The discovery of human bones in the basement of an upstate New York home has led police to re-open their investigation into a 75-year-old cold case.
Police say that a construction contractor found the remains on Wednesday while digging in the crawl space of the house in East Greenbush, the Albany Times Union reports.
"The person who lived here disappeared in 1938," East Greenbush Police Detective Sergeant Matt Breig, told WNYT. "It was a female and we don't even have her name."
Breig said that a child's writings also found inside the home may reveal more about the case. The papers, penned by a ninth-grade student, suggest that the FBI once investigated a missing person case at the house.
Fox News explains:
The writings also discuss the woman's husband, identified only as William or Wilhelm, who subsequently left for Germany when the country was under the grip of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Police said they do not know if they will ever classify the case as a homicide.
The case stretches back so far, it predates the formation of the town police, according to the Troy Record.
New York State Police Investigator Eric Cullum said that he requested that the FBI locate the original missing person file, according to WNYT.
"We really don't know if modern crime technology can help us figure out what happened in 1938," Cullum said. "We don't know yet if we have a crime or a natural death."
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