New York 1964 Cold Case Solved – A DNA Match Led Police to a Grave, 62 Years Later

Breaking news out of Shiman County where law enforcement in Almmyra are announcing a resolution to a more than 60year-old cold case murder. Today, Almyra police and the Schuman County District Attorney’s Office said they have resolved the homicide of Mary Terresa Simpson. Simpson was 12 years old when she was reported missing on Sunday, March 15th, 1964.

Her body was found hidden in a wooded area off of Combs Hill Road on March 19th. She had been covered with branches, dirt, and heavy stones. No arrests have ever been made regarding her death. But now, police say modern forensic analysis, including DNA testing and genetic genealogy, have led to the identification of a suspect.

 A press conference is planned for next month to go through the case developments and identification. In November 2025, investigators in Elmmyra, New York, opened the grave of a man who had been dead for more than 20 years. They believed his remains could answer a question police had been asking since 1964, who killed a 12-year-old girl on her way home from visiting relatives.

 The man inside the grave had lived in Elmyra, worked as a truck driver, and raised a family there. Even so, there is no record that he was ever questioned about her murder. His name didn’t appear among the suspects, witnesses, or known offenders examined during the original investigation. In fact, it was absent from a case file that eventually grew to approximately 6,000 pages.

 By the time detectives finally reached him, he was already dead. So, police obtained permission to exume his remains and compare his DNA with biological evidence preserved from the girl’s clothing for more than 60 years. If they were right, the answer hadn’t been hidden in a forgotten interview or buried somewhere inside an overlooked report.

 It had been buried with a man whose name was never in the file. But before the grave, the family trees, and the laboratory testing, there was a 12-year-old girl walking home on a Sunday evening. On March 15th, 1964, she spent the afternoon visiting relatives in Elmyra. At around 6:30 that evening, she was seen near East Market and Harriet Streets. She never made it home.

 This is the story of how police were eventually led to a man they had never investigated. This is Radius of Crime. Subscribe for carefully researched cold cases where the victims never stay forgotten. Her name was Mary Teresa Simpson. Mary was 12 years old. Her older sister, Linda Galpin, was 16. And the two grew up playing with other children in their Elmyra neighborhood.

Linda remembered games of kick the can and metal roller skates that clamped onto their shoes and tightened with a key. The sisters also attended the neighborhood house, went to camp, and took dancing lessons together. Mary was in Girl Scouts, and was remembered as a good student. Linda described her younger sister as shy but active, and decades later, those were still the details she carried with her.

 A child who could be quiet around strangers, yet full of movement around the people she knew. Well, I only could tell you a little bit because I wasn’t home when my sister got murdered.  Linda Galpin says she has been waiting for justice for her younger sister, Mary, for more than 60 years.  We were very close when we were younger.

We went to the neighborhood house. We learned we went to Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts. We did roller skating together. She was a very active person and she was very shy. I just know that she was found up on Combmes Hill and then she was covered up with uh Boers and a hand was sticking out.

 She was fully clothed when they found her and I guess she had twigs in her mouth. That’s that’s what I heard.  Among the objects later preserved with the case were Mary’s cat eye glasses and a fan club card. They would eventually be photographed as evidence, but they’d started as ordinary possessions belonging to a child with school work, interests, and places she expected to return to.

 By March 1964, Mary was living with her father, Ellsworth Simpson, in Elmmyra. Her parents were separated, but she remained connected to relatives across the city. Sunday, March 15th, began with one of those ordinary family visits. At around 3 that afternoon, Mary left home. Several hours later, she started back. At approximately 6:30 that evening, she was seen near East Market and Harriet Streets, believed to be walking toward the North Main Street apartment sheared with her father.

 That became the last confirmed sighting of her. When Mary failed to arrive home, concern grew quickly. And at around 10:30 that night, Ellsworth Simpson reported his daughter missing to Elmyra police. Officers and family members began checking relatives, friends, neighborhood streets, and places where she might have become lost or injured.

 Investigators also questioned people who may have seen her and tried to reconstruct what happened after she passed the intersection. Still, no confirmed witness could account for what happened next. An intensive search followed, but one night passed and then another without finding her. By the fourth day, the search had moved beyond the city streets where Mary had last been seen.

 Then, on March 19th, a man entered a wooded area near Combmes Hill Road in Southport with his two sons, approximately 7 miles from Mary’s home. They found her beneath dirt, branches, and heavy stones. At that moment, the search for a missing child became a murder investigation. Mary’s body had been partially concealed in the woods, and she was still fully clothed.

