Her body was discovered within hours of her sexual assault and murder, and remained unidentified for 41 years before investigators announced her identification via forensic genealogy in November 2021.

[9] On November 1, 1980, the nude body of a girl estimated to be between the ages of 14 and 18[10] was discovered by a truck driver who had been driving past the Sam Houston National Forest.

[6] High-heeled red leather sandals with light brown straps, which investigators would subsequently discover the girl had been seen carrying while alive, were also recovered from the scene.

[9] The decedent was approximately five feet six inches (1.68 m) in height, weighed between 105 and 120 pounds (48 and 54 kg),[14][n 1] and was described by the Harris County Medical Examiner as being a "well-nourished" individual.

[17][18] Due to the general condition of the decedent's body, including her overall health, nutrition and the excellent dental care she had received in life,[18] she was believed to have come from a middle-class household.

[19] The cause of death was certified by the coroner to be asphyxia[20] due to ligature strangulation,[21] possibly inflicted via a pantyhose,[7] fragments of which—along with the decedent's underwear—were found inside the victim's vaginal cavity.

[18] The pantyhose and underwear had likely been placed inside the girl's vaginal cavity in an attempt to prevent her body from bleeding as she was transported to the site of her discovery.

[8][18] It is unknown if the girl had been conventionally raped, as no biological evidence attesting to this form of sexual assault was discovered either at the crime scene or in the coroner's subsequent examination of her body.

These individuals include the manager of a South End Gulf station and two employees at the Hitch 'n' Post truck stop, all of whom described this girl as wearing blue jeans, a dirty yellow pullover, and a white knit sweater with noticeably large pockets which extended past her waist.

[9][n 3] This same girl was later seen at the Hitch 'n' Post truck stop alongside Interstate 45,[25] where she again requested directions to the Texas Department of Corrections Ellis Prison Farm, claiming "a friend" was waiting for her at this location.

[29] Investigators traveled to both the Rockport and Aransas Pass districts to consult with law enforcement personnel regarding any missing females whose physical descriptions matched that of the victim.

[7] Investigators have also reached out to the public via various online websites, news media and television networks in hopes of generating further leads of inquiry—all of which, to date, have been unsuccessful in identifying her murderer(s).

In 1990, forensic and portrait artist Karen T. Taylor created a postmortem drawing of Walker County Jane Doe in which she incorporated an estimation as to the appearance of the necklace she had been wearing.

Taylor further explained that a scaled photograph of the girl's necklace was not made available to her, and she was forced to guess at the size of this item of jewelry for the facial reconstruction she produced.

[35] Within the decade prior to Walker County Jane Doe's identification, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children constructed and released two facial reconstructions of how the victim may have appeared in life.

Hargraves elaborated his hypothesis by stating that men who commit crimes of a sexual nature are typically known to bite their victims upon sensitive areas of the body as opposed to the shoulder, as had occurred in this case.

[15] The act of male perpetrators of murders committed with a sexual motivation occasionally collecting souvenirs from their victims was also noted to be inconsistent with this case, as the necklace Jarvis had worn was still present upon her body.

[18] However, the fact that it is unknown if Jarvis had worn other items of jewelry at the time of her murder, and that her ears were pierced yet her earlobes held no earrings may negate this portion of Hargraves' hypothesis.

[46] The information compiled by the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System states the following individuals were each positively excluded as being Walker County Jane Doe prior to her 2021 identification.