In July 1974, while Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was still being filmed in Martha’s Vineyard, the decaying remains of a young woman were discovered in the nearby Race Point Dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts. The mystery victim was almost decapitated and both of her hands had been removed—presumably to prevent anyone from identifying her. Tucked beneath her head were a blue bandana and a pair of Wrangler jeans. For close to 50 years, the girl was known only as the “Lady of the Dunes.”
Despite having been exhumed several times between 1980 and 2013, police were unable to determine who they’d found that day in Provincetown. This led to numerous theories regarding the woman’s killer, with some even suggesting that mobster “Whitey” Bulger was responsible. The decades-old cold case ended up back in the news around 2018, when an earlier blog post from Stephen King’s son, fellow author Joe Hill, resurfaced. In it, Hill pointed out that a female extra in Jaws was wearing the same outfit found underneath the Lady of the Dunes.
Did Steven Spielberg Accidentally Film a Murder Victim in ‘Jaws’? The Mystery Explained.
At about 54 minutes and 2 seconds into the film, the woman in question briefly pops up during a crowd sequence sporting a blue bandana and jeans. This young lady, according to Hill, bears a “striking resemblance” to a composite sketch of the unidentified murder victim. Though Hill acknowledged that there were several problems with his theory, like the fact that the woman in the scene doesn’t appear to be wearing Wrangler jeans, he still ran the observation past an FBI friend of his. “Odder ideas have cracked colder cases,” he was told.
We may never know for sure if the Lady of the Dunes was in Jaws, but in 2022, the FBI finally identified her as Ruth Marie Terry of Tennessee (born September 8, 1936). The following year, the case was officially closed and Terry’s husband, Guy Muldavin, who died in 2002, was named as her killer. “I’m sort of fascinated by the idea that, for decades afterwards, every time Jaws came on TV, he saw his dead wife turning her head to stare out of the screen at him,” said Hill while speaking with Inside Edition, “There’s something sort of chilling in that notion.”
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