February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
New York City detectives have been combing the U.S. in recent months in an attempt to identify the skeletal remains of a woman found buried under concrete in the basement of a mostly abandoned apartment building on Manhattan’s West Side.
All indications were that the young woman, who was no more than 21 years old, was murdered. Her remains were found just over a year ago by construction workers who were cleaning out the basement for a next-door restaurant that was expanding its premises. The body had been wrapped in a rug and concealed under a layer of relatively fresh concrete, which itself was hidden behind an old coal-burning furnace.
The building where the possible “PMcG” was buried is at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 46th Street. The neighborhood was once the haunt of the notorious Irish gang the Westies. A bar frequented by Westies members, “The Blue Moon,” was located on the Eighth Avenue side of the building but has long since closed.
The apartment building itself had become a hangout for prostitutes and pimps during the 1980s, but is now mostly bricked up with cinder blocks. Still, a handful of tenants remain in the building, which is dominated on the ground floor by a store selling sexually explicit videos and DVDs.
The store, which was formerly the location of a night club, promises a “DVD Blowout” to customers. An ad for a popular Broadway musical on a nearby gable wall describes the show, “42nd Street,” as a “knockout.” There is no sign that states that the immediate neighborhood was likely the location of a brutal rubout. If it was — if the dead woman was murdered in the building — it was a grim place to die.
And it made for a nasty final resting place that might have been that for many more years were it not for a construction worker’s mallet.
Det. Gerry Gardiner of the Midtown North Detective Squad has been working the “PMcG” case since it came to light, literally.
“The construction guys had removed the turn-of-the-century coal furnace and had come across this fresh concrete platform. They hit it with a hammer and it brook open to reveal a rolled up rug. They jabbed at the rug and a skull rolled out,” Gardiner SAID last week.
And so began an investigation that has combined the latest in forensic technology with the step-by-step slog of traditional detective work.
Once the almost intact skeleton was fully recovered, it was determined that the victim was a young, white female. Her body had been tied with extension cord and pantyhose. Garment fibers recovered in the mat indicated the kind of clothing that a prostitute might wear.
Hair fibers indicated the likelihood of red or reddish hair. But it was the initials on the ring, along with the historical Irishness of the neighborhood, that led Det. Gardiner and fellow investigators to believe that “PMcG” might indicate ownership by someone with an Irish name.
“We sent out a nationwide call to find all the women with those initials who might have been arrested or reported missing,” Gardiner said.
There were over 500 such women.
“We’ve eliminated most of them,” said Gardiner who pointed out that the “PMcG” investigation was not a “cold case” because leads were still being actively followed.
That said, the young woman was hidden from the world for most of two decades.
Just when she died was the first big question mark. A watch recovered on the remains dated to 1966. Then there was a 1969 dime and, very oddly, a plastic toy soldier that could not be exactly dated.
It was a clothing tag with code numbers identifiable under a microscope that ultimately placed the woman’s death at no earlier than 1988.
Given her estimated age, the young woman lived between 1967 and that year.
“With that information we checked out all the women with those initials who lived during those years,” Gardiner said. “We looked for credit histories, purchases, changes of address. We were looking for someone whose life had suddenly stopped in those terms.”
This second line of investigation would result in the near elimination of the 500-plus women on the Midtown North list.
But a possibility is that the first initial might stand for “Peggy,” thus indicating a first name of Margaret. Or it is possible that the ring is a classic “Signet” ring, which would mean that the “G” at the end is in fact a middle initial?
These possibilities form the basis of the next step in Gardiner’s search.
Gardiner said he remained “mystified” as to how a young woman would go missing and have nobody at all looking for her.
One possibility that Gardiner doesn’t want to think about too much is the possibility that the ring might have been planted by the killer.
“Was the killer so sophisticated that he put a ring on the victim’s finger with someone else’s initials?”
Gardiner said it was “reasonable” to assume that the victim had been Irish American. There was even a remote possibility that she had been Irish born.
With 18 years on the job, Gardiner has no problem admitting that this is his toughest case so far. But he is far from giving up on the young woman who met such a horrible end to her young life.
“This is still a fresh case because we’re looking into leads,” he said.
A few hours after discussing the case, Gardiner flew to Washington, D.C., to appear on the Fox television show “America’s Most Wanted.”
The case of “PMcG” was aired on the show last Saturday night, but although there were calls to the studio after the 9 p.m. broadcast, there was nothing that immediately sent Gardiner and his fellow detectives on a new investigative tack.
“We want to hear from anybody who thinks they might know who this woman was,” he said.
The Midtown North Detective Squad number is (212) 767-8415.
In the meantime, the quest for a lost life goes on and the woman who might have been “PMcG,” and is not yet Jane Doe, rests just a little more peacefully in the office of the New York City Medical Examiner.