On Oct. 5, 1968, a Saturday night, Christine and a group of her friends were among over 800 persons present for a dance at the Mountain Park Ballroom, since destroyed by a fire. By 11 p.m. that night, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hurlburt of 245 Franklin Street, started to panic because their daughter had not arrived home.
Her disappearance was reported to the Holyoke Police Crime Prevention Bureau the next day, triggering an all out search...On Oct. 12, Christine’s lifeless body was found. The cause of death was listed as multiple blows to the head and strangulation. The teenager was found with a sweater around her neck and her blue blouse covering the lower parts of her body....
Her underwear was located a short distance from her head and she had been “criminally assaulted,” according to police. One of the factors that made the crime troubling as police sought a solution was the lack of a pinpointed time of death.
... police believed she was not killed where her body was found because groups of Mount Holyoke College students had been walking in that vicinity – on their annual leaf peeping trek – four days before the discovery of the murdered girl. It was thought that, if the body had been there, someone would have seen it.
...police ruled out Christine’s family members and friends after all passed lie detector tests they took voluntarily.
Once thought the most promising lead was the report of two men who were new to the weekly Mountain Park dances and were never seen before or after the night Christine disappeared. According to police, the pair – one in his mid 50s and the other in his mid 20s – bought tickets to get into the Oct. 5 dance. That was significant because it proved the men had no connection to the band and were not related to any person attending the dance as it was customary for family members or band officials to go into the ballroom for a short time without paying the admission price. The two men never were ruled out as suspects in Christine’s disappearance...
To provide information on this case, contact the Mass. State Police Detective Unit assigned to the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office at 413-505-5993.
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