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New Details Of Marlboro Bones Released
Investigators: Bones Are That Of Female Caucasian
September 26, 2003
MARLBORO, Mass. --
A human skeleton discovered on the campus of a private school belonged to a Caucasian woman about 5 feet tall and between the ages of 19 and 40, investigators said Friday.
The bones were buried in a shallow grave and were likely dug up by animals, according to a release from the Middlesex district attorney's office and the Marlboro police.
They were spread over a 50-yard area and had been there anywhere from three months to several years, authorities said.
The skull and spine were discovered Wednesday afternoon by a group of students and faculty who were clearing brush for a bike path in a heavily wooded section of the Hillside School's sprawling campus, about 300 yards south of Interstate 290.
Local police called in the Middlesex DA's office to investigate. More bones were found on Thursday, and the remains were examined Friday by a forensic anthropologist.
The woman was wearing a teal zip-front jacket, a shirt with blue and white stripes on the sleeves, a red and black long-sleeved shirt and blue plaid pajama pants, according to the release.
Authorities are asking for the publics help in identifying the woman, whose death is being treated as "suspicious," a spokesman for Middlesex DA
Martha Coakley said.
The Hillside School, an independent boarding and day school for boys, has 105 students in grades 5 through 9 and is set on more than 250 acres of
fields, forests, and ponds in Marlboro. Assistant Headmaster Arthur Goodearl said nobody from the school had gone missing in anyone's memory.
Remains of Second Body Found
At Marlboro School
September 30th, 2003:
Investigators uncovered the second body while searching the area where the first body was found last Wednesday, according to a statement from the Middlesex District Attorney's office.
Seth Horwitz, a spokesman for Middlesex DA Martha Coakley, said a forensic anthropologist was expected to examine the second set of remains Tuesday to determine the gender and approximate age, as well as to provide any other clues about identity and cause of death.
"We are investigating a lot of the circumstances surrounding last week's discovery and today's discovery," Horwitz said.
He declined to comment on whether police had received tips since authorities asked for the publics help in identifying the first set of remains.
"We do urge anyone who does have information to contact Marlboro police or our office," he said.
The bones found last week belonged to a woman between the ages of 19 and 40. They were buried in a shallow grave and may have been dug up by animals because they were spread over a 50-yard area. They'd been there anywhere from three months to several years, authorities said.
That skeleton was discovered by a group of students and faculty who were clearing brush for a bike path in a heavily wooded section of the Hillside School's sprawling campus, about 300 yards south of Interstate 290.
More details in bones search
Authorities describe victim's belongings
By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff, October 1st, 2003
MARLBOROUGH --
A second set of bones found on the grounds of a boys' boarding school were identified yesterday as those of a woman, as investigators released more details of clothing and jewelry found with another set of female remains discovered on the campus last week.
As police and dogs search the heavy woods behind the Hillside School, authorities are hoping that jewelry -- including an engraved "#1 Mom" bracelet found among the first set of bones -- will offer clues to the women's identities and the circumstances of their deaths.
Speaking yesterday at Marlborough Police headquarters, Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley said medical examiners have determined that human bones discovered Monday belonged to a white woman between the ages 30 and 45 whose height ranged from 5 feet to 5-foot-4. She has been dead from three months to five years, Coakley said.
Authorities searching the area Monday for additional remains uncovered the second set of bones, including a skull, approximately 100 yards from where another woman's skull and body were found last week.
Forensic specialists have determined that that woman was also white, about 5 feet tall, between the ages of 20 and 35, and had been dead between three months and three years.
The deaths are considered suspicious, and authorities believe they might be related because of the proximity of the remains. But investigators have yet to find any evidence that the women were murdered.
"There's no obvious signs of foul play," Coakley said. "Until we find out who they are, it's going to be very difficult to determine how they died and where they died."
Authorities determined that a red and black Guess shirt believed to belong to the first woman whose remains were discovered Wednesday was made in 2000. The clothing, which was tattered and weathered, also included flannel pajama pants and a zippered top with blue and white stripes on the sleeves.
Authorities also found two rings believed to have belonged to that woman: a turquoise single-band ring and an adjustable ring with fake stones, possibly cubic zirconia, Coakley said. The mother's bracelet was found on an arm bone, Coakley said.
No clothing or jewelry was found with the second set of remains.
The first remains were discovered by students clearing a nature trail in a remote corner of the Hillside School's sprawling campus. The next day, police found a grave and additional human remains that animals had strewn across a 50-yard area near the Assabet River, about 300 yards south of Interstate 290.
The second set of remains were found farther away from the highway and closer to the river, authorities said.
The first woman's teeth -- as were the second woman's -- were in very poor condition, which authorities said suggested she may have been homeless or a runaway.
Nearly 80 percent of the first skeleton has been recovered, and about
40 percent of the second.
"Our hope is that someone will say, `We have a daughter, a sister, someone we know who is missing' and be able to do the match," Coakley
said.
Authorities have not turned up anyone matching the victims' profiles in missing-person databases, but said they plan to widen the search beyond Massachusetts and New England. They asked for the publics assistance, hoping that the descriptions of the women and the "somewhat distinctive" jewelry would help produce leads in the investigation.
