‘Riverhead Jane Doe’ finally named in 1990 cold case
Kyong-Ok Kim, a South Korean native, was among six John and Jane Does whose names were released Thursday by Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney’s Cold Case Task Force. The 32-year-old mother’s body had been found off a Riverhead road nearly four decades ago.
“Every person deserves to be known by their name, and every victim deserves answers and justice,” Suffolk DA Ray Tierney said. “Five decades have passed since the first of these individuals was found deceased, but our commitment to identifying them and pursuing justice has never wavered.”
On March 12, 1990, a Riverhead Town employee operating a street sweeper near woods off Osborne Avenue, south of Horton Road, spotted what he initially thought was a mannequin beside the road.
A closer look revealed the beaten body of a woman who became known as “Riverhead Jane Doe.” The Riverhead News-Review reported at the time that she had brown eyes, black hair and a one-inch scar on her left cheek. She was wearing a black and brown blouse, black sheer tights and a black miniskirt.
According to that report, police said an autopsy revealed “blunt force trauma injuries” to her face and body. Her cause of death remains under investigation, the DA’s office said Thursday.
Police had previously identified Ms. Kim, but her name had not been made public, according to the DA’s office. The release did not say when her identity was established.
Born in South Korea on Nov. 30, 1957, Ms. Kim married, moved to the United States and settled in Michigan in 1978, according to the DA’s office. Later that year, she gave birth to a son. Around 1985, she became estranged from her family and moved to New York. She worked at a grocery store in Manhattan for some time and lived in Woodside, Queens.
“Ms. Kim’s family has been notified and has been cooperative,” Mr. Tierney said at Thursday’s press conference. “They’ve asked for privacy at this time.”
Three other homicide victims were also publicly identified: Ramon Perez y Rivera, previously known as “Raymond Doe” (1976); Sofia Margherita Marrone, known as “Montauk Mary” (1978); and Antoinette Rugg, known as “Heckscher Jane Doe” (1978). Investigators used advanced DNA testing and investigative genetic genealogy to identify those three victims, according to the DA’s office.
The other names released Thursday were Omelios Steward, whose body was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean nine miles south of Fire Island in 1990, and Andreas Kupke, whose body was discovered along the high-tide mark east of Ditch Plains in Montauk in 1999.
Mr. Steward was identified through advances in fingerprint analysis. Mr. Kupke, a German citizen, was identified through an investigation involving U.S. and German authorities and Interpol, according to the release.
The Cold Case Task Force, a partnership between the Suffolk DA’s Cold Case Unit and the Suffolk County Police Department, urges anyone with information regarding any of the six individuals to contact Suffolk Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS. Translation services are available.
