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07/01/2022 12:00 AMEast Haven Police have located the body of a 1975 homicide victim after coming up short on a first attempt conducted earlier in June.
The body of the unidentified woman, known only as Jane Doe, was discovered on Aug. 16, 1975, by a truck driver. The body was found in a tarp, bound, gagged, and floating in a drainage ditch behind the former Bradlees department store on East Haven's Frontage Road.
She was buried in Hamden a year later after the Chief Medical Examiner was unable to identify her body.
With new technology, police were hopeful they would be able to identify the woman. Acting on a tip and some help from the Hamden town clerk, East Haven Police were able to locate the victim's burial permit for State Street Cemetery.
East Haven Police Captain Joseph Murgo, Captain David Emerman, the East Haven Investigative Services Division, and the Office of the Connecticut Medical Examiner located the grave on July 1. The body was exhumed and inspected before viable DNA was collected from several "DNA rich areas," according to a press release sent by Murgo.
Murgo said that the new development will "allow us to extract, sequence, and apply DNA results to genealogy databases across the globe in hopes of identifying the unidentified homicide victim."
The case remains under investigation.