After Mary Thompson moved to Greensburg, Pa., in the mid-1990s, her sick mother told her something she never forgot.
“She told me to be careful in Greensburg because I had a sister that was murdered up there,” Thompson told The Washington Post.
Thompson’s
mother died in the early 2000s, but her words stayed with her daughter —
because she did have an older sister who disappeared on a fall day in
1967, when Thompson was only 4, and was never found.
From what
Thompson was told, 13-year-old Teala Patricia Thompson left her home in
the Homewood neighborhood in Pittsburgh in the early morning on a
September day in 1967. That was the last time her family saw her.
They reported her disappearance to Pittsburgh police, Thompson said, but
investigators had come up empty.
Until now.
Teala was
identified earlier this week. Her body had been buried in an unmarked
grave in a cemetery potter’s field next to the Westmoreland County
Prison in Greensburg.
The discovery came after nearly two years of a cold-case
investigation led by Pennsylvania State trooper Brian Gross, who was
assigned the case in October 2014. One of his crime unit supervisors
told him to look into an open homicide investigation that involved an
unidentified girl whose body was discovered in a landfill in Salem
Township, Pa., in 1967 — the same year Teala disappeared. The court
later ordered the body to be buried in that potter’s field, Gross told
The Washington Post.
Last October, investigators received a court
order allowing them to exhume the body. A dental charting done in the
1960s showed that the remains definitely belong to the girl from the
landfill, Gross said. At that point, it was just a matter of finding out
who she was.
Thompson heard about the exhumation in the news and
immediately called Gross. “It’s my sister,” Thompson told Gross,
remembering her mother’s words.
Investigators obtained DNA
samples from Thompson and other relatives and sent them to the
University of North Texas, which does DNA testing for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The
results came Monday: It is 47.5 billion times more likely that the DNA
from the remains matched the samples from Thompson and other relatives
than anyone else from any population.
Gross said he went to Thompson’s home to deliver the news.
[In 42-year-old cold case, suspected murder victim turns up alive]
The
52-year-old mother of four said she has waited all her life for that
news, which gave her the best feeling of her life, and the worst feeling
of her life. Although she does not remember much about her sister Teala
— her mother had 10 kids — she grew up wondering where she was, and
that question haunted her family for decades.
“We’re grateful, but we’re still hurting,” she said. “We’re happy, but we’re hurting.”
Teala
would’ve been 62 today. Thompson said her family would like to give her
a proper burial. She plans to give the remains to her older sister
Jerry Denson of Saylorsburg, Pa. Denson and Teala were about the same
age when she disappeared. They played together, Thompson said. They were
best friends.
In 2015, 460,499 incidents of missing children were reported to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, according to the FBI. That number was 466,949 in 2014.
A 2012 nationwide survey by the nonprofit RAND Corporation
found that police agencies cleared about one in five cold-case
investigations. Homicide is the most common type investigated by
agencies, followed by sexual assault and burglary. The survey also
showed that funding for cold-case investigations is often thin. Only 7
percent of responding agencies have dedicated cold-case units, and
14 percent had formal procedures in determining which cases to
investigate.
The Pennsylvania State Police, where Gross has
worked for 25 years, is one of those law enforcement agencies that have
cold-case units. Gross said he will retire next week, and another
investigator will take over Teala’s case. Although the discovery of
her body gave her family some resolution, it isn’t closure, Gross said,
because the girl’s killer has yet to be found.
Thompson and her
family have always had their suspicions. Teala used to help with work at
a now-closed dry cleaner in the Homewood neighborhood. They believe a
man who worked there is responsible, but no one has ever been charged.
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