Patricia Newsom was murdered in August 1975. On August 16, 1975, a truck driver was making a delivery when he noticed something in the drainage ditch. It was a long object wrapped in a canvas tarp and held closed by a coaxial cable. The driver suspected it was a body and called the police. A detective arrived, cut a small hole in the tarp, and saw a human leg. The body was taken to the medical examiner’s office. It was bloated and showed signs of decomposition. Once the tarp was removed, it revealed a young woman’s body, fully nude, with no possessions or identification. Her head was wrapped in a towel and covered with a plastic trash bag and her mouth was stuffed with a cloth gag. Her hands were bound together behind her back with wire and her legs were similarly tied together at the ankles. Her death was ruled a homicide from asphyxia by smothering. Police had no idea who she was. Police were able to get good fingerprints. With a description, dental records, fingerprints, and a blood type, police believed they would identify her quickly. They created a composite sketch which was published in the local papers and circulated. Investigators went to motels and asked transient people whether they recognized a sketch of the woman. Weeks turned into months, and the town was saddled with the responsibility of handling her body. They buried her in an unmarked grave as "Jane Doe" in Hamden, Connecticut. Then, she faded from public view for twenty years. In May 1994, police revisited the case. The police chief explained a potential connection to a known transgender killer named Samantha Glenner (formerly Glen Robert Askeborn) and a few other unsolved murders. Police saw enough coincidences in the crimes to interview Glenner about their Jane Doe, but it went nowhere. In 2020, officers Joseph Murgo and David Emerman were both promoted to Captain, and determined to restore the identity of the 1975 Jane Doe case. With the rise of genetic genealogy, they felt confident. The medical examiner had kept a pubic bone but they were unable to recover any DNA from it. Murgo and Emerman needed to find her body. By 2022, they realized that the cemetery in which she was buried was no longer professionally managed, and there were no records. They only knew she had been buried in a metal Ziegler casket. It took multiple trips to the cemetery and several failed attempts before they located the casket with a ground penetrating radar device. When they opened the lid, there was an autopsy sheet covering the body. The lab quickly developed a full DNA profile of their Jane Doe and turned it over to Identifinders for the genealogical work to begin. Days later, Jane Doe was identified as Patricia Newsom. They contacted Patricia's sister, Maryann, to break the news. In April 2023, a press conference was held to announce Patricia's identity. Afterwards, police returned to their files to see if knowing Patricia’s identity would change their understanding of the case. They knew that Patricia had been at a boarding school, disappeared, and had not been heard from for 2-3 years before her body was found. But aside from that, they had no real leads on who may have killed her. Patricia had never been reported missing, largely because her mother died when she was 11 years old, and her father and his new wife had limited contact with her. Patricia's body was exhumed a second time and removed from the sheet-metal casket. She was cremated and reburied with her mother in October 2023. Her killer was never found. Patricia was 18 years old.
#grave #cemetery #mausoleum #graves #cemeteries #cemeteryexplorer #cemeteryexplorers #famous #famouspeople #famousgraves #famousgrave #graveyard #gravephotographer #gravestone #gravestones #taphophile #taphophilia #celebritygraves #murder #murdervictim #murdervictims #murdervictimsawareness #unsolved #unsolvedcases #unsolvedcasefiles #unsolvedcrime #unsolvedcrimes #truecrimetiktok #truecrime #truecrimecommunity #truecrimetok