 Investigators determined that she’d been sexually assaulted and had died from. Police secured the scene and collected anything that might identify the person responsible. Mary’s clothing was retained along with her glasses and fan club card. At the time, investigators could examine the clothing for stains, fibers, and other physical traces.

 What they couldn’t do was develop a DNA profile because that technology didn’t exist in 1964. Biological material could be preserved, but it couldn’t yet be converted into an individual genetic identity. Meanwhile, the investigation expanded quickly. Police interviewed relatives, neighbors, people who’d seen Mary that Sunday, and known offenders whose histories made them relevant.

 Possible suspects were examined, but neither the interviews nor the available physical evidence identified the person responsible. Investigators also found no documented connection pointing towards someone close to Mary. If the attack had been committed by a stranger, there might be no relationship, dispute, or known meeting for police to uncover.

 The Woods had provided evidence, but they hadn’t provided a name. Over the decades that followed, the investigation involved hundreds of interviews and grew into a file of approximately 6,000 pages. Detectives reconsidered suspects, reviewed old statements, and preserved the physical evidence collected in 1964. Despite that work, the case never reached a charge.

 Years later, Elmyra police partnered with the Criminal Investigation Resource Center at Russell Sage College. Students helped organize the reports, catalog the suspects, and examine which pieces of evidence had been tested. Their work gave detectives a clearer map of the investigation, a consolidated suspect list, cataloged forensic material, and gaps identified in the testing history.

 They also found that some evidence had been submitted to laboratories, even though the corresponding results weren’t clearly documented in the surviving file. More importantly, the review confirmed something central to the modern investigation. The man police would eventually identify hadn’t been overlooked inside the file.

 He wasn’t an old suspect whose name had been forgotten, and he hadn’t been interviewed and released. According to Christina Lane, the cent’s director, his name didn’t appear in the 6,000 pages at all. Police had spent decades examining the people connected to Mary. The answer would eventually come from a man the paper record had never reached.

 Although the investigation stalled, the evidence from Mary’s clothing survived. In 2003, investigators submitted items of her clothing for modern forensic testing and developed male DNA evidence. The resulting profile was searched through the National Law Enforcement System, but there was no match. Investigators searched again in 2014.

 The result was the same. Those failed searches didn’t mean the profile was useless, though. A law enforcement database can only produce an identification when a sufficiently comparable profile is already available to it. And in Mary’s case, no such association appeared. So police possessed a genetic signature believed to belong to the person responsible, but they still didn’t possess his name.

 There was no known suspect whose DNA could be compared directly with it. The man behind it remained outside both the criminal database and the original investigation. That left detectives with only one realistic path forward. Instead of waiting for the contributor himself to appear in a law enforcement system, they’d have to search for people who shared portions of his DNA.

 They’d have to search for his relatives. In 2022, Sergeant William Goodwin obtained funding from Season of Justice for advanced forensic testing. The remaining material was sent to Aram, a Texas laboratory that specializes in developing genealogical profiles from small or damaged samples. But there was almost nothing left to work with.

 The usable sample measured approximately 0.4 nanog, too small to see with the naked eye. and investigators believed there might be no second attempt if the testing failed. FBI special agent Kenneth Jensen packed the evidence in dry ice and shipped it toward the laboratory. Then an ice storm shut down the FedEx hub in Memphis, Tennessee.

 The package became stranded inside the facility and investigators didn’t know how long the dry ice would last. Evidence that had survived since 1964 was now in danger before it ever reached the laboratory. chosen to test it. Jensen contacted FBI personnel in Memphis. An agent searched the closed hub, located the package, and placed it inside an FBI freezer until shipping operations resumed.

 Once the storm passed, the sample continued to Texas and eventually reached Aram, where analysts weren’t repeating the earlier database search. Instead, they were attempting to develop a broader profile that could identify biological relatives. The attempt worked, and the laboratory successfully produced a genealogical profile.

 It didn’t name Mary’s killer, but it created a path toward his family. That profile was uploaded to databases that permitted investigative searches. And from there, the FBI began building family trees around people who shared portions of the unidentified contributor’s DNA. Investigators worked through birth records, marriages, obituaries, and family relationships.

