Exhumation On Cold Case Murder: For Now, She Remains Buried & Unknown

HAMDEN, CT — It was hoped the grave found by investigators in the ancient, overgrown, and abandoned State Street Cemetery in Hamden would be that of the woman known as Jane Doe, the victim of an East Haven homicide 47 years ago.

It was not.

East Haven police, the sleuths who have followed the case for more than a decade, investigators from the State’s Attorney's Office, Hamden police, East Haven’s police chaplain, the owners of the East Haven Memorial Funeral Home, among others, gathered early Wednesday morning for the exhumation. Patch was on the scene.

A town public works backhoe driven from East Haven, and Public Works Superintendent Charlie Coyle arrived just before 9 a.m. Coyle called this work the most unusual of his career. And, he recalled the case.

The plan was to dig gently in the spot where investigators believe she had been buried, and then using the machine, raze the box she was buried in, called a Ziegler casket, a metal box that’s used for shipping remains.

Police believed they had the right spot. And the digging began.

She has a name, and it's not Jane Doe

In August 1975, a trucker found a body bound and wrapped in plastic in a Frontage Road drainage ditch in the area now home to CarMax. The woman, who was believed to be white or Latina, was somewhere between 18 and 28 years old, with a slight build. She'd been murdered. Her cause of death was asphyxiation; she was likely strangled to death.

She was never identified.

At the time, the town paid the East Haven Memorial Funeral Home $600 to handle her burial. And with nowhere to bury her, the State Street Cemetery in Hamden was chosen as it was home to a number of indigent burials.

Her killer was never caught, in large part because she was never identified, though there’s long been a suspect.

East Haven’s oldest cold case was taken over by police Capt. Joseph M. Murgo and Capt. David Emerman two years ago. Their goal was to find out who she is.

After extensive work to try and ID her through a piece of her pelvic bone, which was ultimately unsuccessful, it was decided to find her grave.

The plan was to exhume her body, and use DNA and other technologies to finally put a name to the face that’s been buried on the edge of a fence in an ancient and unkempt burying ground sans a marker of any kind.

Through all their best efforts, they did not find her Wednesday. The grave they thought was hers was also one that was unmarked. But when that casket was raised and examined, it was determined it was not Jane Doe.

"She wasn't in the spot we thought, but we believe we're in the right area of the cemetery," Murgo said. He said that "cemetery records have proven to be too inaccurate and unreliable."

"We'll be using specialized ground sonar equipment the next time," he said.

A next time will require that the police go back into court to obtain another search warrant to exhume her grave site.

The funeral home owners

Joseph Deko and James Integlia, owners of the East Haven Memorial Funeral Home, had brought with them a fine casket, at their own expense, for Jane Doe. But given she was not found, they donated it to replace the casket that was disinterred. Why?

"It was the right thing to do," Deko said. "We'd brought a brand-new casket. We could not, in good conscience, not provide a new casket."

In 1976, the town paid the funeral home to care for Jane Doe. The owner at the time was Sal Longobardi. Deko said that he has very little information, as the file for the services provided is very thin.

"Sal sadly passed away in 1989, and there is not much in the file. I’d imagine it was very sad," he said.

But Deko and Integlia are still committed to her.

Having secured all the permits to perform the disinterment of the body and to assist police, Deko said he hoped that once she was exhumed, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner would "hopefully identify her."

"We are honored to assist police in identifying this woman so her and her family can have closure, and she can eternally rest In peace," he said.

"It is very important to James and me to help identify this young woman," Deko said. He and Integlia were at the cemetery Wednesday, with the new casket in their vehicle.

"We take caring for the deceased of our community, and everyone whose family entrusts us with their loved one, very seriously," Deko said. "We were there today. And we will be back and provide another casket for (Jane Doe). We're supporting the East Haven police completely."

And for their part, it's not the end.

Murgo and Emerman are "disappointed" with Wednesday's outcome, Murgo said.

"But we're undeterred," he said. "The case continues."