IT TOOK 33 YEARS, BUT THEY GOT HIM

Breakthrough in Decades-Old Wyoming Cold Case Finally Leads to Charges

 

 by  Greg Hoyt

 

Law Enforcement Today

Jul 23, 2024 

 

   

Clark Perry Baldwin 

 

 

SHERIDAN, WY – A Jane Doe discovered 33 years ago abandoned on an interstate in Wyoming has since been identified via modern DNA testing and the alleged killer is expected to be tried for the young woman’s murder.

On April 13th, 1992, a then-unidentified young woman’s body was discovered 15 miles north of Sheridan along Interstate 90, leading authorities to refer to the deceased woman as “I-90 Jane Doe” during the course of the investigation.

At the time, investigators didn’t have much to work with given the circumstances, with an autopsy report showing the woman was approximately two-and-a-half months pregnant at the time of her passing and had died from blunt force trauma and strangulation.

With modern advances in DNA and genealogical tracking, a breakthrough in the case cropped up after the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation found a DNA match via the Jane Doe’s biological mother, identifying the deceased woman as 21-year-old Cindi Arleen Estrada from Torrance, California.

Investigators believe Estrada fell victim to a since-convicted murderer who officials say was a serial killer running rampant in the early 1990s.

Back in May of 2020, state and federal authorities in Iowa arrested Clark Perry Baldwin in connection with the 1991 murder of a woman in Tennessee named Pamela McCall, as well as two other 1992 murders which occurred in Wyoming.

Baldwin, who has since been convicted of murdering McCall, reportedly employed a similar modus operandi in McCall and Estrada’s cases, with investigators saying McCall was 24-weeks pregnant at the time of her death where Baldwin strangled her and disposed of her body near a wooded area in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

The string of murders attributed to Baldwin were committed while he was operating as a truck driver, which authorities believe he used his profession to his advantage insofar as hoping to throw investigators off with the random nature and locations of the offenses.

While closure has been achieved in the McCall case, Baldwin is now facing extradition to Wyoming where he’ll face charges in Estrada’s and another recently identified Jane Doe murder, Irene Vasquez. Back in March of 1992, Vazquez’ naked and frozen body was discovered along Interstate 80 near Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Vazquez, just like Estrada and McCall, had also died by strangulation.

The May 2025 conviction of Baldwin in Tennessee came as a result of an initial breakthrough in the case all the way back in 2012 when investigators in Wyoming found their then-Jane Does had the same male DNA on their bodies.

Further DNA testing and tracking eventually looped in the McCall case in 2019, finally landing on Baldwin as the prime suspect through the same investigative forensic genealogical methods.

Officials have yet to detail specifically when Baldwin will face extradition to Wyoming.