 Because a genetic relative might be separated from the unknown contributor by several generations, each relationship had to be documented rather than assumed. They also considered age, geography, and whether each possible candidate could have been in Elmyra in 1964. Eventually, the research led to a living man. He wasn’t accused of anything.

 His importance came from the possibility that the unidentified contributor was his biological father. Investigators approached him and asked whether he’d provide a cheek swab. He agreed. When his sample was compared with the profile from Mary’s clothing, the testing indicated that the unknown contributor was his biological father.

 His cooperation allowed investigators to move one generation upward in the family tree. At that point, the search narrowed from distant genetic relatives to one local man who’d been in his early 30s when Mary was killed. He’d worked as a truck driver, lived in Elmmyra, and raised a family there.

 He died in March 2004, decades before genealogy finally led investigators to his family. The son’s sample had produced the lead, but it didn’t provide final confirmation. For that, investigators would need DNA from the father himself. The father was Alfred Raymond Murray Jr. He’d lived in Elmmyra for most, if not all of his life.

 a US Army veteran who’d served during the Korean War. He was married with three children and two grandchildren in his early 30s in 1964, and he died in March 2004. Even so, there was no documented connection between him and Mary in the original case file. Police found no indication that Mary knew Murray, and his name was absent from the suspects and witnesses examined over six decades.

 Once genealogy led investigators to Murray, they began reviewing his history. At the 2026 case announcement, Sergeant Goodwin said records showed repeated criminal involvement over several decades involving offenses against children. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also reported locating old newspaper accounts describing arrests in cases involving children, including allegations dating back to Murray’s teenage years.

 Those reports had to be treated carefully. Public sources didn’t provide a complete record of every case, nor did they establish which allegations resulted in convictions. They offered context for why investigators considered Murray significant after genealogy identified him, but they weren’t the evidence used to confirm his identity in Mary’s case.

Even so, the information raised an unsettling question. How had a local man with that reported history remained entirely outside Mary’s murder investigation? Genealogy had given police a name. Murray’s age, location, and reported history made him someone investigators needed to examine.

 But before they could publicly identify him as responsible, they needed a direct comparison with the male DNA profile from Mary’s clothing. Murray had been dead for more than 20 years, so a sample taken from his remains was the only available way to compare him directly with the evidence. Elmmyra police sought court authority to exume him.

 In November 2025, his remains were removed from an Elmmyra grave. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children helped fund the process and provided access to forensic expertise. Biological samples were then collected and sent for comparison with the male profile preserved from Mary’s clothing. The family tree had produced the lead.

 The exumation supplied the confirmation. The laboratory determined that Alfred Raymond Murray Jr. was the contributor of the DNA recovered from Mary’s clothing. For the first time, evidence collected after her death was connected directly to a named person. The result also explained why the original case file had never reached him. He simply hadn’t been inside it.

 It explained too why the earlier database searches had failed since his profile had never produced an association in the law enforcement system. It had taken preserved evidence, forensic genealogy, a cooperative relative, and finally the opening of Murray’s grave to establish the connection.

 But because Murray was already dead, there would be no arrest, interview, or trial. Police could identify the man they believed responsible, but they couldn’t ask him how he encountered Mary or what happened after she was last seen walking home. On February 10th, 2026, Elmyra police gathered with the FBI, prosecutors, and Mary’s family at the Chimong County District Attorney’s Office.

 Nearly 62 years after Mary was killed, they publicly identified Alfred Raymond Murray Jr. Police reported that the probability of selecting an unrelated person who matched the evidence was less than 1 in 320 billion, and Chief Kristen Thorne said investigators had taken the case as far as they humanly could. The department named Murray as the sole person responsible for Mary’s assault and murder and formally closed the case.

Thorne also said that if Murray had still been alive, prosecutors would have sought to charge him with murder, but he died in 2004, which meant there would be no courtroom resolution. Police believe the attack was likely a crime of opportunity and said they found no documented connection between Mary and Murray.

 Yes. Are we uh ready here? All right. Good afternoon. I appreciate everyone’s attendance for this press conference. This is a historic day for the Ammyra Police Department. Justice after almost 62 years. On Sunday, March 15th, 1964, at approximately 10:50 p.m., 12-year-old Mary Terresa Simpson was reported missing by her father.

 Mary Teresa was last seen in the area of Market Street and Harriet [clears throat] Street on the east side of Almyra around 6:30 p.m. that night. She had been visiting family and then believed to have started walking home. 4 days later on Thursday, March 19th, Mary Teresa’s body was found on Combmes Hill Road.

