 |
| "Kitsap Sun," February 18, 1997, via Newspapers.com |
Every suicide is a tragedy, of course. However, among the most poignant ones are where the person remains unidentified. Did they leave behind loved ones who suffered the agony of never knowing what happened to them? Or--possibly even sadder--did this person have no one in the world who cared if they lived or died? The following case could fall into either category.
On October 9, 1996, a neatly-dressed, well-groomed woman took a cab to the posh Hotel Vintage Park in Seattle, Washington. She had phoned earlier in the day to reserve a room. She paid $350 in cash for a two-night stay, and signed the register, “Mary A. Anderson.”
Her stay in Room 214 was eerily quiet. She made no phone calls, ordered nothing from room service. She merely put out a “Do Not Disturb” sign, and made her very private plans. At some point, the woman reapplied her lipstick, tidied her hair, wrote a brief note on hotel stationary, took up a Bible, and in a glass, mixed together Metamucil, water, and cyanide. She drank the liquid down, and lay down on the bed to die. She obviously researched her method of death very carefully. Although cyanide on its own is a very nasty way to go, mixed with Metamucil, potassium cyanide turns into hydrogen cyanide, which ensures an equally quick, but fairly painless end.
When the guest in Room 214 failed to check out by noon on October 11th, the front-desk manager sent the bellman to speak to her. There was no answer to his knock on the door, and a deadbolt prevented him from entering the room. A passkey was used to open the door. When they finally were able to enter the room, they found “Mary Anderson” lying on her back on her bed, with the Bible clasped to her chest, open to the 23rd Psalm. At first glance, she appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but a quick check of her pulse confirmed that she was very dead. The note she had written was on the desk. It read, “To whom it may concern: I have decided to end my life and no one is responsible for my death.” She added, “I have no relatives. You can use my body as you choose.”
At first, police felt they had little to investigate. The room was in perfect order. The dead woman’s expensive clothes were hanging neatly in the closet. Her purse contained $36.78 in cash, but no ID, credit cards, or anything else to identify her. There were no signs of foul play. A remarkable number of people choose to commit suicide in hotel rooms--if you live alone, it’s a way of insuring that your body is quickly found--and this seemed to be just another in that grim list. Sad, but hardly unusual.
Then things began to get weird. The New York address she gave the hotel did not exist. Neither did the phone number. Later analysis of her signature on the hotel register found signs of hesitation which strongly suggested that “Mary Anderson” was a name she made up on the spot. Investigators ran her fingerprints through the FBI’s identification system. They checked missing-person records in the U.S. and Canada. They checked with Interpol. They checked with manufacturers of cyanide. They spread the story to the media, hoping that someone would come forward to identify her. And they wound up with absolutely nothing. In short, the dead woman wanted to ensure that she could not be identified, and she did a damned good job of it.
This unusual suicide gave investigators a few clues into her personality: she was clearly an intelligent and meticulous woman. She appeared to have been prosperous. Her ability to procure cyanide--not something you can just pick up at a local drugstore--and her expertise about mixing it with Metamucil suggested she might have had a background in the mining or chemical industries. Her ability to erase any clues to her identity made some wonder if she had been connected to intelligence services.
The dead woman’s body provided a bit more information about her. She had a copper IUD in her uterus, but the serial number on the device was too worn away to allow it to be traced. At some point, she had cosmetic surgery done on her breasts. She was 5’8” and weighed 240 pounds. She had short auburn hair and brown eyes. Her age was estimated at between 35 and 45. She had never given birth. She had been in good health. Her plucked eyebrows, expensive Estee Lauder makeup, perfect teeth, and manicured nails suggested that she had been in the habit of taking care of herself. Many years later, DNA testing determined that “Mary” likely had genealogical roots in Eastern Iran or Afghanistan, with Persian heritage. Unfortunately, none of this explained who she was, and why she had taken her own life in such a mysterious manner. M. Arly of the King County Medical Examiner’s Office sighed, "She did one of the most thorough jobs of obliterating her ID that I have ever seen in my career. She could have taught the FBI tricks." Arly’s comments highlight the question that has kept this case alive: Why was this woman so determined not to be identified?
To date, all efforts to discover the true name of “Mary Anderson” have continued to hit a brick wall. The county paid $479 for her “Jane Doe” burial in Crown Hill Cemetery, where she rests in the anonymity she so obviously craved. One almost wants to congratulate her for outwitting us all.
