For almost four decades, investigators knew her only as “Millie Doe.”
In June 1984, the remains of an unidentified woman were discovered in the Spokane River in Washington. She had been brutally dismembered, and several parts of her body were missing. Without a name, family, or clear connection to her past, the case became one of Spokane’s most haunting mysteries.
It would take nearly 39 years before investigators finally learned who she was.
Her name was Ruth Belle Waymire.
Born on April 16, 1960, Ruth had grown up in Spokane. She was eventually identified through modern forensic genetic genealogy, bringing an end to one part of the mystery while leaving another question unanswered:
Who killed Ruth Waymire?
A Troubled Childhood
Ruth grew up in Spokane with her younger sister, Deborah. The sisters were reportedly very close, and Deborah remembered Ruth as someone who often protected her.
Their father worked as a furnace operator while their mother stayed home to raise the family. When Ruth was in high school, her parents divorced. Ruth and Deborah remained with their mother, while their father initially provided financial support.
The family’s circumstances became increasingly difficult after their parents separated. Ruth’s father remarried and eventually stopped supporting his former family. Around the same period, their mother developed cancer and spent considerable time in hospitals.
Their mother died in 1981.
Afterward, both sisters left school. Ruth began living what her family later described as a transient or wandering lifestyle.
She married for the first time, but that marriage ended only a few months later.
Not long afterward, Ruth became involved with Trampas D. L. Vaughn, a man considerably older than her. Despite her sister’s concerns about how quickly the relationship developed, Ruth and Vaughn married in Wenatchee, Washington.
The sisters gradually lost contact.
Neither knew that their separation would become permanent.
A Body in the Spokane River
On June 20, 1984, two young fishermen were near the Spokane River when they noticed something floating in the water.
It was the body of a woman.
The remains were recovered close to Spokane Falls Community College and the T. J. Meenach Bridge. The victim was unclothed and had been dismembered. Her head, hands, and feet were missing.
At that point, investigators had no idea who she was.
She became known as “Millie.”
The medical examination initially suggested that she had died approximately two days before her body was found. That estimate was later reconsidered because the Spokane River was only about 48°F (9°C), a temperature capable of slowing decomposition. Investigators eventually believed she could have been dead for anywhere from several days to several weeks.
The examination also revealed evidence that the woman had suffered sexual assault.
Investigators immediately faced an enormous identification problem. The absence of her head, hands, and feet meant that conventional methods such as dental comparison, fingerprints, and facial identification were unavailable.
The condition of the remains also led detectives to believe that the killer may have known the victim.
One theory was that the extreme effort made to conceal her identity suggested the murderer feared she might otherwise be recognized or connected to him.
The Woman They Called Millie
Although her identity was unknown, investigators documented every detail they could.
She was believed to have been between 25 and 35 years old. She was approximately 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighed around 130 pounds, and had a medium build.
She had distinctive scars on both knees and another scar on her left upper arm. Two moles were visible on the front of her neck.
Investigators also believed she had blonde hair, and some of the physical evidence suggested possible Scandinavian ancestry.
An examination indicated that she had previously given birth.
The wounds used to dismember her body appeared consistent with the use of a heavy cutting tool such as an axe, hatchet, or knife.
Despite the gruesome circumstances, detectives could find no obvious connection between Millie’s murder and other killings occurring in Spokane at the time.
The case also received attention because it occurred in Washington during the period of the infamous Green River murders. However, investigators never established a connection between Millie’s death and serial killer Gary Ridgway.
A Hand That Wasn’t Hers
About a month after the woman’s remains were discovered, another disturbing discovery was made.
A dog in the nearby Rimrock area returned home carrying a decomposed human hand.
Because Millie’s hands were missing, investigators naturally wondered whether the hand belonged to her.
The remains were sent to the FBI in Washington, D.C., for examination and fingerprint testing.
Eventually, genetic testing showed that the hand did not belong to Millie.
There was another frustrating twist: the hand was subsequently lost during the testing process, meaning it could no longer be examined.
The mystery remained.
A Skull Appears 14 Years Later
Then, in April 1998, another discovery changed the case.
A Spokane resident walking her dog near a vacant lot at Seventh and Sherman Street noticed what appeared to be a human skull lying among debris at the bottom of an embankment.
Police secured the area and began excavating.
Other bones were recovered from the property, but investigators eventually determined that they did not belong to the same person.
At first, they did not even know whether the skull belonged to a man or a woman.
The surrounding circumstances nevertheless suggested that the remains could be connected to a homicide.
The property had once been occupied by the Sharon Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. The building had been demolished in 1989 after sitting vacant for years.
By the time the skull was discovered, the lot had become an overgrown place where neighborhood children often played.
Investigators initially considered whether the skull might have come from an old cemetery associated with the former church.
But another possibility soon emerged.
Could this be the missing head of Millie Doe?
The Connection to Millie
In 2000, forensic investigators created a facial reconstruction from the skull and distributed it to law enforcement agencies around the Pacific Northwest.
Medical examiner George Lindholm noticed something important.
