Unidentified Female, Located in Altamonte Springs, Florida, 1974

[OM1995]

Identity Of `Madame X' Remains Mystery

April 27, 1998|By Rene Stutzman and Jill Duff-Hoppes of The Sentinel Staff
ALTAMONTE SPRINGS — She was no glamour gal. She was overweight, didn't shave her legs and wore polyester pants with an elastic waistband.
Still, somebody loved her. A diamond wedding ring was found near her body, and pathologists think she had one or two children.
It has been 24 years since the body of ``Madame X,'' as she was dubbed by authorities, was discovered in dense brush behind the Interstate Mall at State Road 436 and Interstate 4.





Her killer, serial murderer Gerald Stano, died in Florida's electric chair last month for another slaying - one of 41 to which he confessed.
Still, no one has come forward to identify Madame X. Stano, a pudgy, bespectacled computer programmer who had trouble holding a job, told police he killed her because she refused to have sex with him.
``It bothers me that the victim could possibly spend eternity as an anonymous, unknown victim,'' said Steve Brady, one of the prosecutors who won Stano's conviction in the Madame X case.
``Someone out there has no idea what happened to his wife,'' said Brady, now an attorney for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Altamonte Springs Deputy Police Chief Michael Deal plans to ask the CBS television show Unsolved Mysteries to air a segment on Madame X.
Deal and Cliff Chellew, the police detective who took Stano's 1982 confession in the case, think getting national exposure is the only way they will ever learn her identity.
Her body was found Nov. 24, 1974, by a man riding a dirt bike in the woods behind the mall. All that was left of her upper body was a set of bones. An expert at the Smithsonian Institution said she had been dead about a month.
Eight years later, Stano confessed to stabbing her with a 4-inch hunting knife.
He said he pulled off I-4, saw her standing beside S.R. 436 - perhaps hitchhiking or waiting for a bus - and picked her up. When he asked her for sex, she told him he was too fat. That made him angry, he told police.
He said he forced her out of the car, nudging her through about 40 feet of brush at knifepoint. He stabbed her four to six times in the chest, he said. She tried to shield her face and might have screamed, Stano said, but she didn't fight back.
Stano left her there and drove home to Ormond Beach.
He said he never asked her name, and authorities were never able to find her purse. Stano said he threw it - presumably with her identification inside - out the car window as he drove home.
Stano described the victim as a ``young lady'' of 32 to 39 with a medium build and shoulder-length auburn or brown hair.
``Stano didn't have a lot of information,'' said Circuit Judge John Dean Moxley Jr., who also prosecuted the case. ``She was just another victim.''
Two medical examiners and an expert with the Smithsonian examined her remains and clothing. They concluded she was a big-chested, big-hipped woman, probably about 40 or older, weighing 140 to 160 pounds. She was probably 5 feet to 5 feet 3 inches tall. She had light hair that had recently been dyed brown.



She had given birth to one or two children and showed no signs of ever having had surgery. She also had bad teeth - 16 were missing. Of the 16 that remained, four had cavities, one was abscessed and another was impacted.
Also, one of her front teeth had been worn into a crescent shape, something common to seamstresses or others who bite off thread or wool.
For a time, her wedding and engagement rings appeared to be the best clue to her identity. Authorities traced the ring set through its manufacturer. Only a small number had been sold through retailers in California and Arizona.
However, that lead fizzled, just like the two dozen others that Chellew and others chased down.

``I checked everything,'' said Chellew, who is now retired.
He suspected that Madame X had just arrived in Florida from the West Coast looking for work. She was so new to the area, he theorized, she had no friends here to miss her.
Stano was a 23-year-old hotel clerk and in the early stages of his killing spree when he stabbed Madame X.
Most of his victims were hitchhikers or prostitutes.
``It seems to me,'' Brady said of Madame X, ``she was an innocent married woman who unfortunately got caught up in a bad situation.''






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[OM1995]

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...1301%2C4186825



I hope this works........I'm very frustrated and computer challanged.

OM

[Starless]

Has she been proven not to be Margaret and is she still unidentified ?? Very interesting OM !!!

[OM1995]

Nothing ruled out. I just got off of the phone with Det.Kendrick.... we shall see.......

[papillon]

With the state of the dental remains and the finding of the wedding ring do you think this could be Margaret?I thought Margaret had perfect teeth and her rings were found on the kitchen sink?

[OM1995]

Hi Pap,

No, but with the errors and time lapse, it was a possibility. The claymation looks just like her mom and her.

Dusty Kendrick called me with a "not her".

OM

[Starless]

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...ld+stano&hl=en

[Starless]

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...ld+stano&hl=en