 At the time, this was utilized as a logging road and a dumping ground for some debris. An autopsy performed showed Mary Teresa to have died from affixiation due to choking andor strangulation. a horrific crime which after decades still resonates with the city of Ommyra. So much that there was even a recent book published regarding the incident.

During the initial investigation, the Amayra Police Department worked with numerous other agencies on the homicide. Members of the Schmunk County Sheriff’s Office, the New York State Police, the New York State Patrol Parole, among many, many others. Tips came in and leads were followed up on. At the time, police had several individuals that they interviewed some many times, but nothing of evidentiary value was leading to a specific person which would allow for criminal charges.

This was 1964. DNA did not come around as a forensic tool until around 1986. While it wasn’t available then, it was still established practice that police collect evidence for solving crimes and prosecution purposes, which officers did at that time. This included clothing, personal effects, and certain evidence at the [snorts] scene.

 At this time, I will ask police department Sergeant William Goodwin to speak about the evidence portion of this case and what began years ago, but has finally come to provide an answer. Sergeant Goodwin is our department’s evidence sergeant and has worked diligently on this case. If Sergeant Goodwin uh could come up, please.  These photographs show the location where Mary Teresa Simpson was found in March of 1964, nearly 62 years ago.

 The place where a case grew cold, but a victim was never forgotten. At the time, investigators responded with the tools and knowledge available in that era. DNA technology did not exist and many of the forensic techniques we rely on today had not yet been developed. Despite those limitations, investigators documented the scene, collected physical evidence, and preserved items they believed could be important in the future.

 That decision would prove critical decades later. From the beginning, physical evidence, including Mary Teresa’s clothing and personal items were collected and maintained. While investigators in 1964, could not have known how forensic science would evolve, their careful handling and preservation of evidence allowed later later generations of investigators to re-examine those items as technology advanced.

In 2003, as DNA technology matured, evidence from this case was resubmitted to the New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center. A cutting from Mary’s underwear as well as her skirt, which was identified as item 7A, tested positive for the presence of sperm. DNA was extracted and an STR mixture profile was developed.

 That profile was entered into the combined DNA index system, also known as Kotus, so that it could be compared against known offenders nationwide. In 2014, further testing was conducted using YSTR analysis, allowing investigators to focus primarily on male DNA. While no match was identified at this time, these steps ensured that the evidence remained active and searchable.

Despite years of investigation and DNA testing, no suspect had been identified through traditional means. However, the consistency of the DNA profile and the quality of the preserved evidence indicated that the case still had investigative potential. Advances in forensic science, particularly investigative genetic genealogy, presented an opportunity to move beyond kotus database matching and identify a suspect through familial relationships.

In 2022, the Ammyra Police Department in partnership with the FBI applied for and received grant funding from the nonprofit Season of Justice. This funding allowed us to pursue advanced DNA testing specifically designed to develop a snip profile for genealological research. Approximately 04 nanogs of DNA was submitted to Aram Incorporated, a laboratory in Texas which specializes in complex forensic DNA analysis.

 A snip profile was developed and uploaded to genetic genealogy databases. As mentioned, we were working with approximately 04 nanogs of DNA. To put that into perspective, that is an extremely small amount of biological material which is invisible to the naked eye. The limited quantity of DNA played a role in both the complexity and the time required to move this case forward.

When DNA testing is performed, the DNA itself is consumed in the process. There are no de uh there are no doovers and we understand that if a usable snip profile could not be developed, we would have likely exhausted all the remaining DNA evidence in this case. That was a significant decision point in this investigation.

 After careful consideration, we were confident that advances in forensic science and Aram’s demonstrated ability to work with extremely low-level DNA gave us the best chance to move this case forward. Forensic investigative genetic genealogy is an investigative technique that combines DNA analysis and traditional genealogy research to identify suspects, victims, and unidentified human remains.

It is primarily used to solve violent cold cases by finding genetic relatives, sometimes up to seventh cousins in public databases. Extraction of trace DNA in this case was completed by the New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center and the SNIP profile was generated and subsequently uploaded to the to these public databases by Author Incorporated.

 The FBI New York field office then began forensic investigative genetic genealogy, building extended family trees, and narrowing down potential candidates based on genetics, geography, age, and historical records. As genealological leads were identified, investigators with the Ammyra Police Department, FBI, and the New York State Police conducted interviews and follow-ups to verify relationships and rule out unrelated individuals.

