A 61-Year Cold Case Finally Has an Answer: How DNA Genealogy Identified Mary Theresa Simpson’s Killer

For more than six decades, one question remained unanswered in Elmira, New York: Who killed 12-year-old Mary Theresa Simpson?

Mary disappeared on March 15, 1964, after leaving a relative’s home and heading toward her family’s apartment. Four days later, her body was discovered in a wooded area outside the city.

The investigation generated hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of records and a reward that eventually reached $5,000. But the person responsible was never identified.

Then forensic science changed what investigators believed was possible.

In February 2026, the Elmira Police Department announced that advanced DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy had finally identified the man investigators believe was responsible: Alfred Raymond Murray, who had died in 2004.

The case is now regarded by investigators and organizations involved in the investigation as a landmark example of how preserved evidence, modern DNA technology and genealogical research can reopen investigations that once appeared impossible to solve.

The disappearance that became a six-decade investigation

Mary Theresa Simpson was born in 1951 and was the youngest of four children.

On Sunday, March 15, 1964, she left her father's apartment to visit family members. She was later seen walking near a store on Elmira's east side.

She never made it home.

Her family quickly began searching for her. By approximately 10:30 that night, she had officially been reported missing.

Police officers and volunteers searched across Elmira and surrounding areas for the next several days.

On March 19, a man hiking with his two sons discovered Mary's body in a wooded area off Combs Hill Road, approximately seven miles from the city.

Investigators immediately began treating the case as a homicide.

What followed would become one of the longest-running cold-case investigations in the region.

Detectives had evidence, but not the technology

One of the most important elements of the investigation was evidence that investigators preserved even though DNA profiling was not yet available.

Items connected to Mary and the crime scene were carefully retained, including her glasses and other personal effects.

For decades, those materials could provide investigators with only limited investigative leads.

There was no modern forensic DNA database capable of comparing biological evidence with thousands or millions of records.

There was no widespread genetic genealogy technology.

And there were no advanced laboratories capable of extracting useful information from extremely small or degraded DNA samples.

The evidence simply had to wait.

That decision would ultimately become critical.

More than 300 people were interviewed

By October 1964, investigators had interviewed more than 300 people while trying to reconstruct Mary's final movements and identify a suspect.

A reward was offered for information, eventually increasing from $1,000 to $5,000.

But the investigation produced no definitive identification.

As years became decades, the original detectives retired. New officers inherited the case files and reviewed the evidence again.

The investigation became a historical document as much as an active criminal case.

Yet Mary's family never stopped wanting answers.

Her older sister, Linda Galpin, was only 16 when Mary was killed.

Galpin later described spending decades living with the uncertainty surrounding her sister's death. She continued contacting investigators periodically, hoping that a new development might eventually emerge.

For years, however, the answer remained the same: investigators had nothing new to report.

DNA finally changed the investigation

The breakthrough began with biological evidence that could not have been fully exploited in 1964.

Years later, investigators were able to obtain a male DNA profile from evidence associated with Mary's clothing.

The profile was entered into national law-enforcement databases, including CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System used to help compare forensic DNA profiles.

But the search produced no match.

Additional testing years later also failed to identify the person behind the profile.

That did not necessarily mean the DNA was useless.

It meant the person whose DNA had been recovered was not represented in the databases investigators were searching.

That distinction became crucial.

The sample was incredibly small

In 2022, Elmira Police Sergeant William Goodwin obtained funding to pursue advanced DNA testing.

The remaining sample was extraordinarily limited — approximately 0.4 nanograms.

Investigators sent the material to Othram Technologies, a Texas laboratory known for working with difficult forensic DNA samples.

The objective was ambitious: create a usable genetic profile from evidence that had survived for more than half a century.

The process nearly failed before laboratory analysis could even begin.

The DNA almost disappeared before reaching the laboratory

The evidence was packed in dry ice and shipped toward Texas.

Then a major winter storm disrupted operations at a FedEx facility in Memphis.

The package became stranded.

For investigators, the situation was frightening because the biological material depended on controlled conditions. If the dry ice was lost for too long, the final remaining opportunity to analyze the evidence could have disappeared.

FBI Special Agent Kenneth Jensen later described being deeply concerned that the shipment might be lost.

Investigators eventually located the package and recovered it.

The DNA reached the laboratory.

The scientific investigation could finally begin.

The episode became an extraordinary reminder of how much uncertainty can surround a forensic evidence chain in an investigation that has lasted generations.

Forensic genetic genealogy opened a new path

Traditional DNA databases had already failed to produce a direct match.

Investigators therefore needed a different approach.

Othram generated a genetic profile that could be used for investigative genealogy.

Instead of asking only whether the DNA belonged to someone already listed in a law-enforcement database, investigators could examine genetic relationships and build potential family connections.

This approach, known as forensic genetic genealogy, has become an increasingly important tool in some long-running investigations.

It can allow investigators to work backward through family relationships, combining genetic information with traditional records such as birth certificates, marriage records and other historical documents.

