Warning: This article mentions sexual assault which some readers may find distressing.
Modern DNA testing has finally cracked a New Hampshire cold case nearly 50 years later.
On May 20, 1975, 20-year-old Judith Lord was discovered dead in her Concord apartment.
A building manager found Lord lifeless in her bed when they entered the apartment due to unpaid rent.
Lord’s 20-month-old son was discovered unharmed in a nearby room, safely in his cot.
An autopsy revealed that Lord had died from homicidal strangulation. Despite past investigations, the actual perpetrator has been identified half a century later.
A press release from the New Hampshire Department of Justice reports: “The crime scene showed evidence of a violent struggle and sexual assault. Investigators recovered key forensic evidence, including hairs found on and near her body and towels later determined to contain seminal fluid.”
“Although a suspect was identified early in the investigation, the case was severely hindered by a flawed forensic report issued by the FBI in 1975. At the time, microscopic hair analysis techniques led to an incorrect conclusion that the suspect could not have contributed the hairs found at the scene.”
The report also noted that significant evidence, such as the suspect’s fingerprints on Lord’s window and witness testimonies about her fear of him, was overshadowed by the erroneous forensic finding, causing the case to remain unsolved for many years.
One of Lord’s neighbors, Ernest Theodore Gable, was initially considered a suspect. It was discovered that Lord feared both her husband and Gable due to his ‘persistent and unwanted advances’.
Just 16 days before her murder, Lord was assaulted by her husband, who later pled guilty and was fined only $100.
While physical evidence was collected from the crime scene and hairs were sent to the FBI’s Forensic Laboratory, the tests led to an erroneous conclusion that cleared the suspect regarding the hairs found at the scene.
This contradictory evidence led the case to go cold, as the FBI report “created a significant evidentiary hurdle that prosecutors felt they could not overcome,” according to the attorney general’s report.
Recent DNA analysis revealed that the seminal fluid on the towels matched Gable, and advanced forensic testing confirmed that the hairs belonged to him.
“It is my hope that this long-awaited conclusion will finally bring peace and closure to Judy Lord’s family and the entire Concord community after nearly five decades of delayed justice,” stated New Hampshire attorney general John Formella.
“This resolution proves that no cold case is ever truly closed until the truth is found.”
The news release also noted that Gable was fatally stabbed in Los Angeles in February 1987, at the age of 36.