Valentine Jane Doe rape and murder solved after 29 years, 'dead killer' identified through new DNA technology
WEST SUMMERLAND KEY, FLORIDA: For the better part of three decades, nobody knew that Wanda Dean Kirkum was dead, partly because she was never reported missing. Hers was a case that had baffled local and federal authorities alike because it seemed implausible that nobody in the country was missing an 18-year-old teenager who had her whole life ahead of her.
Kirkum's brutalized body was found on February 15, 1991, in the Florida Keys. She had been beaten, raped, and then strangled with her own bikini top. But because authorities had no way of identifying her, she became to be known in law enforcement circles and the media as "Valentine Jane Doe."
In a news release obtained by WSBTV, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay shared a few of the details that investigators had to work with to solve her murder.
He said the 18-year-old was last seen hitchhiking out of Key West, Florida, on Valentine's Day 1991. Witnesses had recalled seeing her northbound on U.S. 1 – which is known as the 'Overseas Highway' and is the only route from Miami to Key West – at Mile Marker 10 on Big Coppitt Key, and then again at Mile Marker 15. She was last seen at Mile Marker 17, still hitching, at around 6:30 pm that evening, Ramsay said.
Her bludgeoned and bloodied body was found by windsurfers the next day, at around 8:15 am. The body was lying off a dirt road that leads to an area known to locals as the "Horseshoe" recreation area, which was almost 20 miles from where witnesses had last seen the teen alive.
When investigators arrived at the scene, they found Kirkum face down and naked, wearing nothing save the bikini top that was used to kill her. Her other clothing was nearby and included a Forenza cardigan sweater and black moccasin booties.
The clothing, along with a distinct lack of tan lines, indicated that she was not from around the area. But besides that, there was little to help investigators triangulate which part of the country she was from, especially since Florida was such a popular tourist destination.
She had a heart with the word "love" tattooed on the left shoulder and a tiny cross with sun rays emanating from it inked in the webbing near her left thumb. She also had four piercings on each ear, with the left ear having two non-matching earrings and the right ear having four non-matching earrings.
The most heartbreaking detail, however, was that she had stretch marks on her abdomen that suggested she was a young, likely single mother. In a 2016 report entered into ViCAP, the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, an autopsy had determined she "may have carried a baby to full term" though it did not clarify if she did deliver this child and what may have become of him or her.
Over the following 29 years since her body was found, authorities followed up on countless leads and collected more than 4,000 pages in investigative documentation. The case was also profiled in shows like 'Unsolved Mysteries' but nothing came out of it. That is, until recently.
It was Detective Vince Weiner of the Monroe County Sheriff's Office's Major Crimes Unit (MCU) who, along with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, managed to crack the case wide open with the help of new DNA technology.
They learned that Kirkum was from Hornell, New York and that the reason she was never reported missing was that both her parents had already been dead at the time. They also successfully identified the 18-year-old's "dead killer" as Robert Lynn Bradley after tying the DNA samples he left on her body with the DNA from another scene: that of his murder.
Bradley was reportedly murdered in April 1992 in Tarrant County, Texas, with Tarrant County homicide investigator confirming that he may have been living in Miami around the time Kirkum was killed. It is currently unclear how Bradley was killed. "I would like to personally thank Major Crimes Unit Detective Vince Weiner and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for their efforts in solving this very serious and tragic crime," Ramsay said in a statement. "This case is a testament and shining example of this agency’s commitment to solving crime, no matter how old the case and no matter the challenges."