Tracy Sue Walker:1978, Elk Valley, Tennessee

  

   Tracy Sue Walker was born on June 2nd, 1963. She grew up in Lafayette, Indiana. She lived on Eisenhower Court with her mother. Eisenhower Court is a short road off Eisenhower drive on the Northeast side of Lafayette.  It’s very close to I-65. Eisenhower Court lies along an oxbow of Wildcat Creek. Each house would have a view of the creek and a thick woods lies behind the homes. It seems like a really nice place to grow up if you enjoyed playing in the creek and the woods. 

   She was last seen by a friend at the Tippecanoe Mall in Lafayette in 1978. It’s not clear if that last sighting is the actual day she disappeared. 

   In 1985, skeletal remains were found in Elk Valley, Tennessee by someone who was foraging for poke weed. Poke weed was often eaten by people in Appalachia as a way to get vitamins and minerals. People still eat it today. 

   The area where she was found was wooded and remote. The perpetrator went to great lengths to tuck her away where she wouldn’t be easily found. (Unless animals had dragged her remains there earlier from another nearby location.) The road through and climbing out of  Elk Valley, TN 297, has a few areas where a body could be thrown from the roadway down into a steep wooded embankment. 

Perhaps that is what happened here. 

   It’s not easy to determine exactly where the body was found from the available information.  The killer could have stopped on the Interstate and thrown her off the very steep slope there. I-75 overlooks Elk Valley. That’s a dangerous place to stop.  There’s not a lot of shoulder there. But, if it was very late at night and there was little to no traffic; it could have been done.

   It was estimated that the remains had been there from 9-15 years. For decades her remains were unidentified. She was named Elk Valley Jane Doe and nicknamed “Baby Girl” by investigators and others interested in her case. That is almost a 6 hour drive from Lafayette, Indiana. 

   Her cause of death could not be determined. Too much flesh was gone and many bones were missing; possibly carried away by animals.

  Among the skeletal remains was a skull. It was used to create a recreation of the facial features in hopes that the family might see that recreation and recognize their loved one. 

  

  A DNA profile was created but still she went unidentified until Othram labs used genetic genealogy techniques to find a close relative in Lafayette, Indiana. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation then made contact with that relative who confirmed that in 1978, Tracy Walker had disappeared. 

  What month was Tracy last seen in Lafayette? If it was in January, in the weeks before the 24th…then I can suggest a suspect. 

   On January 24th, 1978, Jeffrey Lynn Hand abducted a woman from a shopping center in nearby Kokomo. She managed to escape and Hand died in a shootout with police. Had he been trolling the mall in Lafayette for victims earlier in January?  If Tracy Sue Walker was last seen at the mall after January 24th, then we can definitely rule Hand out. I have never found evidence of Jeffrey Lynn Hand traveling outside of Indiana. 

   This perpetrator seems like he might have been a trucker based on the distance and the potential route. He could have been traveling from the Chicago/Gary area south through Lafayette, Indiana. He seems to have made his way south on I-65, and then onto I-75 towards Knoxville. 

   He could have turned off at Jellico, Tennessee (North of Knoxville) and traveled along TN-297 through Elk Valley where he dumped Tracy’s body near an old strip mine. (As a trucker, he may have been familiar with the mine from loads he had picked up or equipment he had delivered there.) He could have easily stayed on TN-297 traveling south and got back on I-75 after the community of Pioneer, Tennessee.

   

   This perpetrator may be Harry Edward Greenwell of Iowa. He has recently been linked to three murders along I-65. Two of those murders occurred on the same night in March of 1989. Margaret Mary Gill and Jeanne Gilbert both died from gunshot wounds. He also killed a woman in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, named Vicki Heath.  But those murders occurred in 1989.  He may have had a different modus operandi in 1978. All three of those murders were linked to Greenwell after his death through DNA. 

   Tracy Sue Walker’s remains were cremated after her identification. There were a few items found near the body which may have belonged to Tracy including a pair of size 5 shoes. Can a DNA profile of her killer be developed from any of that evidence?  

   

   Tracy Sue Walker’s murder is still unsolved. She deserves Justice. She has family members and friends that deserve answers. 

   If you have information that can aid investigators please contact the T.B.I. at 1 (800) TBI-FIND 

That’s    1-800-824-3463

   

Rest In Peace.