Julia Peterson
Saskatoon StarPhoenix
On the last day of Alice Spence’s life, she put on her fine gold necklace and picked out a belt with a flower decoration to compliment her fashionable silk blouse.
Maybe she spent time with her young daughter Idella, or thought about her family in Michigan and Minnesota — far away from the home she now shared with her husband Charles in Saskatoon.
Maybe, with the new decade of 1920s on the horizon, she was making plans for the future.
Then somebody put her body in a burlap bag, stuffed her in a barrel and threw her down a well.
And for more than a century, that was the end of Alice’s story.
Then, in June 2006, a Saskatoon construction crew was excavating a site at Central Avenue and 108th Street, in the Sutherland neighbourhood, when they rediscovered the old well.
“And the way it was described to me is that a human cranium came out of the well and rolled down the embankment,” recalled forensic anthropologist Ernie Walker, who was immediately called to the scene.
Walker and his team started the slow, careful process of taking the old well apart board-by-board. It was a “difficult retrieval, no question,” Walker recalls: The surrounding site was full of toxic chemicals and contaminated groundwater.
“Unknown to the individual that dropped (her body), a piece of the cribbing of the well had broken loose and blocked the barrel from going all the way down to the bottom.
“Given the conditions I just described, we were careful not to lose any evidence that would drop to the bottom of the well. I’ve got to say, I was a bit concerned that our personnel would drop to the bottom of the well!”
Walker soon realized that the century-old body had been astonishingly well-preserved under the circumstances. Some of Alice’s organs had survived, and DNA samples were extracted from her hair and teeth. Forensic artists put together drawings and 3D sculptures to show what she might have looked like when she was alive.
“We had a really good profile of what she looked like,” Walker said. “And just a few minutes ago, I saw a picture of her daughter, and I am stunned by how close we came.”
The only problem?
Walker said back in 2006, “we had nothing to compare it to.” The DNA and description of “the woman in the well’ didn’t match anybody in the police databases or records of historical missing persons.
“This particular file stands out because so much time has passed: A hundred years, and we really had nothing,” said Walker.
“But I always thought that the victim — Alice Spence, now — wanted to be found and wanted to be identified.”
Using investigative genetic genealogy
Earlier this summer, Saskatoon police sergeant Darren Funk had a breakthrough.
Funk, who joined the Saskatoon police’s historical homicide unit this January, was visiting the Canadian Police College in Ottawa when he heard a presentation about how investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) had been used to help solve a historical homicide case in Toronto.
IGG uses DNA analysis as well as traditional genealogy research to help law enforcement identify suspects, victims or unknown human remains.
In 2018, police famously used IGG to catch the serial rapist and murderer known as the Golden State Killer in California.
Maybe, Funk wondered, “the woman in the well” had living relatives or descendants who had submitted their DNA to companies like Ancestry or 23andMe, and had opted in to let law enforcement analyze their DNA. Toronto police offered to help.
“On July 3rd, the Toronto Police investigative genetic genealogy team received our file,” said Funk. “Eight days later, they identified our Jane Doe as Alice Spence.”
On Monday morning, 19 years to the day since Alice was buried in an unnamed grave in Woodlawn Cemetery, her great-granddaughter Cindy Camp was finally able to close this chapter of her family’s history.
“My grandmother Idella, who was Alice’s daughter, never spoke about her family,” said Camp. “She was orphaned at the age of 17, and like so many who have experienced such loss, she chose not to dwell on the past. For decades, we had no idea of the incredible story that surrounded her mother Alice.
“Learning about Alice’s life and the way that she has been hidden away from history for so long is both surreal and emotional for our side of the family. Knowing what I know now, I wish I could talk to my grandmother even for an hour to hear about her side of the family; her side of the story.”
Camp said she, along with her daughters and granddaughter, are talking to a stonemason about getting a new headstone made for Alice’s grave.
“As we stand here, we feel a deep sense of connection — not only to Alice, but to the generations of women who have come before her. Women whose stories deserve to be known,” Camp said.
“It is truly amazing how something as powerful as genetic genealogy can help long-forgotten mysteries and bring closure to families … and we are so grateful to the many individuals who have worked tirelessly over the years to give “the woman in the well” her name back.
“Thank you for giving Alice back her name.”
