Police Look for Clues In Slaying Victim's Life

Homeless Woman's Body Found June 4

On the last night of her life, Roslyn Whitehead got into a car with someone who drove her to a scenic overlook along the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

Her bloody body, partially clothed and pocked with stab wounds, was found in the parking lot of the overlook at 5:45 a.m. June 4.

That's about all police know about how Whitehead died.

Their search to learn more has been complicated by the same obstacles that made her life such a mystery. Whitehead, 47, was homeless, mentally ill and out of contact with the world -- her family, the network of shelters and mental health organizations that had tried to help her, even with other homeless people.

"The frustrating thing is, we're basically at a loss," said Capt. Robert Rule, assistant commander of the criminal investigations branch of the U.S. Park Police, which is investigating the slaying because the body was found on federal land. "In any homicide, the best way to proceed is to go back to where the person worked, where she lived, her friends, her associates. When you take that away, it makes it very difficult."

In the weeks since a passing motorist found Whitehead's body and called 911, police have plastered her picture in the areas of Rosslyn where she used to go. They have canvassed homeless shelters and chatted up homeless people, seeking to retrace her tattered steps. They have looked for attacks against other homeless people but have found no pattern.

What has emerged slowly is a portrait of an erratic life that took Whitehead from the streets of Arlington to mental health facilities in New York and New Jersey and back to the D.C. area, where police and people who saw her say she had deteriorated into a haze of drinking and delusion in her final days.

And there are clues that have tantalized. A merchant in Ballston said he thinks he saw Whitehead the day before she died, but police said he might be confusing her with another homeless person.

Perhaps most intriguing are signs that while Whitehead apparently had a severe mental illness, reality intruded occasionally. While living at a mental health facility in Manhattan, she remembered to register to vote. And she was cashing Social Security checks, which she might have obtained because of her disability, at a liquor store in Montgomery County, law enforcement sources said. It is unclear if the checks are related to her death.

"She was not unable to get through life," said one law enforcement source. "Not very well obviously because she was homeless and had other issues, but she was able to know when to pick up the check, travel from place to place. Certainly, she was functional in that way."

Whitehead, who did not have a car and usually kept to herself, also was mentally aware enough to get into a car with someone before her death. Police said the scenic overlook where her body was found, about three miles north of Reagan National Airport, is only accessible by car -- unless someone walked at least a mile on the highway.

"Could she have walked there? Possibly,'' Rule said. "Is that the scenario we think happened? No. The question is, 'Why would she have gotten into a car with someone?' "

Whitehead's body was found lying on the north end of the overlook's parking lot. Her body contained no identification but was identified through fingerprints, compiled from her past brushes with Arlington County police. No weapon has been found, and police said they're not sure what kind of knife was used.

Their painstaking investigation has included everything from checking for violent offenders known to frequent the area to scanning speeding tickets from the night of the slaying. Police are pinning some hope on forensic tests, the results of which are not yet available. Rule said a "substantial amount" of blood was found on Whitehead's body and in the parking lot.