The body of a young woman, pulled from the bottom of a motel swimming pool in the sweltering heat of a West Texas summer in 1966, lay unidentified for more than half a century, her name and her story locked away in a grave marked only “Unknown Drowned Girl.” Now, after a decades-long mystery that baffled law enforcement and haunted a small community, she has finally been given her name back: Jolene Hemmy. The identification, made possible by cutting-edge forensic genetic genealogy, has closed a chapter of profound sorrow but has opened a new, urgent investigation into the man who was with her when she died and who vanished without a trace.
The Pecos Police Department confirmed that Jolene Hemmy, a 17-year-old from Salina, Kansas, was the victim found at the bottom of the Roper’s Motel pool on July 5, 1966. Chief Lisa Tarango, who spearheaded the renewed investigation in 2019, described the moment of identification as both a triumph and a heartbreak. “We were able to give her her name back,” Tarango said, her voice heavy with the weight of a case that had gone cold for 55 years.
“But we still don’t know who killed her, or if it was an accident. That part of the story remains unfinished.”
The case began on a Tuesday afternoon when a 15-year-old motel employee named Sandy Moore spotted a couple by the pool. The man, who appeared to be around 30, was drinking a beer. The young woman, who looked to be about 20, was sipping a soda.
They had checked in earlier that day as Mr. and Mrs. Russell Betuyn.
Hours later, a maid rushed into the office screaming that something was wrong. Moore ran to the pool and saw a body at the bottom. She dove in, but could not lift the girl.
Guests eventually pulled the unresponsive young woman from the water. She had a quarter-sized abrasion on her forehead, and burn scars on her knee and ribs, remnants of a childhood accident when her pajamas caught fire.
When police arrived, the young woman was dead. The man, who had been seen with her, was nowhere to be found. He had asked for the motel registration card back, claiming he needed it to identify himself to police.
He then followed the ambulance but never showed up at the hospital. The sheriff issued a BOLO alert, but without a license plate number or a reliable description of his car, the trail went cold. The only clue was the name “Russell Betuyn,” which turned out to be an alias.
The real Russell Betuyn was an active-duty soldier at Camp Lejeune, who had no connection to the case.
The investigation was further hampered by the loss of the original police file. The Reeves County Sheriff’s Department told Corporal Felix Salcedo, who took over the case in 2019, that the file had been destroyed in a fire or flood decades ago. “It was a blow,” Salcedo said.
“We had nothing to start with. No reports, no witness statements, nothing.” The only surviving records were newspaper clippings found at the local museum and a file kept by the Pecos Funeral Home, which included Polaroid photos of the victim and a copy of her death certificate.
The death was ruled an accidental drowning, and the sheriff at the time told the media that the man’s only crime was skipping out on his motel bill.
The young woman’s body was buried in a pauper’s grave at Fairview Cemetery, paid for by a trust fund established by a couple from Odessa who had mistakenly believed she was their daughter. The community rallied around her, donating a dress, a casket, and flowers. More than 1,500 people came to view her body at the funeral home, hoping she might be their missing child.
She was given a headstone that read “Unknown Drowned Girl 1966.” For decades, locals called her Pecos Jane Doe, or simply Pecos Jane. Sandy Moore, the teenager who found her, left flowers on her grave every time she returned to town.
The case might have remained cold forever if not for a mysterious email sent in 2014 to Todd Matthews, an employee of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. The email, from a Hotmail address registered in the Netherlands and signed only as “JCJ,” directed Matthews to the 1966 drowning. Matthews entered the information into NamUs, but there were no matches.
No one had reported a missing person who fit the description. The family, it turned out, had been searching for Jolene for years, but they had never connected her to the Pecos drowning.
Jolene’s sister, Joyce Hemmy, now 74, recalled the day her sister vanished. “She never came home,” Joyce said, her voice trembling. “Me and my other sister, Carolyn, we looked everywhere.
We put up signs. We went to her job. They said she was supposed to get paid, but she never picked up her check.”
The family reported her missing, but police were dismissive, suggesting the couple had run off together. Then a postcard arrived, postmarked Las Vegas, dated July 3, 1966. It read, “See you in a couple of weeks, baby,” and was signed “Joe.”
