As a spectator, a musician, a hanger-on.
LikeLinda Eastman, Paul McCartneys lady, the one who takes all the pictures.
Or the sadness of knowing that all parties have to end, almost always by someone elses decree.
The skull found in the basement of 301 W. 46th St.
She was first known as Midtown Jane Doe, when her remains were found in 2003.
Only 16, her life thrown away, strangled, wrapped in a rug, and buried in cement.
She was never supposed to be known.
Even tracking down a picture of her has proven elusive.
For decades, Patricia McGlone was a cipher, a ghost.
Now, her story can finally begin to be told.
The remains of the girl soon nicknamed Midtown Jane Doe certainly qualified.
Demolition was the buildings endgame.
(Its replacement, the Riu Hotel, wouldnt be finished until 2016.)
Six feet wide, five feet long, and a foot high.
It seemed out of place.
The arriving cops quickly deduced thered been a crime.
The girl wore a size 32A bra, clear pantyhose, and a glittery frock.
And there was DNA from an unknown source possibly a white male from a hair found in the rug.
There was so much evidence unusual for decades-old remains and yet identifying Midtown Jane Doe stumped the NYPD.
For decades, Patricia McGlone was a cipher, a ghost.
Now, the story of her life can finally begin to be told.
But other clues shifted the time window on the bodys placement.
A bag of rat poison found in the slab was initially believed to have been manufactured in 1979.
A clothing label from the International Garment Workers Union, which didnt appear to exist before 1988.
If the girl hadnt died in the 1960s, then she must have been born later.
As time went on, tests grew more sophisticated.
They wouldnt take no for an answer.
And shockingly, they ended up with a profile.
An actual profile meant the cold case had become hot again.
Genetic genealogy had been around for years, used to trace family-tree connections or find lost or adopted relatives.
More than 650 cold cases have been solved through their efforts so far.
Ideally, the DNA similarities could be close enough to discover a child, parent, or sibling.
Finding a first cousin was also a great result.
Surely, someone must be looking for her?
Doyle found promising news from studying the public DNA-database results.
She scoured public records, old newspaper articles, obituaries, and court documents.
And the only name that seemed to intersect both of these family trees was a girl named Patricia McGlone.
The lab wouldnt take no for an answer.
And shockingly, they ended up with a profile.
Doyle discovered the name in an obituary for a man named Bernard McGlone.
She thought of the ring found with the remains.
It was a really great clue, she says.
All signs pointed to an identification.
But investigative genetic genealogy can never confirm a persons identity.
Its viewed as a presumptive lead that requires additional verification to stand up in court.
Doyle and her team looked again at the maternal first cousin once removed.
That DNA profile was still on file, and it matched.
Midtown Jane Doe was Patricia Kathleen McGlone.
Her identification was announced in April 2024, six months after Doyle joined the NYPD full time.
But far too many questions remained.
How did Patricia end up in the basement of Steve Pauls club, and why?
But none quite produced the same sense of nostalgia as Steve Pauls the Scene.
It was a kind of music-industry hangout.
Youve got all these record-company executives, music-publishing people, and musicians.
It was an industry bar, but it was also a hip bar, Sante adds.
Its got this cachet of being the bar of its time for a certain contingent.
Make your dreams come true, Paul said in 1967.
Well try and make it last, but it wont.
You dont think in this place, he said.
For the next couple of years, the Scene hosted bands on the verge of intense fame.
The Velvet Underground did multiple shows there.
So did the Lovin Spoonful and the Rascals.
But the bubble soon burst.
We owed $90,000, Paul toldHullabaloo.We werent even doing business on Saturdays.
You know where thats at.
Real nowhere is the address.
The clubs second life gave it a necessary jolt.
The bodyguards had to send them home, each in their own limousine.
The good times continued to roll.
But there was an expiration date, even if Paul couldnt quite predict when it would arrive.
The lack of known information about her seems almost intentional.
Patricias parents were married, except they werent.
Bernard said he was 45; he was 50.
Pats age is listed at 21; she was actually 20.
The bigger problem was that Bernard was already married with children twice.
Itinerancy was an asset in his job: How easy was it to start a third family?
So easy that Helen and the younger Bernard had no inkling for years.
A year later, Helen was diagnosed with breast cancer; she died in 1960 at age 46.
Bernard Jr. was 14.
Theres little doubt that Bernard Sr. was away a lot.
Perhaps he had abandoned this blended family, too.
Whatever the case, he died in June 1963, officially 53 but really 61.
Thats when things grow murkier.
And for Patricia, much bleaker.
Patricia was 10 when her father died.
School records confirm shed faithfully attended P.S.
94 from first through fourth grades, but switched to Catholic school in the fall of 1963.
But by the fall, Patricia was repeating sixth grade at St. Michaels, her attendance growing more sporadic.
Shed also become truant.
She switched schools one last time at the end of 1968, attending P.S.
136 for a mere eight days before dropping out for good.
Her mother later said the girl had become an addict.
Whatever crowd teenage Patricia had fallen in with wasnt good.
But it also seems her mother, Pat, knew a lot more than she let on.
She told family members she had remarried and that Layburn was her husband.
By the mid-1960s, Bernard had already experienced significant calamity.
He dropped out of high school, lying about his age to get a job.
Hed been hired as a bookkeeper for First National Stores in nearby Kearny.
(Diamond, whose identity he stole, however, did.)
Bernard was arrested on July 11, 1970.
Bernard left town and changed his name again, cribbing it from a cousin who died in 1973.
He bought a bachelors degree in engineering from a known diploma mill.
Patricias signature didnt match her handwriting.
It looked an awful lot like her mothers, though.
The last days of the Scene werent much fun for Steve Paul.
The vibes had soured.
Young mooks from Brooklyn were trying to start trouble, demanding protection money.
So they just start these giant fights there.
And the clubs lose their license.
He started committing petty crimes and moving in a tougher crowd to curry her favor.
Robberies and shakedowns were his thing, usually in the company of neighborhood pals.
On at least one occasion, he threw a bouncer out a window to make his point.
Im Junior Sirico, hed say, you better learn how to give me the respect I deserve.
(Sirico died in 2022.)
Paul had known the party couldnt last forever.
Nothing great lasts all the time.
Two years later, Sirico was breathing down his neck.
Hed rather close down the Scene than hand it over to the Mob.
He produced cabaret shows and haunted art galleries looking for new talent.
And if Sirico knew anything, he didnt share it with those closest to him.
I dont see him plotting the murder of a girl.
In December 1968, Patricia McGlone switched schools for the final time.
A record indicates she left St. Michaels because of a medical event.
Patricia dropped out in May 1969.
Like for so many girls, then and now, the cause was a pregnancy.
Those records were true, to a degree.
Patricias mother was one of the witnesses and according to her, the baby was born around August 1969.
But there was almost nothing true about Donald Grant.
His name was fake.
His birthdate was fake.
The names of his parents, listed on the marriage certificate?
There was no James Edward Grant or Carrie Elizabeth Johnson with a son named Donald born in Pittsburgh.
One detail on the marriage certificate, however, could be verified.
He wasnt listed there the year before, or the year after.
Grant whoever he might be is a person of interest in Patricias death.
With any homicide, you always look to the person closest, right?
And especially if its a domestic, Detective Glas tells me.
Its unfortunate that its such a common name.
Glas says Bernard hadnt been ruled out as a person of interest, either.
But they cant discount more morbid possibilities for what happened to the child.
I just want someone to acknowledge her existence other than us, says Doyle, the NYPD genealogist.
It breaks my heart that she could go through her short life and be erased.
I cannot come to terms with no one knowing who she is.
