'Montauk Mary,' found slain in 1978, among unidentified cold case victims to be named
"Montauk Mary" was found face-up with bullet wounds in East Overlook Park off Montauk Highway in 1978.
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Six more unidentified people tied to Suffolk County cold cases will soon be known through genetic genealogy by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Cold Case Task Force, including a woman known only as "Montauk Mary."
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney and Suffolk Police Department Commissioner Kevin Catalina on Thursday will publicly announce the identities in cases spanning five decades, with the oldest case dating to 1976.
"Montauk Mary" was found face-up with bullet wounds in East Overlook Park off Montauk Highway in 1978.
Investigators determined she had been shot four times, once in the chest and three times in the legs, and likely died just hours before she was found.
Authorities believed the woman to be in her 60s, about 5 feet tall and weighing roughly 200 pounds. She was wearing a plaid tweed coat, a multicolored dress and orange slippers, but had no clothing tags or undergarments.
Last year, the task force worked with a Suffolk County police forensic artist to create an updated sketch of what "Montauk Mary" may have looked like before her death in hopes of learning her identity.
The identifications come on the heels of other breakthroughs this year in decades-old cases involving deceased infants, where genetic genealogy testing led investigators to arrests years later.
In late October, a Virginia woman was arrested and extradited. She is accused of killing her baby inside a movie theater bathroom 30 years ago.
Another case was earlier this year in February, where a woman was arrested in connection to a 1993 cold case where an infant was discovered dead by highway workers inside a trash bag.
The same testing technique was used in the Gilgo Beach serial killer investigation to help connect Rex Heuermann to his victims years after their murders.
