This is part two of an ongoing investigation into the identity of Clarion County’s “Penny Doe.” Please see our other articles in the series:

1. For 32 Years, Someone in Clarion County Has Kept a Horrifying Secret
2. New Information Uncovered in Penny Doe Case for the First Time in 30 Years

If you don’t know this about me, looking into unsolved violent crimes is a passion of mine. It’s why I have my YouTube channel. I haven’t been at it long–only a couple of years. But, one thing that that ties each case I look into with all the others is the difficulty I have in digging out new info. In Penny’s case, I ran into some roadblocks pretty early on. But don’t worry, with the help of a few key people, we were able to push through them.

The first person I contacted after speaking with Angie Clinger about Penny Doe was Dan Shingledecker. Dan currently serves as the Clarion County Coroner, a post he’s had since the 2019 death of Coroner Randall Stom.

I reached out to Dan through email, and he was extremely quick to reply. In fact, each time I’ve reached out, he’s continued to respond quickly and thoroughly.

The first thing I asked him for was Penny’s autopsy report. It had never been released publicly. And while the Right to Know law exempts it from public disclosure, it’s at the discretion of those public officials who have a copy. In short, it’s not illegal for them to release it. They just almost never do.

Dan replied that he wasn’t the coroner all the way back in 1990 and that there wasn’t a central records storage back then. But, he said, he knew who the coroner was at that time, so he’d reach out to him. Over the next couple of weeks, Dan would update me on his search for the autopsy report. Eventually, having gone through everything he had access to, he let me know it was a no-go. He suggested I go to the prothonotary’s office to see if they had anything.

Clarion County Prothonotary Office. Photograph was taken by Gavin Fish on August 17, 2022.

The following day, I drove from Franklin up to Clarion and stopped by the county courthouse. I was directed to the prothonotary’s office where I stated my business. I was invited back into the records room where a staff member informed me that, while I was welcome to look through anything, the coroner’s office isn’t required to send their documents in to the prothonotary for storage. Sure enough, after a thorough search I discovered they didn’t have anything on Penny’s case.

The next time I heard from Dan, he told me that back in the ‘90s they, “did a complete facial reconstruction with Dr. Dirkmaat.” Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat is the Chair of the Department of Applied Forensic Sciences at Mercyhurst University. Dan suggested I reach out to him to see if he had anything related to the case. I did, and heard back from him in an email where he told me he probably had something and that he’d have one of his grad students look through his old things.

About a week later, I got an email from him saying that he’d found a report that he did for the Clarion Coroner’s office back in 1991. He attached the report to his email. “We are also still curating the bones,” he told me. “I will have the students review the bones for revised estimates of age, sex, stature.”

When I asked Dr. Dirkmaat if I could come up to witness his students’ review of Penny’s bones, he replied, “Sure. We can schedule that anytime.” He later clarified that I’d need the permission of the Clarion County Coroner.

Penny Doe’s skeleton, curated by Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat at Mercyhurst University. Photograph was taken by Gavin Fish on September 6, 2022.

Dr. Dirkmaat’s report is titled Forensic Anthropological Analysis of the Monroe Township Human Remains, Clarion County, Pennsylvania. It’s dated June 26, 1991. Inside, there are some details about Penny Doe that have never been released. You can read the entire report here.

The first thing we learn from the report is that Dr. Dirkmaat determined in 1991 that Penny was somewhere between 22 and 29 years old. This is different than what has been reported previously. Penny Doe’s listing on NamUS, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, lists her age range as somewhere between 20 and 40. This is likely due to the reporting that was done on the case back in 1990. Sometimes a police officer will tell a reporter an opinion, and it just sticks. So now, for the first time, we can confirm her age range is much narrower.

Penny’s NamUS listing also shows her height to be 4’ 10” tall. Dr. Dirkmaat’s report shows her estimated height to be about 5’ 3”. Again, early estimates of Penny’s height were given to the press, and that has become gospel over time. But, now we know her actual height.

