Exhumation at the State Street Cemetery in Hamden, Conn., on July 1. Credit: EHPD
After falling short the first time, the East Haven Police Department has successfully located the burial site of the unidentified 1975 homicide victim at the State Street Cemetery in Hamden, Conn.
Last month, investigators thought they had found Jane Doe’s grave in the 225-year-old abandoned burial ground thanks to an antiquated map, but once the exhumation happened, they realized the remains were not her. The second excavation on Friday proves more fruitful.
With the help of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the East Haven Police Department Investigative Services Division was able to exhume and inspect Jane Doe’s body before collecting viable DNA from several DNA-rich areas.
This new development will allow the team to extract, sequence and apply DNA results to genealogy databases across the globe in hopes of identifying Jane Doe.
In August 1975, she was found by a trucker wrapped in a painter’s tarp, bound, gagged and floating in a drainage ditch. She was believed to be white or Latina, somewhere between 18 and 28 years old and with a slight build. An autopsy confirmed her cause of death was asphyxiation—likely strangled to death.
Since she was never identified, Hamden paid the East Haven Memorial Funeral Home $600 to handle her burial. With nowhere to bury her, the State Street Cemetery was chosen as it was home to a number of indigent burials.
Forensic staff will now test the pubic bone and use DNA to try to genealogically identify Jane Doe.
This case remains under investigation.
Republished courtesy of East Haven Police Department.