Woman With Massachusetts Ties 'Alive And Well,' Not Victim Of Penn. Cold Case
BOSTON (CBS) – Pennsylvania State Police have determined that a woman with Massachusetts ties who hadn't been heard from in decades is "alive and well" and not the victim of a 42-year-old cold case murder.
Police and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) were trying to determine if a woman's body found near the Lehigh River was Maggie Cruz, who went to Rockwood Academy in Lenox and lived with a foster family in Framingham in the 1970s.
Cruz ran away in 1974 at 16 years old, and that was the last time anyone had seen her. In 1976, NCMEC said Cruz called a friend and said she was pregnant and needed money, but didn't say where she was. That was the last time she was heard from.
In December 1976, a pregnant woman's body was found dismembered and put into three suitcases in Pennsylvania. Police said the woman had been raped, strangled, and shot in the neck after she died.
A recent tip to investigators "checked a lot of boxes" that Cruz may have been the victim in the murder, police said. But on Wednesday, Pennsylvania State Police said they were able to "locate and rule out Madeline Cruz as our victim. She is alive and well."
Anyone with information about the Pennsylvania murder victim, known as Beth Doe, is asked to call the Pennsylvania State Police at 1-570-459-3890 or the NCMEC at 1-800-843-5678.
