"Unsolved Mysteries" episode examines severed head cold case in Beaver County

ECONOMY BOROUGH, Pa. (KDKA) — "Unsolved Mysteries" is releasing five new episodes on Netflix on Wednesday, and one of the episodes digs into one of the strangest cases in Western Pennsylvania : the 2014 discovery of an embalmed woman's head in Economy Borough.

Economy Borough Police Chief Michael O'Brien told KDKA-TV's Jessica Guay that he hopes the national spotlight will help identify this Jane Doe and figure out how she got there.

"This young boy had discovered a severed head, and we soon realized that it had been embalmed," Chief O'Brien said.

It's a haunting mystery Beaver County investigators never expected. The woman's head was found in the woods off Mason Road in Economy Borough on Dec. 12, 2014. The perplexing case has stuck with Chief O'Brien ever since.

"It was something that I had never seen, as well as the other officers that were there," he said.

Chief O'Brien said they first tried to figure out who she was and how she ended up in the wooded area. Her cause of death and the location of her body are also still a mystery as well.

"We still don't have her identified," he said.

There's renewed hope as this cold case makes its way to Netflix. "Unsolved Mysteries: Volume 4" comes out on Wednesday morning.

In Episode 3 titled "The Severed Head," Chief O'Brien and other investigators, including some of his officers and county detectives, will share the twists and turns of the case.

The woman was likely in her 60s to 80s. O'Brien said her head was well preserved.

"Looking at her, it reminded you that she had been laid out, possibly for a funeral. And it appeared to us that the head had been professionally or at least removed by somebody with some sort of medical knowledge," Chief O'Brien said.

What made the case even more odd was what the police found.

"We discovered that the eyes had been missing, and there were red rubber balls in its place," he said.

A year after the strange discovery, Chief O'Brien said in a press conference, "We have also been in contact with the funerals directions association, medical examiners association, several other schools that have all stated that this is not a common use or have never even heard of this type of use to replace eyes that have been enucleated from a body."

Close to 200 leads or tips were investigated, and calls still come in every so often.

From the very start, Chief O'Brien wasn't going to rule any theories out. Was the body taken after a funeral? Was it the head from a black-market body trade? Was it from a missing cadaver?

"We have explored so many options and so many places and looked into so many different people," he said.

Chief O'Brien was a bit surprised when "Unsolved Mysteries" reached out to do an episode. He said those who work on the show were terrific to work with, and they became really passionate about getting this case out to more people.

He hopes the case gets a lot of exposure on Netflix, and law enforcement finally gets that one call that cracks the case.

"It does stick with you, mainly because we don't know who she is, and we know that she has a name. We know that she belongs to somebody, and that's somebody's mother or sister. And we know that somebody probably out there possibly doesn't know that this has happened. So, to me, that's the important part of the case now is to is to get her identified," he said.

Anyone with information on this case is asked to call the Economy Borough Police Department at 724-869-7877.