Two vertebrae were still attached to the skull. The angle and characteristics of the injuries on those bones appeared to correspond with the wounds on the neck of the unidentified torso discovered in 1984.
The possibility that the two sets of remains belonged to the same woman became increasingly strong.
DNA testing was arranged.
The torso was exhumed from Fairmount Cemetery, where the unidentified victim had been buried.
During this period, Detective Don Geise was responsible for transporting the skull to a forensic anthropologist in western Washington.
His fifth-grade daughter accompanied him.
While the two were staying at a motel during the trip, she reportedly suggested that the unidentified woman should have a name.
She proposed “Millie.”
The name stuck.
From that point forward, investigators commonly referred to the unidentified woman as Millie.
She was no longer simply an unknown set of remains.
She had a name, even though her real identity was still hidden.
Years of Searching
Once investigators had established that the skull belonged to the woman found in 1984, her DNA profile was entered into missing-person and unidentified-person databases.
Investigators continued searching for anyone who might recognize her.
A forensic dentist examined her remains and determined that she had received dental treatment relatively shortly before her death.
In 2004, a woman from New South Wales contacted authorities because she believed Millie might have been her missing daughter. DNA testing ultimately ruled out that possibility.
Two years later, investigators revisited the piece of tape found on Millie’s arm. The tape was submitted to a Washington State Patrol laboratory in the hope that biological material might still be present and could potentially lead investigators to her killer.
In 2007, forensic artist Carrie Stuart Parks produced another facial reconstruction.
The case continued to attract attention, but Millie remained unidentified.
Another possible lead surfaced in 2015 when investigators were told that she might have been a woman who disappeared from Blythe, California, in 1980 after reportedly being seen near Ehrenberg, Arizona.
DNA samples from relatives of that missing woman were submitted.
Again, the identification did not match.
The Breakthrough
Nearly four decades after the body was discovered, modern DNA technology finally provided the breakthrough investigators had been waiting for.
In September 2021, samples from Millie’s remains were sent to Othram, a forensic laboratory specializing in advanced DNA analysis.
Scientists developed a DNA profile from the remains.
Investigative genetic genealogists then used that profile to search for possible relatives.
Their work produced a list of potential family connections.
Spokane investigators followed those leads, gradually narrowing the possibilities until they reached one woman:
Ruth Belle Waymire.
Born on April 16, 1960, Ruth had grown up in Spokane.
Her identity was confirmed in February 2023.
On March 29, 2023, authorities publicly announced that the woman known for decades as Millie Doe had finally been identified.
After nearly 39 years, she had her name back.
A Sister Finally Gets Answers
Ruth’s identification also solved a painful mystery for her younger sister, Deborah.
The sisters had once been extremely close, but their lives had taken different paths after their mother’s death and Ruth’s marriage.
They had never managed to reconnect.
Ruth had not been formally reported missing, and investigators later learned that she had lived a transient lifestyle. That helped explain why her disappearance had not immediately generated the kind of missing-person investigation that might have led to her identification decades earlier.
For Deborah, learning what had happened to her sister brought devastating confirmation.
But it also gave Ruth something she had been denied for almost four decades:
her identity.
The Man Investigators Want to Know More About
At the time Ruth was killed, she was married to Trampas D. L. Vaughn.
Vaughn was born in Iowa and had previously spent time in prison there. He later married Ruth in Wenatchee.
Investigators have considered Vaughn a suspect because Ruth disappeared without him reporting her missing.
Vaughn died in California in 2017, meaning he can no longer be questioned about what happened to his wife.
Authorities have not publicly identified another suspect in Ruth’s murder.
Ruth’s first husband has cooperated with investigators.
Police and medical examiners have also sought information about Ruth’s child or children. Her autopsy indicated that she had given birth roughly one or two years before her death.
That detail may provide another potential path toward understanding the final years of her life.
The Mystery Is Only Half Solved
Identifying Ruth Waymire answered one of the biggest questions surrounding the case.
For decades, investigators and the public had wondered:
Who was Millie Doe?
Now they know.
She was Ruth Belle Waymire, a Spokane woman who had once been a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a mother.
But another question remains unanswered:
Who killed Ruth?
Her remains were discovered in the Spokane River on June 20, 1984.
Her identity remained hidden until 2023.
And despite all the advances in forensic science, the person responsible for her murder has not been brought to justice.
The case that began with an unidentified woman in a river has finally given Ruth her name back.
What remains is the search for the person who took her life.
Remembering Ruth
For almost 40 years, Ruth was known only by a name created for an unidentified victim.
“Millie Doe” appeared in investigative files, forensic records, and public appeals.
Behind that temporary name was a real woman with a family, a childhood, relationships, and a life that ended far too soon.
Today, Ruth Belle Waymire is no longer an unidentified victim.
Her name is known.
Her story is known.
But until her killer is identified, the final chapter of her story remains unwritten.
This story is based on publicly available information and reported facts. It has been independently written and presented for informational purposes. Images, if any, belong to their respective owners.