"Anything about the clothing or the jewelry may ring a bell or strike a chord with someone, particularly since we've narrowed the time range of what we believe was the disappearance," Coakley said. "Until we identify who these young women are, our hands are really tied."
Kym Pasqualini, president of the Nation's Center for Missing Adults, said that finding somewhat unusual personal items greatly boosts the chance of identifying remains. But she said that fewer adults are reported missing and, as a result, the remains of adults are harder to identify.
"There's no mandate that requires a missing person report to be taken for adults," she said. "However, there is a mandate for children."
At the end of August, there were more than 100,000 missing persons
nationwide, including about 60,000 juveniles. But many of the adults
disappeared as children, she said.
If a skull is found relatively intact, forensic specialists can often determine the individual's facial features fairly accurately, she said. "We're advancing in some remarkable ways in identifying human
remains."
A grave has not been found for the second woman's remains, and the two do not appear to have been buried together, authorities said.
Authorities said the area where the remains were found includes wetlands and is difficult to get to, making it a tough spot to dump a body.
The area can be reached by an unpaved, overgrown access road on a one-time farm. But investigators say it's unclear where the women died.
Marlborough police said youths occasionally gather in the woods where the remains were found, to have drinks.
Yesterday, seven dogs searched the woods, and Marlborough Police Chief Mark Leonard said he expected dogs trained to sniff for dead bodies to search today for additional remains.
Skeleton at Mass. School Grounds ID'd
By MARTIN FINUCANE,
Associated Press Writer / MARLBORO, Mass. -
One of two sets of skeletal remains found on the grounds of a private school in the last week belonged to a mother of two who has been missing for more than a year.
Carmen Rudy, 29, was reported missing last October. Rudy's sister called investigators this week to say one of the bodies might be that of her sister, Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley said. Rudy was the mother of two teenagers who live in Worcester.
The cause of death is unknown, Coakley said. While there were no obvious signs of foul play, the death is "highly suspicious," she said.
Rudy's skeleton was found Monday in a heavily wooded area on the grounds of the Hillside School, a private middle school for boys in Marlboro. Investigators came across her while searching the area where the other woman's skeleton was discovered last week.
Those bones were described as belonging to a woman around 5-feet tall and between the ages of 20 and 35. The woman was wearing a T-shirt made in 2000, so the bones could not have been there for more than three years.
Investigators were still working to identify the remains of the other woman, who may have died around the same time.
Coakley said investigators have not been able to match the first body with any missing persons reports.
Profiler's Theory Links Abductions, Bones
By Joe Dwinell / News Staff Writer
Saturday, September 27, 2003
A string of murders and abductions coupled with an "extremely large" sex offender population in central Massachusetts has a criminal profiler fearing bones discovered in Marlborough may point to a serial killer. "Here's another dead woman or dead girl," said John Kelly, whose agency, STALK (System to Apprehend Lethal Killers Inc.), probes crime clusters.
"I believe there's a serial killer in that area," he said by phone yesterday. "There's a lot going on up there."
Kelly and a partner, former Seattle Police Chief Frank Adams, were called into the Molly Bish case, involving the disappearance and slaying of a teenage lifeguard in Warren. Now the discovery of a skull and spine in Marlborough just off Interstate 290 has piqued their interest. "There are quite a few girls missing or killed," said Kelly. "Many are blond-haired, blue-eyed... there just seems to be a connection."
The Marlborough victim is said to be a woman anywhere from 19 to 40 years old and 4 feet, 11 inches to 5 feet, 1 inch tall. Clothes found at the crime scene include pajama bottoms, a long-sleeved shirt and a jacket that zips, according to Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley.
Kelly said there may be links to other murders in the region, but a pattern is beginning to develop. "You also have an extremely large sex offender population in a somewhat sparsely populated region," Kelly added.
Charles McDonald from the Sex Offender Registry Board said Marlborough has 21 Level 2 sex offenders classified as either living or working in the city. The state is still registering the 18,000 sex offenders convicted in Massachusetts since 1981, so many more may reside in the area.
"There's other sex offenders out there arrested but never convicted," McDonald added. "There's no way of knowing just how many there are." The Worcester district attorney's office said Kelly "worked independently" on the Bish case.
Kelly said he was stunned that 11 suspects in the abduction and murder of Molly Bish all failed a polygraph test. Bish disappeared from her lifeguard job at Comins Pond in Warren in June 2000. Her remains were found in the woods in nearby Palmer this summer.
Kelly said there is an eerie similarity to other cases. In October 1985, Wayland's Sarah Pryor, 9, went for an afternoon walk in her new neighborhood and was never seen alive again. A piece of her skull was found 10 years later.
Stow's Cathy Malcolmson, 17, left home Aug. 13, 1985, on her bicycle but never made it to work. Grafton lost Holly Piirainen, a 10-year-old girl, who was last seen alive near her grandmother's Sturbridge cottage on Aug. 5, 1993. She was found murdered two months later in Brimfield.
Police have not gathered enough evidence to bring charges in any of the crimes but have eyed suspects in each case.
"I don't want to alarm anyone," Kelly said about his serial-killer theory, but the murders are just too troubling to ignore.
"This destroys a family. Their heart will never heal."
(Joe Dwinell can be reached at 508-626-3923 or by e-mail at jdwinell@cnc.com)
