Authorities exhumed a body in a Connecticut cemetery Wednesday in hopes of identifying the victim of a nearly half-century-old homicide, only to find someone else's remains, a news station reported.
But East Haven Police told WTNH News 8 they will keep investigating and aim to pinpoint the victim's actual grave at the State Street Cemetery in Hamden.
She was found, dead and wrapped in a tarp, in a drainage ditch behind a now-gone department store in East Haven on Aug. 16, 1975. Authorities were never able to determine her name, so police refer to her as Jane Doe.
Police have determined that she was buried in 1976 at the State Street Cemetery. But East Haven Police Capt. Joseph Murgo says her grave wasn't marked, making it a challenge to locate.
The person whose body was exhumed Wednesday was male, police told News 8.
“The exact coordinates we were originally going off seem to be incorrect. So we do have more investigative leads to follow,” Murgo said.
Murgo said several suspects have been eyed over the years, but to make more progress, police need to figure out who the victim was.
“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 told the news station.