In Mary's case, researchers and investigators spent years examining family connections.

The investigation involved the Criminal Investigation Resource Center at Russell Sage College, led by criminologist Dr. Christina Lane. Students and researchers reviewed thousands of pages of case material and helped organize information that investigators could use alongside the genetic evidence.

The family tree eventually pointed to Alfred Raymond Murray

As investigators worked through the genealogical information, the potential family tree became narrower.

Eventually, the investigation pointed toward Alfred Raymond Murray.

Murray had been born in Elmira in 1931 and had later worked as a truck driver. He had also served in the U.S. Army from 1951 to 1959, according to the FBI.

By the time investigators identified him as a person of interest in the historical investigation, Murray had been dead for more than two decades.

That created one final scientific question.

Could investigators directly confirm the genetic connection?

The answer required another extraordinary step.

Investigators exhumed the remains in 2025

On November 5, 2025, authorities exhumed Murray's remains from an Elmira cemetery.

The purpose was straightforward: obtain a direct DNA comparison.

The resulting test confirmed that Murray's DNA matched the evidence recovered in connection with Mary's 1964 homicide.

The FBI now identifies Alfred Raymond Murray as the deceased homicide offender in the case and records that his DNA was confirmed as a match after his exhumation.

The discovery transformed a case that had remained unresolved since the 1960s.

For Mary's family, however, the scientific result represented more than a forensic milestone.

It finally gave a name to the person investigators had spent 61 years trying to identify.

A name that had been hiding in plain sight

One of the striking aspects of the investigation is the location of Murray's final resting place.

He was buried in Elmira, the same community where Mary had lived and disappeared.

Murray died in 2004, meaning he had been gone for years before modern genetic genealogy connected him to the case.

For decades, his name had not been linked publicly to Mary's murder.

The investigation illustrates one of the defining challenges of historical cold cases: a suspect can disappear from the investigative landscape long before technology becomes capable of identifying them.

The case demonstrates how forensic science has changed

When Mary was killed, investigators relied primarily on witness statements, physical evidence, interviews and traditional police work.

The investigation produced a substantial record, but the biological evidence could not yet provide the kind of identification investigators can pursue today.

More than 60 years later, the same evidence could be subjected to advanced DNA analysis.

Modern laboratories could work with extraordinarily small quantities of biological material.

Genetic genealogy could transform an unidentified DNA profile into a family-history investigation.

And researchers could combine that genetic information with decades of archived police records.

The case therefore demonstrates how forensic technology can change the possibilities available to investigators without changing the underlying evidence itself.

Why preserving evidence matters in cold cases

Perhaps the most important lesson from Mary's case is the value of preserving evidence even when investigators cannot immediately determine what it might reveal.

The material collected in 1964 was preserved long before modern DNA testing became a routine component of criminal investigations.

Had those items been discarded, contaminated or destroyed, the later breakthrough might never have happened.

Instead, investigators decades later were able to revisit evidence collected by detectives from an entirely different era.

That is increasingly important as cold-case investigators revisit historical murders using technologies that did not exist when the crimes occurred.

A landmark moment for Elmira investigators

When Elmira Police Chief Kristen Thorne announced the breakthrough in February 2026, she described it as a historic moment for the department.

The announcement brought together investigators from different generations, including retired officers who had worked on the case and researchers who had approached it with modern forensic methods.

The investigation had effectively crossed generations.

Some officers had been children when Mary was killed.

Others were not yet born.

Yet all ultimately became part of the same effort to identify her killer.

Mary's sister finally received an answer

For Linda Galpin, the announcement carried an emotional significance that no laboratory statistic could capture.

She had spent most of her life wondering whether the case would ever be resolved.

At 78, she finally heard investigators publicly confirm the identification.

Her response reflected both relief and grief.

She said she was happy that the case had finally ended while wishing that her mother could have lived to see the day.

After decades of unanswered questions, the family finally had something that had seemed impossible for most of Mary's life: an explanation.

The enduring importance of a 61-year-old cold case

Mary Theresa Simpson's murder is now more than a historical investigation.

It has become a case study in forensic genetic genealogy, DNA preservation and the changing capabilities of the criminal justice system.

A biological sample that produced no useful database match decades ago eventually became the key to identifying a deceased suspect.

Researchers used family records and genetic relationships to narrow an enormous field of possibilities.

Investigators then confirmed the conclusion through direct DNA testing.

The result demonstrates why some cold cases are never truly finished.

Evidence can survive.

Technology can change.

Databases can grow.

And investigative methods that seem impossible today may become standard tools tomorrow.

For Mary Theresa Simpson's family, that future finally arrived.

Sixty-one years after a 12-year-old girl disappeared in Elmira, investigators were able to put a name to the man whose DNA had remained hidden in the evidence for generations.

The case is a powerful reminder that time can make an investigation harder — but it does not necessarily erase the evidence needed to solve it.