Nancy Carol Fitzgerald disappeared without a trace 50 years ago. Investigators said it would take 16 years to find her remains and another 34 before she could be positively identified.
New Jersey officials said the 16-year-old girl vanished from her Bloomfield home the day after Easter in April 1972, "never seen or heard from again."
On Monday, the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office announced news more than five decades in the making: a positive identification in the case. And while investigators finally have answers to the mystery, they still do not know the circumstances leading up to her death.
“While we are certainly encouraged that the identification was made, solving a 50-year-old mystery, this is ultimately a puzzle that will remain unfinished until we locate the final missing piece: the circumstances behind Nancy’s death,” Prosecutor Raymond Santiago said.
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Officials are making a plea for anyone who may have known the then-16-year-old to come forward and help solve the puzzle.
"Ms. Fitzgerald’s peers would all likely be in their 60s today, so we firmly believe that it is not too late to determine what happened to her and why – and, if possible, to hold any living person who may be responsible accountable for it," Santiago added.
In 1988, human remains were recovered near the Henry Hudson Bike Trail in Atlantic Highlands. A community clean-up event held along Bayside Drive turned up what was left of the young girl. But her identity wasn't immediately clear.
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The state's forensic anthropologist determined the skeletal remains belonged to a young white female between the ages of 15 and 18. Investigative techniques at the time weren't enough to identify the girl, officials said, but a few years later they would be able to construct a DNA profile from the remains.
Fast forward to 2020. The prosecutor's office reached out to an out-of-state DNA analysis firm to test the girl's profile to establish a forensic genealogical review, which eventually returned the ID of a distant relative living in Georgia.
Interviews conducted with that relative led investigators to another living relative in Pennsylvania. The prosecutor's office said both women submitted DNA samples, the latter of which returned a nearly 100 percent immediate familial match to Fitzgerald.
The DNA match gave the Middlesex County Medical Examiner's Office enough info to officially ID the remains in October, more than 50 years after the girl's disappearance. Fitzgerald's remains have been returned to family for proper burial arrangements.
Anyone with information relating to the case is asked to call Monmouth County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-671-4400.
