Cold Cases in New Jersey
ColdCaseIndex documents 18 cases in New Jersey, dated 1922 to 2019. 9 are recorded as unsolved. The earliest is Hall–Mills Murders (1922) and the most recent is Dulce Maria Alavez (2019).
- Unsolved 9 (50%)
- Charges or trial pending 1 (6%)
- Solved or convicted 4 (22%)
- Closed without conviction 4 (22%)
Homicide clearance in New Jersey, 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 New Jersey cases
Dulce Maria Alavez
Five-year-old Dulce Maria Alavez disappeared from a playground at Bridgeton City Park while her mother sat in a nearby car. A witness reported seeing a man lead the child away.
Sarah Stern
Sarah Stern, 19, was strangled at her Neptune City, New Jersey, home on December 2, 2016, during a robbery, and her body was thrown from the Route 35 bridge; it has never been recovered.
Tiffany Valiante
Tiffany Valiante, an 18-year-old athlete from Mays Landing, New Jersey, was struck and killed by a New Jersey Transit train in Galloway Township in July 2015 after walking away from her home.
The Eastbound Strangler (Atlantic City Four)
Four women, all involved in sex work and struggling with addiction, were found strangled and posed face-down in a drainage ditch behind the Golden Key Motel outside Atlantic City in November 2006.
John Gilbride
John Gilbride, 34, a US Airways baggage supervisor, was shot in his car outside his apartment complex in Maple Shade, New Jersey, and found at 12:08 a.m. on September 27, 2002.
Susan Walsh
Freelance journalist Susan Walsh disappeared from her Nutley, New Jersey apartment while investigating the Russian mafia's involvement in strip clubs. She had expressed fear for her life. She was never found.
Megan Kanka
Seven-year-old Megan Kanka was sexually assaulted and murdered on July 29, 1994, by Jesse Timmendequas, a neighbor in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, who had two prior convictions for sex offenses against children.
Mark Himebaugh
Eleven-year-old Mark Himebaugh disappeared on November 25, 1991, near his home on Sunray Road in Del Haven, Middle Township, New Jersey, after going to watch firefighters tackle a nearby brush fire.
Timothy Wiltsey
Five-year-old Timothy Wiltsey vanished from a carnival in Sayreville, New Jersey, in May 1991, and his skeletal remains were found nearly a year later.
Susan Negersmith
Susan Negersmith, 20, of Carmel, New York, was found dead behind a Wildwood, New Jersey, restaurant on May 27, 1990. Her death was first ruled accidental and later reclassified as a homicide.
Dawn Olanick (Princess Doe)
The body of a teenage girl, beaten beyond recognition, was found beside Cedar Ridge Cemetery in Blairstown Township, New Jersey, on July 15, 1982.
David Williams & Steven Anderson
David Williams, 12, and his roommate Steven Anderson, 17, disappeared on April 7, 1975, from the New Lisbon State School, a residential center for people with developmental disabilities in Burlington County, New Jersey.
Margaret Ellen Fox
Margaret Ellen Fox, 14, disappeared on June 24, 1974, after taking a bus from Burlington, New Jersey, to Mount Holly to meet a man who had answered her babysitting advertisement and called himself John Marshall.
List Family Murders
John List shot his wife, his mother and his three teenage children at their home in Westfield, New Jersey, on November 9, 1971, and disappeared. The bodies were found on December 7, 1971.
Jane Durrua
Jane Durrua, 13, of Keansburg, New Jersey, disappeared on November 4, 1968, and was found dead in a field in Middletown the next morning.
William 'Billy' Jones Jr.
Three-year-old William "Billy" Jones Jr. disappeared on December 17, 1962, while playing outside with his younger sister in Vineland, New Jersey. He was last seen near a neighbor's house at about 11:45 a.m.
Charles Lindbergh Jr.
The infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped from the family estate in Hopewell, New Jersey. A ransom was paid but the baby's body was found two months later.
Hall–Mills Murders
Episcopal priest Edward Wheeler Hall and choir singer Eleanor Mills, who were having an affair, were found shot to death in a field near New Brunswick, New Jersey, in September 1922.