Jane Doe no more: Remembering the unsolved murder of Dorothy 'Marie' Garlington

Yahoo

22-05-2025

Editor's Note: In the video above, Susan Rogers of Odessa Crime Stoppers explains how local law enforcement actively reviews cold cases. She addresses the challenges of decades-old investigations and the time involved in processing evidence and DNA with today's technology.
ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ) – On a spring afternoon in 1977, three men were out hunting rattlesnakes in a remote patch of West Texas when they stumbled upon something far more unexpected than a serpent. Among the mesquite bushes, weeds, and caliche, they found a decomposing body, abandoned, beaten, and forgotten in the brush northeast of Odessa.
It would take weeks before authorities could even identify the young woman. But nearly five decades later, we know her name: Dorothy 'Marie' Horton Garlington.
She was just 19 years old.
She was known to many as 'Marie.' She had only been in Odessa about six months and worked as a go-go dancer at the Kon Tiki Lounge off 14th and Grant. The last time anyone reported seeing her alive was around May 4, 1977, walking away from the club. She never made it home.
Dorothy's body was found on May 22, 1977, in a field near Loop 338. 18 days after she was reportedly last seen. She had suffered massive trauma to her head, her jaw shattered, her skull crushed. A blood-covered rock was discovered near the body and is believed to have been the murder weapon. Her cause of death was from blunt force trauma to the head, according to the Medical Examiner's reports.
At the time, law enforcement had no way of knowing who she was. There were no missing person reports, no one waiting at a police station, no frantic phone calls from a family member. Days passed, and her body, which was badly decomposed, was ultimately buried under the name 'Jane Doe' in an Odessa Cemetery.
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According to Ector County Sheriff's records from the time, she was wearing black shorts, one sandal, and costume jewelry rings. A white blouse was found nearby.
From the time she was found (May 22) until July 8, 1977, when deputies found her fingerprints in their files, Dorothy's identity was a mystery.
It was only by chance that a sheriff's investigator decided to sift through fingerprint records at the Odessa Police Department. A minor shoplifting arrest two months prior, Dorothy had stolen a $5 small set of cosmetics, which provided the only fingerprint match…She was finally identified.
'The investigator at the time went over to the Odessa Police Department and was going through some fingerprint files, just seeing if they could find anything, and he just stumbled upon these fingerprints from this case a few weeks earlier,' Rogers said.
Dorothy 'Marie' Garlington was born to Mr. Eston W. Horton and Mrs. Neida Gay Henry, who at the time reportedly lived in Nederland, Texas.
At just 19 years old, she had recently moved to Odessa, where she lived intermittently in local motels and worked in several bars under the name 'Marie.' According to previous reports from that time, she had previously been married and divorced. Though she had few known local connections, she was still someone's daughter, a young woman navigating early adulthood in a new city.
Her life, like so many who at the time came and went in oilfield towns, left behind only fragments: a fingerprint from a petty arrest, a white blouse found near her body, and scattered recollections from those who briefly crossed her path. But behind those pieces was a person. A young girl who never made it home.
According to archived reports, Garlington had been working at several local clubs. Investigators interviewed bar staff and fellow performers, but few remembered her personally. Contemporary coverage reflected a notable lack of empathy. One bar manager, interviewed in 1978, focused more on Garlington's appearance and popularity with customers than on who she was as a person. Few coworkers remembered her beyond her stage name, 'Marie,' or the fact that she could dance. Yet the absence of personal recollection does not diminish the fact that she was a person, a person whose life and death mattered.
Law enforcement interviewed numerous individuals during the initial investigation. 'I know a lot of people were talked to because of the type of work she did,' said Susan Rogers of Crime Stoppers. 'She came across a lot of people… There have been hundreds of hours of investigation on this case.'
Reports had also shown that prior to her death, she had been in a relationship with a man that others described as 'physically abusive' and who had previously threatened her life. But according to those same reports, he had been ruled out as a suspect for unspecified reasons.
When her identity was eventually confirmed weeks later, law enforcement notified her family. According to officials, her parents chose not to have her remains moved. Dorothy Marie Garlington remains buried in Odessa, in the same grave that was originally marked for a Jane Doe.
'She's still buried here in Odessa,' Rogers said. 'Her family decided to leave her where she was.'
The case is now more than four decades old. Despite hundreds of hours of investigative work, no arrests were ever made.
Garlington's death was part of a troubling pattern of unsolved cases in West Texas during the late 1970s and early 1980s. A 1978 Odessa American report listed eight violent deaths that remained unsolved, including another dancer, 26-year-old Eula Mae 'Kay' Rogers Miller, who was found stabbed in her Odessa apartment in July 1970. Her murder, like Garlington's, remains open.
While no known connection exists between the two women, both worked in the city's nightlife scene and were killed under violent, unresolved circumstances. Miller's story will be featured in KMID/KPEJ's July Cold Case Spotlight.
By the late 1970s, law enforcement agencies in the Permian Basin were battling a spike in crime. Overwhelmed departments struggled to keep pace with rapid population growth and an uptick in violent offenses. Sheriff Elton Faught acknowledged the burden, telling reporters in 1978, 'Investigations in cases like this are always continuing…'
And Garlington's case is one of them: still open, still active, and still surrounded by questions her family hopes one day to have answered.
'She's got family that really are still interested,' Rogers said. 'I've talked with her sister, who lives down in Houston… they still have a lot of questions about what happened and why nobody's ever been arrested.'
Garlington's murder was also among the earliest in what would become a deadly pattern. Just a few years later, Odessa would earn national infamy as the city with the highest murder rate in the United States. In March 1982 alone, four people were killed within three weeks, their cases still unsolved more than 40 years later.
To learn more about how the wave of violence escalated, and the victims whose stories remain untold, read KMID/KPEJ's special investigation:
Dorothy Marie Garlington was young. She was far from home. And though her time in Odessa was brief, her life mattered.
More than 40 years have passed since she was found in a quiet field outside town, her name unknown, and her story nearly lost. But today, investigators are still searching for answers. Her case is still active. And her name is no longer forgotten.
Anyone with information about the 1977 murder of Dorothy Marie Garlington is urged to contact Odessa Crime Stoppers at 432-333-TIPS or submit a tip anonymously through the P3 Tips app or on their website. Even the smallest detail could help close a case that's been open for decades and bring justice to a young woman who never got the chance to grow old.
A reward may be available for information that leads to an arrest or resolution in the case.
Gabriella Meza is a Journalist/Digital Reporter with ABC Big 2 News. This story is part of her monthly Cold Case Spotlight series in partnership with Odessa Crime Stoppers. If you or a loved one knows something regarding this case or others and would like to add something to an article, contact her at [e-mail]. (Contact Odessa Crime Stoppers regarding case information.)
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