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Missing woman's remains found in her home
Billie Jean James was in home entire time, husband says
By KRISTI JOURDAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Las Vegas police have been looking for Billie Jean James since she went missing in April.
Volunteers scoured the surrounding desert around her home near the M Resort on the southern edge of the valley.
Police used helicopters with infrared technology to search from above.
And highly trained search dogs sniffed through the 67-year-old's two cluttered homes, which family friends previously characterized as residences of a compulsive hoarder.
Bill James, her husband of 40 years, said he found her body Wednesday afternoon in a back room inside one of the homes and called police.
She was underneath the clutter.
He recognized her shoes.
"She's been in the house this whole time," a shaken James said. "I didn't see a lot, but I recognized her shoes. I saw her feet first."
An official identification will come from the Clark County coroner's office, but James said he's "sure it's her."
"Dogs went through the house, I went through the house, the police went through the house. I was going through it daily for weeks," he said. "I thought I had looked in every place a person could fit, and I didn't see her."
Friends described Billie Jean, who was last seen April 22, as a colorful woman who loved everything about nature. She had traveled around the world to hike, help endangered animals and clean up national parks. In fact, the couple was scheduled to travel the day after Billie Jean vanished to Molokai, Hawaii, on a volunteer service trip to monitor endangered monk seals.
A political activist, Billie Jean, clad in a red-and-white striped dress with a blue starred vest, marched in antiwar rallies to bring home the troops.
A humanitarian, she traveled to New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and volunteered in New Orleans with the American Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina.
She also loved art and music, playing the guitar.
She was an avid gardener, and her front yard full of native plants is culmination of 40 years' worth of work.
Billie Jean's friends and family expressed shock and grief in the Facebook group Friends of Bill and Billie Jean James.
"Bill found Billie Jean. It is so sad. I feel so stupid about not following my instincts but other people in charge treated it like a joke, so I did not go into her back room that I called a rabbit hole," one group member wrote.
The Jameses built a second home on their property to hold all the items that Billie Jean hoarded.
Aug. 25, 2010
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
a homeless filthy person.