For a Jane Doe, Seeking an Identity and Immigration Status

One person was positive the woman was the well-dressed bag lady who used to frequent a Pathmark supermarket near the Woodbridge Center mall. Another remembered serving her cheeseburgers at the local Burger King.

Since November 1994, when she was found wandering a New Jersey mall, a woman’s identity has been a mystery. But Lt. Eduardo Ojeda, shown visiting the woman, hopes an answer is near.

A woman from East Harlem believes that Jane Doe may be a former neighbor, Jenny Peña, above with her son, right.

Nydia Nieves, a 41-year-old laundress from Reading, Pa., was sure it was someone she knew, too — an Ecuadorean immigrant named Jenny Peña, whose disabled son lives on Staten Island. Ms. Nieves drove 70 miles to visit the woman here at Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital, where the sign on the woman’s door says simply J. Doe, and held her hand.

“Inside of me, I feel that it’s her,” Ms. Nieves said afterward.

After 14 years of languishing in anonymity, of not belonging to anybody, the woman may soon be reclaimed, discovered, identified. The calls have been pouring in since the New Jersey Human Services Department circulated her photograph to the news media last month, and Lt. Eduardo Ojeda, who works for the department and is leading the hunt, said he is certain that “somewhere in there there’s going to be a bingo.”

PI FEARS TROUBLE FOR MISSING STUDENT

A private investigator hired by the family of a Hungarian exchange student who dropped out of Oneonta High School in June said the 19-year-old may have been forced into prostitution.
Augustine Papay Jr., a retired New York City homicide detective, was in Oneonta late last week as part of his investigation into the disappearance of Natalia Timar.
"I am aware that she got involved in a bad crowd and may have befriended some criminal elements because she was naive and a trusting-type person," Papay said in a news release to The Daily Star.
"However, I have reason to believe that Ms. Natalia Timar may be an endangered missing person."
Timar, her passport, plane ticket back to Hungary and other belongings were found missing from her host family's home in Oneonta on June 2, according to Tom Overbaugh, vice chairman of the Youth Exchange Program of Rotary District 7170, which includes the Oneonta Rotary Club.
State police launched an investigation but later concluded there was no foul play involved, Overbaugh previously said.
But in Papay's release, the investigator said that although it was initially believed Timar's disappearance was voluntary, there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that she may be held against her will and was forced into prostitution in New York City by people involved in the sex trade.
"She was an ideal poster child for them and I believe that her movements and communications are now being restricted and she is being held against her will," Papay said.
Papay said he shared this evidence with the state police and FBI, but he did not disclose it to The Daily Star.
Timar's family has offered a $1,000 reward for information that leads to her whereabouts, he said.
"Natalia has not contacted her parents in the past three months and the family is devastated ever since they lost contact with her," Papay said. "Her mother is suffering from lung cancer and she hopes that someone will come forward with new information regarding the whereabouts of her youngest daughter."

Cards could help uncover cold case clues

While inmates in jails across New York pass the time by playing card games -- poker, gin rummy and solitaire -- they may also be helping crack cold cases.
The idea is simple: Each of the 52 playing cards contains information about a murder, a missing person or another unsolved crime.
Inmates know information law enforcement agents don't, and as corrections officers can attest, inmates love to talk as long as it's not about their own crimes.
Most of the cases featured on the New York cards deal with missing persons, but some show unsolved murders, some dating back to the 1980s.
Inmates can provide information by calling a hotline. They're not required to provide their names.
"Sooner or later, someone will hear, someone talks, it always happens whether it's two days from now or five years from now."
Even inmates think the cards are a good idea.