HAMDEN, Conn. — Editor's Note: The video above was published in June 2022 when the cold case was revived.
After failing the first time, authorities have successfully located the burial site of a nearly half-century-old homicide victim and have exhumed her body in hopes of identifying her.
East Haven police began searching for the body of “Jane Doe” at the State Street Cemetery in Hamden earlier last month. When they exhumed what they believed to be her body, it turned out they had found someone else’s remains.
“She was someone’s loved one. She was someone’s daughter. Someone’s sister. Somebody deserves some sense of closure here,” Capt. Joseph Murgo of the East Haven Police Department told FOX61 News at the time.
Subsequent searches of the cemetery that included ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and metal detectors were successful in locating “Jane’s” remains.
Police said Friday they were able to collect viable DNA.
For decades, a composite sketch has been the only identity of the cold case murder victim, who was found on Aug. 16, 1975, bound, gagged, and floating in a draining ditch along Frontage Road. She was buried somewhere in the overgrown and abandoned cemetery, but the records are not well kept.
With the advancements in DNA evidence testing, East Haven detectives sought to identify her. The DNA results will be applied to genealogy databases across the world in hopes of identifying her.
Some of the graves at the cemetery day back to 1784.
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On Friday, police said “Jane’s” death remains under investigation. They did not say how long it would take to get the DNA results back.
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