On Wednesday, 8 June, Connecticut police dug up a body in an effort to solve a cold case – but it turned out to be the wrong body.
Authorities expected to find a Jane Doe from a 1975 case but found a man in her place.
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It has since emerged that the information that East Haven Police received from a tip was wrong.
Police Captain Joseph Murgo told WTNH News 8: "The exact coordinates we were originally going off seem to be incorrect."
So, what was wrong with the coordinates? Well, according to Murgo: "We’re going off of basically a handwritten drawing of the cemetery and of the plots, and what we’re finding is that there are a large amount of unmarked graves and there are large amount of people who weren’t necessarily documented on our records, buried in our area."
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He went on to say, as reported by local news outlet WFSB: "So the State Street Cemetery has been abandoned for many years, there’s no association and even when there was an association, they came under fire at the time for keep[ing] really inaccurate records, so that’s sort of the challenge we’re facing now."
Murgo and his team were investigating what happened to this particular Jane Doe, who was found behind a department store dead and wrapped in a tarp.
There was nothing to indicate who the woman was.
The police chief added that part of the issue with finding the deceased woman's body was that 'they never marked the grave, and that’s part of the challenge as we try and locate her actual burial site'.
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While the case stumped initial investigators, the authorities are hoping new technology can help shed some light on the matter.
"Generations of detectives have worked extremely hard on this case, but they didn’t have the modern technology that we have today. So we are confident with today’s advancements we can apply it to this case, and, hopefully, identify her," Murgo added.
He went on to say: "47 years is a long time to wonder what happened to your loved one and there is somebody out there that wants some sense of closure and it’s our hope that we’re able to bring that sense of closure to our victim’s family."
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If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence contact Cruse Bereavement Care via their national helpline on 0808 808 1677
Shola Lee