Riverside County Doe was an individual whose remains were found in a desert area in Blythe, California, on May 1, 1983. Convicted murderer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to killing them, but he later recanted. The circumstances of their death remain unknown.
Case[]
The decedent's partial skeletal remains were located above the ground in an open desert area north of Interstate 10 and east of Wiley's Well Road in Blythe, California. An examination of the remains revealed there were no apparent signs of trauma or a determinable cause of death. Pathology tests determined that the remains were 90% likely to have belonged to a young woman. Convicted murderer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to killing a person in the vicinity of the decedent's location in 1983. According to Lucas, the individual was a young woman whom he raped before and after strangling her.
He also claimed her name was "Judy" and that she was possibly from San Antonio, Texas. While in custody, Lucas and his partner, Otis Toole, confessed to killing over a hundred people to the Lucas Task Force, headed by the Texas Rangers. However, investigators eventually determined that Lucas had falsely confessed to most cases. It was later revealed that authorities enabled his behavior by bribing him or letting him read cold case files and confess to them. Lucas would later recant all of the confessions that he had made.
Lucas was convicted of eleven murders from 1960 to 1983 and is suspected of more. He died on March 12, 2001, at the age of 64.