tennessee Police Department.

I work homicide and I've solved my share of cold cases. It isn't that I'm such a great detective. I can hold my own, but the real reason is Rochelle, a writer of crime novels based on real cases. We met when she asked the Mayor of Nashville, the city I was working at the time, if she could help on a cold case. What happened is together, we solved that case, fell in love in the process and I moved to Knoxville to live with her. We've been working on cold cases since and with our two different ways of looking at cases, we've been able to solve some that had been considered unsolvable.

I brought that case file home with me on Friday night and showed it to Rochelle. After she read what little there was to read, she looked up at me and frowned.

"If we had a name, I'd know where to start, but without one, this is going to be almost impossible."

I nodded.

"I didn't think we'd be able to solve it. I just thought it might give you an idea for another novel."

Rochelle looked back at the file, then back at me.

"It does, and maybe if I think about what a killer would do with a young woman with piercings, I'll think of something."

Rochelle closed up the file and then smiled.

"Let's have dinner and then if you're not too busy, could you help me with something?"

I was pretty sure I knew what that something was. It had been six days since we'd made love and when that happens, Rochelle seems to be really in need of some attention. I didn't need any encouragement to give her that attention, but she still tried.

I took a shower after we finished eating, and when I walked out of the bathroom and into our bedroom, Rochelle was lying on her back on the bed and she was pulling on her nipples. When I asked her what she was doing, she looked up and grinned.

"I read that piercing your nipples makes them more sensitive and that piercing your labia causes them to massage your clitoris when you have sex. Do you suppose that's true?"

I chuckled.

"Well, since I don't have either, I wouldn't know."

"You have nipples. They just aren't as big as mine. Aren't they sensitive?"

"No, not really, not like yours are. You think you'd like to be more sensitive in both places?"

Rochelle grinned again.

"That's what I'm trying to find out, but it isn't working. Maybe if you did it..."

Well, Rochelle seemed to be pretty sensitive to me. When I stroked her nipple bed and then her nipple, she caught her breath and then whispered, "That's working a lot better. Keep going."

Well, I did, and it wasn't long before Rochelle spread her thighs wide and then pulled my hand down between them. She was already wet when I slipped in a finger, and when I tried two, she moaned and her body rocked up. I was gently stroking away and enjoying he way Rochelle was responding when she threw her left leg over me and then raised up. She grinned as she felt between us for my cock, and then sighed as she found her entrance and started impaling herself on my rigid cock.

There's not much to tell about what happened after that because it's usually about the same. Rochelle's sigh turned into a little moan every time she went down enough she was sitting on my thighs. After a while, those little moans became deep breaths and I was feeling her passage start to contract about every other stroke she made.

Those deep breaths changed again when Rochelle pushed her right nipple into my face. When I closed my lips around the swollen nub, she gasped and held her breath while she quickly sank down over my length. She stayed there for a few seconds while her passage gripped my cock, and then gasped when she raised back up. That always makes me get there in a hurry, so I helped Rochelle along by rubbing her clit a little.

It was just a few strokes later that Rochelle gasped again and tried to hold her breath, but her body was having nothing to do with that. She got the breath in just before her hips started rocking her passage over my cock. Once that started, she started panting really hard. A second later, she started to fall to the side, so I held her up while the waves of the orgasm made her shake all over.

When she stopped shaking, I let her down until her big breasts were flattened against my chest. She chuckled then.

"I don't think I could take being any more sensitive anywhere. If I was, this would only last a couple minutes."

"Well, it has been a while."

"Yes, I know, and the way I feel, I think this was just a warm-up."

Well, the second time was about the same except that Rochelle didn't really need much of a warm-up. It ended the same way, and after it did, Rochelle kissed me good night and went to sleep.

The next morning, Rochelle was happy as a clam and hummed to herself while she made our bacon and eggs. I was happy too, both because of the sex the night before as well as the fact that Rochelle had only put on her panties and a apron when she dressed. Watching her big breasts sway under her apron while she cooked was pretty arousing.

When I grinned and asked her if she wanted to go back to bed for a while, she smiled but shook her head.

"No, I'm good until tonight and I thought of something when I woke up, something that might help us figure out who the woman is. Well, I thought of two things actually, but the second is so far out I'm not sure it's even possible.

"Harry talked to the owners and artists at all the tattoo studios around but they couldn't tell him anything. I think they knew who was doing piercings then but didn't want to get the person in trouble.

"Now, buying needles is legal and any statute of limitations from then has run out. I'm going to go talk to some of them and see if they'll tell me anything. I'll look up all the local shops this morning and then go talk to them when they open. It'll have to be this afternoon, because the ones I already found don't open up until noon and one doesn't open until two."

I wasn't sure I liked that idea. I knew of some of those tattoo parlors and they weren't in the safest parts of town.

"I think I'd better go with you. I know of a couple of those places and they can be pretty rough on a Saturday night."

Rochelle frowned.

"OK, but you have to stay in the car. I'm going to tell them I'm writing a novel about a tattoo and piercing artist and I want to find out what they do and talk with some of the older artists who started it all. With your haircut and the way you dress, they'll spot you for a cop in a second and I'll never get anywhere."

As it was, we went to ten different shops before Rochelle got a name. At the last shop, she asked the owner if he had anyone who did piercings. He told her to talk to the guy behind a screen as soon as he finished up with the girl he was working on. Rochelle related their conversation to me.

"He asked if I was interested in a piercing and what kind. I told him what I was trying to do and said I'd pay him if he'd just talk to me.

"He said he'd learned how to do piercings from a man who was doing them as far back as the seventies. The man was basically retired now, but he still occasionally did tattoos and piercings at the same tattoo shop. I asked him if he could tell me the man's name and where he lived, and he said he have to call the man first.

