Officials have positively recognized the stays of a lady whose physique was discovered hidden in brush beneath a plastic tarp in 1973, Pennsylvania authorities mentioned this week.
The stays belong to Ruth Elizabeth Brenneman, 14, Pennsylvania State Police Sgt. Josh Lacey advised reporters at a information convention Wednesday.
Two sport wardens discovered the decomposed stays of a younger lady in a wooded space of Lebanon County on Oct. 10, 1973, roughly 47 miles from Brenneman’s residence in York County, Lacey mentioned.
It could not be decided how she died.
Officials have spent the final 50 years making an attempt to determine the lady, Lacey mentioned. In one other effort to determine her, officers, with the assistance of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, exhumed the lady’s physique from Mount Lebanon Cemetery in May 2016.
Finally, the optimistic identification was made final month after her stays have been examined at Lehigh Valley Hospital. Lacey mentioned she was recognized utilizing family tree.
“As a results of their efforts, this younger feminine will now not be often called Jane Doe,” Lacey mentioned.
Identifying the physique is a “enormous step on this investigation,” State Trooper Ian Keck mentioned. “We need to know in regards to the sufferer and their on a regular basis life, who they related to and their completely different actions.”
Brenneman was final seen “after she left for college and by no means returned residence,” Lacey mentioned. Officials are trying into whether or not she made it to high school that day.
They are additionally making an attempt to find out whether or not Brenneman was thought of lacking and on what day she went lacking, Keck mentioned.
“Just as a result of we recognized her as we speak that does not finish our investigation,” Keck mentioned. “We’re going to do our greatest and put our greatest foot ahead right here to return to a conclusion.”
Anyone who knew Brenneman or is aware of something about her is requested to contact Pennsylvania State Police.
Lacey declined to say whether or not there’s a particular person of curiosity within the case and could not say for certain whether or not it was a murder, as that’s nonetheless “pending” with the coroner’s workplace.
He did say there was “some degree of suspicion” to Brenneman’s dying “given the actual fact she was discovered beneath a tarp in some brush.”
Brenneman’s household, in a press release learn by Lacey, mentioned her identification “has supplied us with some closure on questions which have lingered for the previous 51 years.”