Monte Carlo/Valentine Sally Cache
In the early morning hours of February 4, 1982, a young strawberry blonde girl walked into the Monte Carlo Truck Stop Café just east of Ash Fork, Arizona, along Interstate 40. She looked to be 17 or 18 years old, but was with a much older man, obviously a trucker. He was unremarkable other than his old cowboy hat with a peacock feather in it. They seemed to know each other well.
Patty Wilkins waited on the pair, it was her family's diner. Given the early morning hours, and the age difference, Patty asked the girl if she was okay and did she want to stay there? The girl replied no, outside of a toothache, she was fine. Patty gave her a couple aspirin for the toothache and the pair left. The girl was never seen alive again.
Ten days later, February 14, Valentine's Day, an Arizona Highway Patrolman was searching for a stray tire off a passing truck along I40 when he discovered human remains. The body, found under a tree, was that of a girl wearing a red and white striped sweater and blue jeans, the same clothes Patty remembered the girl wearing that night at the café. The body was found about a mile east of the Monte Carlo Truck Stop, at milepost 151.8, on the north side of the highway. An autopsy found a lower molar with a hole drilled in it in preparation for a root canal, with crushed aspirin in it. Unknown and unclaimed, Patty Wilkins paid for the girl's burial in the Williams, Arizona cemetery.
In July 1984, the girl was tentatively identified as Melody Cutlip of Istachatta, Florida. Cutlip's mother, however, not believing it could be her daughter, refused to claim the body. Patty Wilkins had her name added to the headstone. That identification proved false - and mom right - when Melody Cutlip returned home.
For nearly 40 years the young girl remained a Jane Doe - 'Valentine Sally' - as she was known by local law enforcement.
On February 22, 2021, the Coconino County Sherriff's Office announced that DNA testing proved Valentine Sally to be Carolyn Celeste Eaton, 17, of Bellefontaine, Missouri. Carolyn had run away from home Christmas of 1981. Her life sadly ended a little more than a month later. This cache is placed in her memory off old old Route 66 just up the hill from the Monte Carlo Café.
