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Posted on 11/20/2018 2:16:49 PM PST by ETL
Investigators may finally have a break in a cold case murder that has haunted the Boston area for almost 50 years.
The Middlesex District Attorney's Office is slated to hold a press conference Tuesday afternoon to announce a "significant development" in the unsolved 1969 killing of Jane Britton due to DNA testing.
"Over the past year our office has been in the process of conducting DNA testing on the evidence taken from a 1969 Cambridge homicide," Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a press release Monday. "I am excited to announce a significant development in the case as a result of that testing."
Prosecutors declined to provide more details before the press conference takes place.
Britton, a 23-year-old graduate student studying anthropology at Harvard University, was found dead in her fourth-floor apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the chilly afternoon of Jan. 7, 1969. A boyfriend discovered her body when he came to check on her after she didn't show up for an exam that morning.
Britton, a native of Needham, Massachusetts, had been sexually assaulted and bludgeoned to death, according to Cambridge police records.
The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper of Harvard University, reported that police found "reddish-brown powder" scattered across the walls, ceiling and floor of Britton's apartment, as well as on her body.
Police questioned several people at the time, but investigators never identified a suspect and the case went cold for decades -- until now.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Where was Ted Kennedy?
Booker T. Hillery....?
nvm
Looks like the serial rapist victimized many. Looks like he’s getting his justice on the flip side.
Soooooo, who dun it?
Most stories are NOT showing a pic of the perp. Go figure.
And use of ancestry DNA bags another one. Though this perp took a dirt nap quite a while ago.
Found part of Boston Herald article from 6 years ago about DNA-connected him to a 1973 murder. Also used the fire escape and an ingress as in Britton's rape/murder.
So Tuesday afternoon already came and went. So what gives?
G Damn Amish.
Here’s the updated story from the Post...
“Authorities believe Sumpter, who has been linked to the murders of two women in Boston since his death, one in 1972 and another in 1973, entered Britton’s apartment through an open window. A nearby resident reported hearing someone on Britton’s fire escape prior to the killing, Ryan said. But like his other two victims, investigators don’t believe Sumpter had any significant connection to Britton.
Sumpter, who was convicted in the 1975 rape of another woman at her Boston apartment, had lived in Cambridge as a child and was familiar with the city, Ryan said. He was also involved with the city’s police department as a juvenile, she said.
Investigators were also able to place Sumpter working in Cambridge less than two years before Britton’s murder and he was arrested and convicted of raping a woman at a bar in Boston just blocks from Britton’s apartment in 1975, Ryan said.
Sumpter died of cancer at age 54, some 13 months after he was paroled to hospice care for the 1975 rape, Ryan said.
Investigators were ultimately able to link Sumpter to Britton’s murder last year “strictly thanks to forensic development,” Ryan said, adding that advanced DNA testing from the original evidence collected from Britton led to a match in a national law enforcement database.
That led investigators to obtain a sample from a male relative of Sumpter’s and Sumpter was identified as the killer, while excluding several other people once considered to be suspects, authorities said.
Sumpter’s male relative ultimately was tracked down with the help of genealogy websites like Ancestry.com and was cooperative with investigators. Sumpter, meanwhile, has now been posthumously connected to five sexual assaults, three of which were fatal, Ryan said.”
https://nypost.com/2018/11/20/dna-evidence-leads-to-closure-in-1969-cold-case-murder-da/
Ping to post 15...
I hope this gives her family comfort. Too bad the perp couldn’t pay the price in this world. I’m sure he did in the hereafter.
January 10, 1969
James F. Reagan, Cambridge Chief of Police, declared a virtual black-out yesterday on all future news concerning the murder of Jane S. Britton, the 22-year-old Harvard graduate student who was found murdered last Tuesday.
Reagan told reporters at a special news conference on the killing that the police will not release any further discoveries until he personally gives his permission.
The reason for the black-out, Reagan said, was that there have been “inaccuracies” in press coverage of the killing. Reagan did not say what these inaccuracies were.
Police began speculating that the killer performed an ancient burial rite over Miss Britton’s body after they found iodine oxide, a reddish-brown powder, on the walls, ceiling, and floor of the apartment and on her body.
Primitive tribes in Iran and France sprinkled a similar powder, red ochre, over the bodies of their dead in order to purify the bodies and to drive off evil spirits.
Caught as he was leaving his office for the day, Reagan said that police have now found the sharp-edged stone which had been missing from Miss Britton’s apartment. He refused to say where the stone was found.
The stone, a gift to Miss Britton from Mr. & Mrs. Donald D. Mitchell, two friends, was an archaeological souvenir. Police say Miss Britton was killed by five blows to the head from a sharp object and left lying face-down on a mattress in her apartment.
Police questioned four people involved in the case yesterday, including James H. Humphries and Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell, all graduate students in anthropology. Humphries and the Mitchells discovered Miss Britton’s body.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/1/10/cambridge-police-declare-black-out-on-britton/
When does he get the Democrat nomination?
You just know he’s still voting...
Preoccupied.
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