Cold Cases in Massachusetts
ColdCaseIndex documents 22 cases in Massachusetts, dated 1892 to 2023. 11 are recorded as unsolved. The earliest is Andrew & Abby Borden (1892) and the most recent is Ana Walshe (2023).
- Unsolved 11 (50%)
- Partly resolved 2 (9%)
- Solved or convicted 7 (32%)
- Closed without conviction 2 (9%)
Homicide clearance in Massachusetts, 1965 to 2024
A homicide is "cleared" when police make an arrest or close it by exceptional means, so an uncleared case is not always an unsolved one. Source: Murder Accountability Project analysis of FBI Uniform Crime Report data, as published by Project: Cold Case. These are statewide totals and are separate from the ColdCaseIndex entries listed below.
By type
All Massachusetts cases
Ana Walshe
Ana Walshe, 39, was last seen at her Cohasset, Massachusetts home in the early hours of January 1, 2023; her body has never been found.
John O'Keefe (Karen Read)
Boston police officer John O'Keefe, 46, was found dead in the snow outside a home in Canton, Massachusetts, on January 29, 2022.
Amy Lord
Twenty-four-year-old Amy Lord was kidnapped from her South Boston apartment, forced to withdraw money from ATMs, then murdered. Edwin Alemany was convicted and sentenced to life.
Rachel & Lillian Entwistle
Rachel Entwistle, 27, and her nine-month-old daughter Lillian Rose were shot dead in their rented home in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, on January 20, 2006; police found them two days later.
Molly Bish
Molly Bish, 16, vanished on June 27, 2000, minutes after her mother dropped her off for her lifeguard shift at Comins Pond in Warren, Massachusetts. Her belongings were left at her post.
Karina Holmer
Karina Holmer was a 20-year-old Swedish au pair whose dismembered body was found in a Boston dumpster in June 1996, roughly a day after she was last seen leaving a nightclub. The grisly killing has never been solved.
Deanna Cremin
Seventeen-year-old Deanna Cremin was found strangled behind a senior housing complex on Jaques Street in Somerville, Massachusetts, on the morning of March 30, 1995, a short distance from her home.
Holly Piirainen
Ten-year-old Holly Piirainen disappeared on August 5, 1993, after leaving her grandparents' home in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, to see a neighbor's puppies. Hunters found her remains in Brimfield on October 23, 1993.
Lisa Ziegert
Lisa Ziegert, 24, who worked at a middle school, was abducted from her evening job at a card shop in Agawam, Massachusetts, on April 15, 1992, and found dead four days later.
Carol Stuart
Carol Stuart, 30 and pregnant, was shot in a car in Boston's Mission Hill on October 23, 1989 and died the next morning; her son, delivered by caesarean, lived 17 days. Her husband Charles blamed a Black gunman.
New Bedford Highway Killer Victims
Between March 1988 and April 1989, eleven women with ties to New Bedford, Massachusetts, vanished; the bodies of nine were found dumped along Route 140, Interstate 195, and nearby roads, while two women were never found.
Sarah Pryor
Nine-year-old Sarah Pryor vanished during an afternoon walk near her Wayland, Massachusetts home in October 1985. A few of her bones were found miles away in 1998.
Judy Chartier
Judith "Judy" Chartier, 17, of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, vanished after leaving a party in Billerica around 2 a.m. on June 5, 1982.
Joan Webster
Joan Webster, a 25-year-old Harvard graduate student, vanished from the taxi line at Boston's Logan Airport in November 1981. Her skeletal remains were found in Hamilton, Massachusetts in 1990, and although a convicted killer…
Margaret Mary Kilcoyne
Dr. Margaret 'Peg' Kilcoyne, a 50-year-old Columbia University hypertension researcher, vanished overnight from her vacation home in the Tom Nevers area of Nantucket, Massachusetts, between January 25 and 26, 1980.
Patricia Ann Tucker ("Granby Girl")
On November 15, 1978, the skeletal remains of a woman who had been shot in the temple were found buried under leaves off a logging road in Granby, Massachusetts.
Ruth Marie Terry (Lady of the Dunes)
On July 26, 1974, the mutilated body of a woman was found in the Race Point dunes of Cape Cod National Seashore in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Jane Britton
Jane Britton, 23, a Harvard graduate student in anthropology, was sexually assaulted and beaten to death in her Cambridge apartment on January 7, 1969.
Mary Jo Kopechne
Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, died when a car driven by Senator Edward Kennedy went off Dike Bridge into Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island late on July 18, 1969. Her death was attributed to drowning.
Boston Strangler Victims
Thirteen women were strangled in the Boston area between 1962 and 1964. Albert DeSalvo confessed to all 13 murders but was never tried for them. DNA evidence collected in 2013 linked DeSalvo to the last victim, Mary Sullivan.
Joan Risch
Joan Risch vanished from her Lincoln, Massachusetts home, leaving behind a trail of blood and signs of a violent struggle. She had recently checked out several library books about disappearances. She has never been found.
Andrew & Abby Borden
Andrew Borden and his wife Abby were found hacked to death in their Fall River, Massachusetts home. Their daughter Lizzie was acquitted of the murders.