"He made the call and explained what I was doing. When he stopped the call, he gave me the man's name and address. His name is Archie James and he lives in an apartment on eighty-second. He's expecting me, so we need to go there now."

Rochelle was in that apartment for an hour and a half, and if she hadn't called me after the first half hour, I'd have been going to the guy's apartment to get her. She did call me though and explained that it was going to take her longer than she'd expected but that Mr. James seemed like a nice guy so she wasn't worried.

Rochelle had a funny smile on her face when she finally walked out of the building. She grinned when she got in my car.

"I found out a lot. Let's go home so I can tell you all of it."

When we walked in the door at home, Rochelle took a notebook out of her purse and then sat down on the couch. She patted the couch beside her.

"This is going to take a while, so come sit down.

"OK, this is what I found out. Archie learned how to do tattoos and piercings in California right after World War II. He was making money, but not enough so he moved to Johnson City in 1970 because he'd heard that there was a growing gay community there. Nipple piercing was popular in the gay communities in California and he thought it would be in Johnson City too.

"What he didn't realize until he got to Johnson City was that he couldn't buy needles to use for piercings because in Tennessee they could only be legally purchased by doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies. He started doing tattoos for a shop in Johnson City while he was looking for a source.

"That source turned out to be a woman who was married to a veterinarian. She had Archie tattoo a rose on her left breast, and when she took off her bra, he saw that her right nipple was pierced. After he'd done her tattoo, Archie asked her where she'd had her nipple pierced and she said she had it done while she and her husband were in California the year before. She also told him she wanted to get her left nipple pierced but it looked like they'd have to go back to California to get that done.

"Archie told her he knew how and had everything he needed except for the needles. He said she smiled then and said if he was willing to pierce her, she'd get him some needles if he'd write down the size he wanted. He said it could take different sizes depending upon the jewelry she wanted. A week later, when she came in to have him look at the new tattoo, she brought him a box of a hundred needles in five different sizes along with the barbell she wanted him to put in. Archie told her he couldn't do it there, but he could do it at her house. She told him to come the next night after the tattoo shop closed.

"The next night, Archie drove to her house and knocked on the door. The woman let him in and then introduced him to her husband. Archie said it was then that he realized why she wanted to be pierced. When she took off her top and bra, her husband pulled on the nipple ring through the woman's right nipple and then grinned and said with both nipples pierced, he'd have better control over her.

"Archie told me he didn't ask the woman anything about what her husband had said, but he figured they were into BDSM because he'd seen the same thing in California. He just told her if she knew of any other women or men who wanted to be pierced to tell them he'd do it at their house. He said after that, he started getting calls about twice a month. The woman and her husband kept him supplied with needles. He decided to move to Knoxville after the law changed because most of the calls he was getting were from Knoxville.

"I asked him if he also did other piercings and he said he did, but up until the 1990's the piercings he did were only in places where they wouldn't show in street clothes. He'd pierced a lot of nipples, a lot of labia, and had done few clit piercings. I asked him if the labia and clit piercings didn't hurt a lot, and he just laughed. He said the labia piercings didn't seem to hurt much, but he'd had several woman have an orgasm when he did their clit piercing.

"I asked him if he remembered how many women he'd pierced and he shook his head and said while most of his piercing business had been from the gay community in Johnson City, there had been too many calls from women over the years to remember. He said once word got around, he was getting calls from Nashville, Chattanooga, and even Memphis. He got so many that he trained a couple other tattoo artists in piercing, one in Nashville and one in Memphis. He said both of them were probably retired by now."

I nodded.

"Well, you did find out a lot about illegal piercing back then, but I don't see how it gets us any closer to a name for the victim."

"Maybe it does. I asked Archie if he'd ever put gold barbells and rings in a woman and he said he had one time for the same woman. The woman was from Nashville and he'd pierced her nipples the first time and both her outer labia the second time. Both times, she had him put in the gold jewelry she'd already bought. He said she told him she'd ordered it from California. He said she told him her name was Sherry and that she'd probably be back, but he'd never heard from her again. If Archie did her piercings, maybe our victim is the same woman."

"It's a pretty iffy maybe. One of the men he taught might have pierced our victim. Did he give you any names for them?"

"Yes, but I looked them up and both have died. Tomorrow, I'm going to look on NamUs to see if I can find a missing woman named Sherry who disappeared in Tennessee between 1978 and 1981."

I knew about NamUs though I'd never had to use it. It's a searchable database with sections for missing persons, unidentified bodies, and bodies identified but unclaimed by anyone, and has records going back from before 1900 to the present. It began in 2007 as the result of collaboration between the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the National Forensic Science Technology Center (NFSTC) and Occupational Research and Assessment (ORA) with the launch of NamUs Unidentified Persons (UP) database. The NamUs Missing Persons (MP) database followed a year later and in 2009, both databases were linked to provide law enforcement with the tools to match people in both databases.

I'd never used it because I normally have a name for my victim, but I had looked at it. It looked like a very useful tool because it assembled all the information about missing persons and unidentified bodies from several other databases. That meant it was also pretty intimidating because of the number of records. That's because on average every year in the US, about six hundred thousand people are reported as missing and about four thousand unidentifiable remains are recovered.

Most of those missing people are found and because of the advances in forensic technology, most of the unidentified remains are identified, but there are still tens of thousands of missing people in the database and almost twenty thousand unidentified remains. Rochelle was going to have to look at a lot of records, and most of those records are incomplete. It's always amazed me that so many people just walk out their door never to be seen again, and nobody knows where they were going, what they were wearing, or even has even one picture of them.