Penny Doe’s skull and jawbone, curated by Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat at Mercyhurst University. Photograph was taken by Gavin Fish on September 6, 2022.

Dr. Dirkmaat also noted a couple of interesting things. First, the inferior portion of Penny’s sternum was slightly deformed. He noted, however, that this may not have been noticeable when she was alive. Second, Penny never suffered a broken bone during her life, except for the broken fibula, which Dr. Dirkmaat noted likely occurred around the time of her death.

With this new information in-hand, I became excited to travel up to Erie to see Penny’s bones, which are still curated by Dr. Dirkmaat. After obtaining permission from Dan Shingledecker, I reached out to him and scheduled a day and time to make the trip: September 6th at 1:30 in the afternoon.

I reached out to Angie and another source I’ve been working with on the case (whose name I’m withholding) and invited them to come with me. Unfortunately, plans fell through as the day approached. So, I made the trip alone, and met up with my editor and a member of Dan Shingledecker’s staff. When we arrived at Dr. Dirkmaat’s office, he was ready for us.

Penny Doe’s remains were found at this location by Angie Clinger and three other children, July 22, 1990. Photograph was taken by Gavin Fish on August 4, 2022.

Dr. Dirkmaat walked us through some of the ways he would have determined the age and stature of the skeleton, pointing out shapes and fusions in Penny’s remains in a way that only a highly-trained and experienced forensic anthropologist could. According to his memory, Penny’s skull and jawbone were sent to Colorado to have molds made. A forensic artist then took a cast from the molds and created a clay bust of what Penny Doe may have looked like. Dr. Dirkmaat then reached into a cardboard box and produced the bust, setting it gently on the table.

He went on to say that a DNA sample had been taken and submitted to the national database.

I came away from my meeting with Dr. Dirkmaat with a sense of enthusiasm. In just a few short weeks, I’d gone from searching microtape images of old newspapers to standing in the spot where Penny was discovered with one of the people who found her, to reading a detailed report about her remains done by a forensic anthropologist, to standing in a classroom at Mercyhurst University inspecting her bones. That’s quite a journey, and I’ve learned so much about the case that’s never been publicly known.

So, where will I go from here?

Penny’s DNA was submitted to the national Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, back in either 1990 or 1991. We learned while we were with Dr. Dirkmaat that another sample was sent in to CODIS in 2012. While it’s terrific news that investigators have taken it that far, there’s still a problem that’s impeding them from figuring out who Penny is. And it’s that fact that CODIS itself is very limited.

The DNA technology that’s used in CODIS requires there to be a direct match in order to find out who the person is. That means that a known sample of Penny Doe’s DNA has to have been submitted to CODIS by somebody who knew her in order for it to work. So, if her parents, for example, reported their daughter as missing and then submitted a hair sample to investigators, investigators would have extracted the DNA from the sample, tested it, and uploaded the results to CODIS. Once investigators in Clarion County uploaded Penny’s DNA results, there would have been a match, and that would have identified her. But so far, no match has ever been made.

This clay mask was created by reconstruction artist Michael Taister in April or May of 1991. Photograph was taken by Gavin Fish on September 6, 2022.

Since the 1990s, there have been huge advancements in DNA technology. One such advancement is known as genetic genealogy. With this technology, there doesn’t have to be a one-to-one match. Instead, Penny’s DNA could be re-tested and uploaded to a database called GEDMatch. GEDMatch complies huge amounts of DNA data which are voluntarily uploaded by people who’ve done genetic testing through services like AncestryDNA and 23andMe. If any relative’s DNA has also been uploaded to GEDMatch, even if that person is more distantly related, genetic genealogists would be able to trace Penny’s DNA to others, effectively triangulating her place in the family tree, which would end in a successful identification.

My next step is to find a lab who can extract Penny’s DNA from a sample from Dr. Dirkmaat’s curated bones, test it using a method that’s compatible with genetic genealogy, and upload the results to GEDMatch. The next time I update you on this case, that’s what I’ll be doing.