The ‘Lady of the Dunes’ body, which has remained unidentified for over 50 years, was at last identified on Oct. 31.
“She was the oldest, unidentified homicide victim in Massachusetts,” according to the Associated Press. She was believed to have been 37 years old when she died..
On July 26, 1974, Ruth Marie Terry was found “naked on a beach blanket with her hands severed— so she could not be identified by her fingerprints, officials believe. Her skull was crushed and she was nearly decapitated,” AP reported.
Her body was first discovered in June of 1974 in the Race Point Dunes in Provincetown, Massachusetts, near the Cape Cod seashore by a girl hiking with her family.
Terry’s body was exhumed in 1980, 2000 and 2013 in an attempt to identify her and her killer.
APNews reports that Joseph Bonavolta, an FBI agent in Boston’s division, revealed that Terry was identified through “investigative genealogy, the use of DNA analysis in combination with traditional genealogy research and historical records.”
Terry lived in Tennesse but is believed to have had ties to the states of California, Massachusetts and Michigan as well. There were many theories as to who she could’ve been, even writer Joe Hill, son of Stephen King, believed she might have been an extra from the movie “Jaws,” since it was filmed on nearby Martha’s Vineyard that year, according to the New York Times.
The Cape & Islands District Attorney’s Office, the Provincetown Police Department, and the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit for Cape Cod & the Islands are seeking more information on Terry and are encouraging anyone with additional information to contact their offices.
“It’s very likely that the person who did this is dead,” Michael D. O’Keefe, the district attorney for Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, told the media. “But they may not be, and so the message to them if they’re still out there is: ‘We’re coming.’”
