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Authorities announced a major breakthrough in a decades-old cold case, identifying human remains found nearly 49 years ago in North Carolina as belonging to a runaway 15-year-old girl who disappeared from Maryland.
The skeletal remains were discovered more than six months after Cindy Marcell Blizzard went missing in the spring of 1977, according to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI).
Authorities said the manner of death remained undetermined, but the case was being investigated as a homicide. They said the remains were found in a wooded area near a Wilson County manufacturing facility roughly five hours south of Blizzard’s home.
The “circumstances surrounding the location and recovery of the remains raised the probability of foul play, and the investigators are treating the case as a homicide,” the SBI said.
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According to officials, skeletal remains and clothing were found Dec. 29, 1977, near a Firestone plant that produces vehicle tires.
A medical examiner determined the remains had likely been there for six months to two years and belonged to a white female between 16 and 23 years old.
In the decades that followed, the case went cold as forensic technology was not advanced enough to identify the remains, authorities said.
“For years, investigators compared dental records against missing persons cases without finding a match,” the SBI said.
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The case was reopened in 2010 by a state anthropologist, who submitted the remains for DNA testing and cross-referenced the results with federal databases, officials said.
However, the investigation did not gain momentum until 2024, when the SBI’s Cold Case Investigative Team reviewed the case again using forensic tools that did not exist in 1977.
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When the case qualified for advanced DNA testing, forensic scientists extracted preserved genetic material from a bone sample, according to the authorities.
“A genealogy service used the profile to trace potential relatives, pointing investigators toward a 15-year-old girl who had run away from Monkton, Maryland, in the spring of 1977,” the SBI said.
The identification was made with assistance from the FBI’s NCIC Investigation and Operational Assistance Group, the Maryland Department of State Police Homicide Unit and the Raleigh Police Department’s Intel Unit, authorities said.
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Investigators continue to search for answers surrounding Blizzard’s death.