The Ontario Provincial Police were finally able to identify a woman found dead in 1975 in the town of Casselman, 55 km southeast of Ottawa, leading to a formal charge being laid against the place of an 81-year-old American.
Advances in DNA analysis and forensics have helped police resolve the impasse in the case, reports Global News.
On May 3, 1975, a farmer reportedly found the body of what is now identified as Jewell “Lalla” Langford, in Ontario’s River Nation.
Over the years, authorities have tried to identify him in every way possible and compiled a list of all potential suspects following a public appeal.
In 2019, his body was exhumed to obtain a DNA sample for analysis by a specialized laboratory in the United States.
After genome sequencing, scientists were able to identify Ms Langford in 2020.
It would be while returning from a trip to Montreal that the woman would have died.
In the months that followed, investigators from the Ontario Coroner’s Office worked jointly with the FBI and Canadian and American authorities to find who was responsible for his death.
A charge was subsequently laid last year against Rodney Nichols, an 81-year-old American living in Hollywood, Florida.
The authorities only made the announcement on Wednesday so as not to interfere with the investigation.
“Today we can announce that we have solved this case for his family and the communities in Eastern Ontario who have lived with this unsolved investigation for over 47 years,” says the provincial police commissioner. from Ontario, Marty Kearns.
Authorities, however, have not released the cause of the lady’s death.