An Exhumed Grave Solved Her 1964 Murder After 62 Years

Twelve-year-old Mary Theresa Simpson disappeared while walking home from a relative’s house in Elmira, New York, in March 1964. Four days later, she was found dead in a wooded area off Combs Hill Road. More than 300 people were questioned, rewards were offered, and investigators built thousands of pages of case material, but no arrest followed. Decades later, biological evidence preserved from Mary’s clothing produced a male DNA profile. Traditional database searches failed to identify him. In 2022 and 2023, investigators made another attempt using advanced DNA testing. The tiny remaining sample nearly never reached the laboratory after becoming stranded during a major ice storm at the FedEx hub in Memphis. Forensic genealogy eventually led investigators to Alfred Raymond Murray Jr., a man whose name had never appeared in the original investigation. Murray had died in 2004, so investigators exhumed his remains in 2025 for a direct DNA comparison. In February 2026, Elmira Police announced that Mary Theresa Simpson’s nearly 62-year-old murder case had been resolved. This Root of Crime documentary follows Mary’s disappearance, the original investigation, the evidence that survived for decades, the extraordinary Memphis shipment crisis, and the investigation that finally gave her family an answer. Subscribe to Root of Crime for carefully researched, victim-centered cold case documentaries. #MaryTheresaSimpson #ColdCase #TrueCrime