COLD CASE BREAKTHROUGH

Massachusetts Cops ID ‘Granby Girl’ After 45 Years—and Find She Has a Secret Son

New DNA testing and “old-fashioned police work” led to the incredible breakthrough.

A Massachusetts murder victim who for decades was known only as the “Granby Girl” has finally been identified by police. Cops initially could not determine the identity of Patricia Ann Tucker, whose body was discovered under a pile of leaves on a logging road on Nov. 15, 1978, because she had been dead for several months after being shot in the temple. Her husband, who never reported her missing and was considered a person of interest in the investigation, died in prison in 1996. The case remained cold, with Tucker laid to rest in an anonymous grave, until two years ago, when authorities sent a sample of her DNA to a private lab in Houston. In a Monday press conference, police said an analysis of the sample, along with “old-fashioned police work,” led detectives to a relative of Tucker’s in Baltimore, who helped put them in touch with a man who was revealed to be Tucker’s son. Tucker’s son, Matthew Dale, said he now plans to give his mother a proper burial.