Courtesy 314 Bird Studios
The St. Louis Jane Doe was discovered at 5635 Clemens Avenue, a vacant apartment building about a mile north of the Delmar Loop.
Edrar ‘Bird’ Sosa vividly remembers the day he first heard about the headless child who would go on to become the city’s most notorious cold case.
But it wasn’t cold yet. It was 1983, and Sosa was only about 10 years old, growing up in north St. Louis not too far from the house where the child’s mutilated body had been found.
“My mom told me, ‘You have to be in before it gets dark because they’re cutting little kids’ heads off now,’” he says. “That stuck with me … I didn’t understand it.”
The girl’s remains still have not been identified, something that for many is as shocking as the crime itself.
Sosa’s mother took him, as so many parents did in those days, to the mall to get fingerprinted and have his blood type taken. But that wasn’t the end of it for the two. Over the years, they’d talk new developments and wonder who Jane Doe really was.
Courtesy 314 Bird Studios
Edrar ‘Bird’ Sosa recalls his mother telling him to come in before dark “because they’re cutting little kids’ heads off now” when he was about 10.
But Sosa wasn’t satisfied with talk. This month, he is releasing Our Precious Hope Revisited: St. Louis’ Little Jane Doe, a documentary about the case from his production company 314 Bird Studios. That documentary will be available to stream on Amazon Prime later this month and has been accepted into film festivals, including the Jackson Film Festival and the Chicago Indie Film Awards. In it, Sosa has not only covered old ground but also clarified misconceptions and applied new advances in criminology, such as forensic genealogy, to try and discover the victim’s identity.
The St. Louis Jane Doe cold case has fascinated and horrified St. Louisans for the last almost-40 years. It starts in February 1983 in the basement of 5635 Clemens Avenue, a then-vacant apartment building in northwest St. Louis about a mile north of the Delmar Loop. Two men entered with the intent of finding a metal pipe that they said they intended to use to repair a car.
Courtesy 314 Bird Studios
The young girl was found wearing only a bloody, yellow sweater.
But instead, they discovered the headless body of a young Black girl. She wore only a yellow sweater and had her hands bound behind her back. Police searched for her head and cross-referenced missing-persons reports to no avail. They couldn’t discover her identity, and eventually, the case went cold.
In 2004, the Riverfront Times published a feature, “The Case That Haunts,” on the Jane Doe, who has also garnered nicknames such as Hope, Precious Hope and the Little Jane Doe. Sosa says that the piece helped renew his interest in the case almost 20 years ago. Still, the documentary might not have come to be. In 2016, his mother passed away, and he told himself he should follow through and finally make it. Then, in March of 2021, he got a bad case of COVID-19.
“I told myself if I live, I was going to make this documentary,” Sosa says. “I got out [of the hospital] after about six weeks. I sold my Mercedes, bought all the equipment for it and said I’m going to make it.”
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