The 'Lady of the Dunes': A nearly decapitated, handless woman lay unnoticed on a Massachusetts beach for weeks. It took 28 years to solve the mystery

The 'Lady of the Dunes': A nearly decapitated, handless woman lay unnoticed on a Massachusetts beach for weeks. It took 28 years to solve the mystery

On a hot July day in 1974, a 12-year-old girl walking her dog through the windswept dunes near Provincetown, Massachusetts, made a horrific discovery: The nude body of a woman, lying face-down on a beach towel, her hands missing, and her head nearly severed. Investigators determined she had been dead for as long as three weeks. For nearly half a century, no one knew her name, as the mystery came to be known as the Lady of the Dunes. Police said …