 In 2025, a voluntary DNA sample was obtained from a living individual believed to be the biological son of the suspected contributor to item 7A. Testing by the New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center confirmed that a paternal relationship to the DNA recovered from Mary Teresa’s clothing. Based on that confirmation, investigators consulted with the Shimong County District Attorney’s Office and sought court authorization to perform an exeumation, the first of its kind in the history of the Ammyra Police Department.

This step was taken to ensure that the investigation was both completed thoroughly and conclusively. In November of 2025, a Schuman County Court authorized exumation was performed at the grave site of the John Doe contributor. This exeation was made possible with assistance from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

 And not only was financial assistance given, but a board certified forensic anthropologist from Detroit, Michigan uh came to support the operation. The forensic anthropologist recovered biological samples which were then submitted to the New York State Police for comparison testing. Later that month, we were informed that the sperm located on the underwear and skirt item 7A worn by Mary Teresa Simpson matched Alfred Raymond Murray Jr.

Statistically, the probability of selecting an unrelated individual that matches this evidence was less than 1 in 320 billion. This DNA evidence establishes that the identified individual was directly involved with Mary Trees at or near the time of her death. This case must be viewed in its full context.

 Mary Teresa was last seen alive shortly before her body was discovered. She was a 12-year-old child and the circumstances of her death were ruled a homicide. There is no evidence that she had consent consensual contact with any individual, especially an adult male. Although numerous individuals were examined over the course of this investigation, none were supported by evidence comparable to the suspect.

 When the forensic findings are considered alongside the historical investigation, timeline, and recovery location, the totality of the evidence supports the conclusion that the individual responsible for the sexual assault was also responsible for her death. For decades, the individual connected to the forensic evidence in this case was known only as John Doe.

 Through investigative genetic genealogy, that individual was identified as Alfred Murray Jr. Alfred Murray Jr. was born in Ommyra, New York in 1931. He lived and worked in this community, raised a family here, and remained in Ommyra for the entirety of his life. Mr. Murray passed away in 2004. With the assistance of the Criminal Investigation Resource Center at Russell Stage College, historical information surrounding Mr.

 Murray was gathered and a background assessment was developed. We reviewed Alfred Murray Jr.’s documented life history to determine whether the forensic identification aligned with known facts. His record shows repeated criminal involvement over decades involving offenses involving children. While no single incident proves responsibility, this history is consistent with the forensic findings and the circumstances of this homicide.

The evidence had answered who left the biological material on her clothing. It couldn’t explain exactly how their paths crossed. Mary’s sister, Linda Galpin, was 78 when she attended the announcement. She’d been 16 when Mary was killed. For most of her life, Linda had carried the memory of a younger sister whose murder had never been explained, and their mother had also died without learning who was responsible.

After police announced Murray’s name, Linda thanked the investigators and said she was glad the case had finally ended. Then she added, “I just wish my mom was here.”  And I want to thank the police department and everybody was involved in it. I am very happy it’s finally I just wish my mom was here. But thank you very much and I’m glad it’s all finally settled after almost 62 years.

That’s all I have to say, but thank everybody that was involved. Come to my heart. Thank you,  Linda. Thank you. You’re welcome.  Okay.  Thanks everybody for coming  for Linda and the rest of Mary’s family. The identification provided certainty. It couldn’t return the life Mary should have lived, and it couldn’t allow her parents to hear the answer during their lifetimes.

 Still, after nearly 62 years, the unknown man represented by a genetic profile finally had a name. The investigation could close. In the end, though, this story doesn’t belong to Alfred Murray. It belongs to Mary. Before her clothing was stored, before the file grew to 6,000 pages, and before investigators opened a grave, Mary Teresa Simpson was a child, moving through the life her sister remembered.

She danced, went to camp, and played kick the can with neighborhood children. She skated through Elmyra on metal wheels tightened to her shoes with a key. She wore cat eye glasses and carried a fan club card. Those aren’t forensic details. They’re pieces of the life that existed before her name became attached to a murder investigation.

 For more carefully researched victim-centered cold cases subscribed to Radius of Crime, the man police identified had been absent from the investigation for almost 62 years. But the name that should remain after the grave, the DNA, and the case file is hers. Mary Teresa Simpson, 12 years old, a daughter, a sister, a girl whose family never stopped waiting for the truth.