Cops Baffled By Severed Head Found With Red Rubber Balls Instead Of Eyes

Since 2014, Pennsylvania investigators have been tasked with uncovering the identity of a head that was found with no body.

According to The Daily Beast, a boy named Charles found the decapitated head on Dec. 12 of that year while walking home from school. Wandering off into a nearby field, the boy came across the frozen head, with hair covered in snow. The head also had eyes that had been replaced with red rubber balls. But what makes this case even more unsettling is the fact that the head was embalmed — believed to have been removed from the body with a saw. Neck tissue was reportedly carefully removed with “surgical precision,” the Beast describes.

Only known to locals as Jane Doe, the head with no body has yet to be identified. In fact, Penn Live reported days after the discovery that authorities were seeking the public’s help in figuring out who it belongs to. Producing a rendered photo of Jane Doe, police have dismissed the idea that the body was removed from a funeral home or grave and that foul play was involved.

However, nearly a year later, Reuters reported that investigators have honed into the red rubber balls for eyes. That detail, authorities believed, is a tell-tale sign that Jane Doe may be involved in a black market that harvests body parts. Even with 30 leads, the body still went unidentified. And even with dental records showing her movement throughout the Northeast, and her hair indicating that she took medications for a heart ailment, the only concrete facts police have provided is that the head belonged to a 50-year-old Caucasian woman. One other thing we do know, though: the woman’s head didn’t make its way to that Pennsylvania field by mistake.

Even years later, The Beast points out that Tamara “Tammy” Porrin is still the most likely match. Porrin went missing from central Pennsylvania way back in 1986. Though she resembled the artist’s rendering of the head, her brother remains skeptical. “I can see a huge likeness of what Tammy would have looked like,” Ernest Porrin Jr. wrote in an email.“But I personally believe she was killed back in 1986.”

Though Ernest claimed he has no qualms with submitting Tamara’s DNA for analysis, police haven’t requested samples — leaving the people of Economy with more questions than answers about this bizarre Jane Doe.

Read more: The Daily Beast, WTAE, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette