Police discover remains at dig site for girl missing since '97

Jessica Cain Jessica Cain Photo: handout Photo: handout Image 1 of / 36 Caption Close Police discover remains at dig site for girl missing since '97 1 / 36 Back to Gallery

The discovery of skeletal remains in a field in south Houston could mean investigators discovered the final resting place of a Galveston teenager who disappeared almost two decades ago, or it could signal the start of an entirely new homicide investigation.

It all depends on the forensics, Houston police said Friday as searchers continued carefully excavating a scrubby horse pasture along East Orem near Hobby Airport.

"Right now, we have no clue who this person is," said Richard Martinez, a detective with the Houston Police Department's homicide division.

Harris County medical examiners will analyze the remains, police said, and should be able to say if they are that of Jessica Cain, 17, who vanished without a trace on Aug. 17, 1997, while driving home after a high school musical cast party at a restaurant in Clear Lake.

Only her truck, with her purse locked inside, was ever found, on the shoulder of Interstate 45 on the route to her Tiki Island home.

But, Martinez said, the spot where the remains were discovered is "basically the same area" where convicted kidnapper William Lewis Reece, 54, was recently seen in the company of law enforcement officers.

After weeks of searching the field, about 2:30 p.m. Friday a backhoe operator at the site signaled the discovery of the apparent remains. An anthropologist and other analysts with the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences were called to the scene.

"Right now, they're in the process of recovering those remains," Martinez said. "There is enough there to know that it's a body."

He said the remains were found at least four feet below the surface.

Heavy thunderstorms blew through the area while investigators continued the excavation.

"If it rains too hard and fills up with water, you have to let it subside and then start over," Martinez said.

The cause of death and the identity won't be known until after a forensics examination. Martinez said there appeared to be enough to make a DNA confirmation.

"If it is not Jessica Cain, we have to find out who it is," he said.

The investigation will become a Houston police case regardless of the identity because the remains were discovered within their jurisdiction. But Martinez said the department will work with other law enforcement agencies if it does turn out to be Jessica Cain.

Police said Reece was not at the site on Friday. He was serving a 60-year prison sentence for a 1998 aggravated kidnapping when police in mid-February brought him in shackles to Galveston County for interviews. Since then, Reece had been seen pacing the pasture, seeming to point out the spots where the searchers should focus.

He also is identified by police as the prime suspect in the August 1997 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Laura Smither, who vanished from her Friendswood neighborhood while jogging.

Houston police could not estimate how long it would take for medical examiners to determine the identity of the skeletal remains.

Chronicle reporter St. John Barned-Smith contributed to this report.