Cape May 16-Year-Old Girl Murdered, Then Thrown Off Plane into the Ocean: “Nightmarish Scene”
There was more than one suspect over who purportedly dropped the body of 16-year-old Kimberly Holton out of a flying plane and into the New Jersey waters.
Authorities in two states worked together to learn what happened to a teenage Jane Doe whose body was discovered in the Atlantic Ocean.
On October 8, 2003, fishermen spotted what they believed was debris about three to four miles from the shores of Cape May, New Jersey. Upon closer inspection, the couple realized they’d found what now-retired New Jersey State Police (N.J.S.P.) Detective Steve Brown called a “severely decomposed” body floating in the sea with no signs of identification.
N.J.S.P. Crime Scene Investigator James Thistle told Deadly Waters with Captain Lee that a rock crab “gnawing at her inner thigh” told investigators about where the body had been.
“Rock crabs are bottom feeders, so investigators know that at some point, the body did sink to the ocean floor,” explained show host Captain Lee.
Because the unknown female’s body was beyond two miles from the Jersey Shore, the United States Coast Guard (U.S.C.G.) helped State Police examine the body. All presumed the victim met with foul play based on a large metal chain wrapped around the victim’s ankles and duct tape around her feet and hands.
It was thought that whoever disposed of the body didn’t anticipate that she’d float to the surface. So far, according to Thistle, the body was their “only clue,” and so making an identification was crucial.
Thistle said the Jane Doe’s fingerprints were so “pruned up” on account of being in the water that traditional methods of finding a print could not be used.
“I basically took some saline solution and took a hypodermic needle,” Thistle explained. “I tied a string around the last knuckle of the finger, and I was able to inject [the] saline solution under that finger pad and then roll it and get an identifiable fingerprint.”
The Jane Doe was ID’d as 16-year-old Kimberly Holton, a missing foster child out of Dover, Delaware, about 40 miles directly northeast of Cape May.
About Kimberly Holton’s disappearance
Holton’s best friend, Destinee Andrews, told Deadly Waters they met on the school bus while in high school, citing Holton as “the sweetest person you’d ever meet.” The friend said Holton lived with her foster family, the Machettes, as well as a foster sister, Heather.
“Kim absolutely loved animals; I do believe she would have been some type of vet or vet tech,” Andrews said. “She helped animals because nobody helped her when she needed help.”
But Andrews believed Holton’s “bubbly” personality was a way of hiding her past, which was rife with turmoil. According to Holton’s first foster mother, Sherry Welsh of Williamstown, New Jersey, the child’s early life consisted of having little food and no toys, which laid the groundwork for why children’s services had to intervene.
It seemed her troubles only grew after Holton began living with the Machette family, and when she missed the school bus on September 30, 2003 — eight days before Holton’s body was discovered — Andrews knew something was “terribly wrong.”
That day, Holton’s foster mother, Lorraine Machette, reported the teen missing. State Police in New Jersey, tasked with investigating after the body was found in the water, teamed up with the Delaware State Police (D.S.P.) to learn more about the child’s background.
