Investigators groped in the dark for more than four decades. On November 15, 1978, the body of a woman was discovered in the small community of Granby, Colorado. Her body lay buried under leaves on a forest road. Coroners found a gunshot wound to the temple. They estimated that the woman had died a few months earlier and that she was between 19 and 27 years old. Since no one seemed to be missing and her identity could not be clarified, she was buried in a cemetery in Granby. The inscription on her tombstone: “Unknown”.
Thanks to the investigators’ persistent work and advanced DNA tests, the mystery of the dead woman has finally been solved, as the Massachusetts State Police announced on Tuesday. The dead woman is Patricia Ann T, born in 1950. About two years ago, Massachusetts authorities hired a private forensic laboratory based in Houston, Texas. With the help of genetic genealogy, the investigators were able to identify a relative of the woman in the US state of Maryland. Police contacted the woman, who in turn led them to the victim’s adult son. A comparison of his DNA and the dead man’s DNA revealed a 100 percent match.
As it turned out, the son was five years old when his mother disappeared. At that time, she had been married to a man for a good year, who dropped the boy off on August 8, 1978 at an acquaintance’s in Massachusetts. He never saw his mother again and never heard from the man again, the son told the police. The husband also never reported his wife missing, it is said. He died in a Massachusetts state penitentiary in 1996 on charges including rape and assault.
Despite his death, police want to investigate him and speak to people who knew the victim at some point in her life, but especially during the time she was married to him. Hair recovered from Patricia Ann T.’s body is now being analyzed for DNA.
Those: Massachusetts State Police
