On April 8, 1954, two University of Colorado students hiking above Boulder discovered the nude body of a young woman along the banks of Boulder Creek. It is unknown how long the woman, broken and mangled, lay in the shadows on the Rocky Mountains before she died of exposure.

Her killer was never found, her name never discovered.

When the town of Boulder came together to lay the young woman to rest in Columbia Cemetery, a spray of red gladiolas was nestled near the casket. Written on the card accompanying the flowers was, "To someone's daughter." The community raised enough money to purchase a headstone for the grave: "Jane Doe, April 1954, age about 20 years."

In 1996 Boulder author and historian Silvia Pettem was taking part in the first "Meet the Spirits" reenactment sponsored by the Boulder Historical Society and Historic Boulder, Inc. Pettem heard Jane Doe's story for the first time.

"The grave was marked 'age about 20 years,' which made an impression on me because my own daughters were 19 and 23 at the time," Pettem said. Pettem's book about her search to identify Jane Doe, titled, "Someone's Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe," will be released the first week in October.

After reading a clipping file of newspaper articles from 1954 on Jane's murder, Pettem asked the Boulder County Sheriff's Office to re-open the case. The case was re-opened in 2004 and the grave exhumed. A facial reconstruction was done.

When news of Pettem's search to identify Jane Doe spread she began to hear from family members searching for their lost daughters. Jennifer Kitt, North Platte, contacted Pettem, wondering if Jane Doe might be her great-aunt, Twylia May Embrey, who disappeared from North Platte in 1953.

Tests using DNA from Jane Doe and a member of Twylia's family ruled out the possibility that Kitt's relative had been murdered in Colorado. Pettem and Kitt continued to work together to determine Twylia's fate and identify Jane Doe.

Twylia May Embrey had died in Massachusetts in March 2006; never knowing the family she left behind had been searching for her. Kitt learned the fate of her great-aunt three weeks after she died.

Meanwhile, based on circumstantial evidence and a photo superimposition process comparing photos with Jane Doe's skull, Pettem had begun to think Jane Doe was Katherine Farrand Dyer. Searching through newspaper reports from the time, Pettem learned that a missing persons report had been filed on Dyer 10 days before Jane Doe's body was found.

Police records from the period were incomplete, and investigators were unable to determine whether Dyer was ever found. Pettem and her Internet-connected team of researchers had documented Dyer's life from 1948 until March 1954 when the paper trail stopped.

"During the past few years, the press has appealed to the public to locate a family member of Dyer's," Pettem said.

Diligent research and a little luck led to Dyer's location, a nursing home in Queensland, Australia.

While preparing the move to the nursing home, Dyer's caretaker found an old faded address book and a divorce degree belonging to "Katherine Farrand Dyer." Not recognizing the name, the caretaker did an Internet search that led to www.silviapettem.com and the archived articles from 1954 and recent articles speculating that Dyer may have been the Jane Doe murder victim.

With the information from the address book, Pettem contacted Dyer's brother and sister in Virginia. The family had lost contact with Dyer and had never heard of Boulder Jane Doe.

"Once they got over the shock of learning their family member had been a missing person as well as a suspected victim of a homicide, they were able to fill in some of the gaps," Pettem said.

According to family, Dyer left Denver in 1953 for personal reasons. After leaving Denver, she spent several months in Virginia. Leaving Virginia, Dyer moved to California, Hawaii, then in 1963, Australia, where she married and became an Australian citizen. She had one daughter, now deceased.

"Katherine's story, unusual as it may be, has similarities to Twylia May Embrey," Pettem said. "Finally located three weeks after she died, Twylia too had changed her name and started a new life far from home. The Jane Doe case brought closure to her family and I hope it will do so for Katherine's family as well."

Dyer's sister, now 79, had not seen Katherine since 1955. The women are in the process of re-establishing contact, Pettem said.

The Boulder County Sheriffs Office has declined to release Dyer's birth name or the other aliases she has used.

Discovering Dyer's location hasn't changed Pettem's determination to find Jane Doe's identity.

"Eliminating leads is part of the process," Pettem said. "Now the Sheriff's Office, the forensic experts, my fellow researchers and I can move on and refocus our investigation solely on Jane Doe. We are always looking for new leads.

Right now, the trail is cold.

"My fellow researchers [spread out around the country, connected by the Internet] and I are adding and subtracting to our spreadsheet of missing young women," Pettem said Tuesday. "We will keep doing it until we figure out who Jane Doe is."