Murdered Massachusetts woman known as the ‘Granby Girl’ finally identified after 45 YEARS using DNA

A Massachusetts woman found murdered 45 years ago has been identified after investigators matched her DNA to that of her living son.

During a news conference Monday, Northwestern’s First Assistant District Attorney Steven Gagne identified the woman long known as the ‘Granby Girl’ as Patricia Ann Tucker, who was 28 when she was killed at some moment of 1978.

Tucker’s body was discovered on November 15 of that year covered in leaves on a logging trail in Granby, Massachusetts, just north of the city of Springfield. The skeletal remains of him had a gunshot wound to the temple, and investigators suspected that he died about three months before he died.

Gagne said Tucker’s husband at the time of her disappearance, Gerald Coleman, was a strong suspect in the case. He did not report her missing when she disappeared, and she died in prison in 1995 while serving time for a rape conviction.

Investigators were able to find a relative of Tucker using DNA technology and from there found a perfect genealogical match to her son, Matthew Dale, who was five when she disappeared.

Gerald Coleman was named as the prime suspect in the murder. He died in prison in 1995.

Tucker’s body was found by a group of children playing on the logging road in Granby. In addition to being buried under a pile of leaves, he was also hiding under a log.

Although her husband never reported her missing, and she had prior convictions for kidnapping, assault and firearms, investigators were never able to identify the ‘skeletonized and clothed’ body.

Medical examiners could only determine that she was between the ages of 19 and 27 and that she was a woman.

Twenty years after his death, a stone was placed in a local cemetery with ‘Unknown, November 15, 1978. In God’s care’.

Gagne said investigators finally made a breakthrough in the case last March after they sent a portion of Tucker’s remains to a private genealogy lab in Texas called Othram. The lab was able to identify a relative in Maryland.

Investigators contacted that relative who said her aunt disappeared in the 1970s. That aunt was later identified as Tucker.

They then found their way to Dale, who confirmed that his mother had disappeared in 1978.

A sample of Dale’s DNA turned out to be a perfect match to the victim, proving her identity as Patricia.

A tombstone placed for Granby Girl and labeled ‘Unknown’

Gerald Coleman never reported his wife missing. He had convictions for assault and kidnapping

Tucker’s son, Matthew Dale (center), who was five years old when she disappeared.

Gagne said Dale told investigators that he remembered being dropped off at home by his mother and Coleman, that it was not his father, and that he never saw them again.

Records from the Department of Children and Families showed that Dale had been left with a woman from nearby Chicopee, who told investigators that Coleman asked her to watch the boy for several hours while he and Tucker went about their personal business, she said. Gagne.

When Coleman and Tucker never returned to pick up Dale, the woman approached authorities who took the boy to his biological father.

“While it’s satisfying to finally know who [the] “Granby Girl” actually was, the investigation will not stop until we identify her killer and provide the family with an additional measure of closure and justice,” Gagne said, according to the Boston Globe.

Although Gagne did not name Coleman as the killer, he said that “certainly, at the very least, he was a person very interested in the disappearance and death of Patricia.”

Dale attended the press conference, and Gagne read a statement on his behalf.

‘I would like to thank everyone [for] trying to identify my mother and embracing her, especially the Granby community,’ she said. ‘Thank you for never giving up on her. At least I have some answers now after 44 years. It’s a lot to process, but I hope the shutdown can start now.”