Joyce never believed it was her sister’s handwriting. “She always went by Jolene,” Joyce said. “Not Jolene.
And she was scared of water. She never wanted to go swimming. I think that guy killed her.”
The postcard, along with the name “Joe Lean” written in ballpoint pen on the sole of Jolene’s foot, became key pieces of evidence. Investigators now believe the man may have been using the alias “Russell Betuyn” and that his real name might have been Joe. The writing on her foot could have been a portmanteau of their names, like “Brangelina,” but that remains speculation.
The man’s identity is still unknown, and the case remains open as a possible homicide.
In 2019, Chief Tarango and Corporal Salcedo decided to exhume Jolene’s body to extract DNA. The exhumation took place on August 27, 2019, with an excavator digging six feet down to reach the wooden coffin. “It was an unforgettable experience,” Salcedo said.
“I learned so much. But it was also emotional. This was someone’s child, and she had been alone for so long.”
The skeletal remains were sent to the University of North Texas for DNA testing, but the process was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Eventually, a DNA profile was built using STR testing, but there was no match in CODIS, the national DNA database.
The breakthrough came when Astrium, a forensic DNA company, offered to help. Using forensic genetic genealogy, they built a DNA profile with hundreds of thousands of markers, far more than the 20 used in traditional CODIS testing. The profile was uploaded to genealogical databases consented for law enforcement use, and it led to a family in Kansas with 15 children.
Jolene was one of them. In late 2020, a cold case investigator knocked on Joyce Hemmy’s door in St. Petersburg, Florida.
“I didn’t believe him at first,” Joyce said. “But he took a swab of my mouth, and two weeks later, we had a 100% match.”
Chief Tarango and Corporal Salcedo traveled to Kansas in January 2021 to deliver the news to the Hemmy family in person. “There’s never the right words to say your family member has passed,” Tarango said. “But we wanted to give her her name back.”
The family was overwhelmed with emotion. Jolene’s mother, Alberta, had died in 2000, but her surviving daughters said she had talked about Jolene on her deathbed. “She said she saw Jolene in heaven,” Joyce recalled.
“She knew she was with her.”
Jolene’s remains were exhumed again and sent to Kansas, where she was reburied next to her parents. A new headstone was placed, this one bearing her real name: Jolene Hemmy. The community of Pecos, which had adopted her as their own, held a memorial service.
“It was hard to let her go,” said Pablo Carrasco, the funeral assistant who had helped bury her in 1966. “She had become part of this community. But we knew she was finally going home.”
The investigation into the man who was with Jolene continues. Chief Tarango and Corporal Salcedo are determined to find him, even after all these years. “We feel like we’re a little bit shattered because we can’t provide the ending on this,” Tarango said.
“But we’re not giving up. We owe it to Jolene and her family.” The man, who was driving a dark-colored vehicle with Kansas license plates, was stopped by police shortly after the drowning but was released because they didn’t think he was a suspect.
“That was a missed opportunity,” Salcedo said. “But we’re using every tool we have now. Technology has changed everything.”
The case has become a symbol of the power of forensic genetic genealogy to solve cold cases. Dr. Kristen Mittelman, Chief Development Officer at Astrium, emphasized the importance of funding for this technology.
“There are still tens of thousands of unidentified people in this country,” she said. “We have the tools to give them their names back. We just need the resources.”
Chief Tarango echoed that sentiment. “Without this technology, Jolene would have been buried as an unknown forever,” she said. “Now her family knows where she is.
That’s the most important thing.”
For Joyce Hemmy, the closure is bittersweet. “I’m sad she’s gone,” she said. “But I’m thankful for Chief Tarango and Corporal Salcedo for opening the case again, for bringing her home.
I know she’s in heaven now, with my mom.” The case remains open, and anyone with information is urged to contact the Pecos Police Department. The search for the man who called himself Russell Betuyn, and who may have been named Joe, continues.
“We will not stop until we have answers,” Tarango said. “Jolene deserves that. Her family deserves that.
And this community deserves that.”
