SOLVED MA - Jane Britton, 22, Harvard student, Cambridge, 7 Jan 1969

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Hi csb and welcome, we certainly are glad of any input.

Don -- I do not for a moment imagine that any of these academics would be invested in fabricating accusations of murder. But just so we know - how reliable would you say these people are, that way? How believable, in light of this accused man's general character, was that accusation (noting that it was not dismissed outright in the minds of these people)?

I know you've mentioned much of this before, but as it's come down a line I thought it'd be good to hear veracity of the sources.

A confession is nothing to be sneezed at, even if it can't be 100% airtight verified.
 
Ausgirl said:
Hi csb and welcome, we certainly are glad of any input.

Don -- I do not for a moment imagine that any of these academics would be invested in fabricating accusations of murder. But just so we know - how reliable would you say these people are, that way? How believable, in light of this accused man's general character, was that accusation (noting that it was not dismissed outright in the minds of these people)?

I know you've mentioned much of this before, but as it's come down a line I thought it'd be good to hear veracity of the sources.

A confession is nothing to be sneezed at, even if it can't be 100% airtight verified.
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Keep in mind that I suspected this person years before the "confession," which took the form (as it came to me) of the drunken statement: "I killed someone." It was well-known (and I observed this myself) that my suspect was a heavy drinker.

That's it -- that's what worked its way down the chain to me (and from me to Lt. Joyce, although I didn't reveal DP's name to Joyce). I have no other knowledge about the "confession."

As you can imagine, when I heard about this I was excited, and asked my immediate source to find out what he could. He knew Jane and wanted the killer brought to justice, but didn't want to put DP on the spot without going through the person he'd heard it from. And it seemed as though that might get a little tricky, although I can't remember why. While my immediate source was working out the best way to approach all this, DP was killed (in an accident, for those readers who haven't read all the postings).
 
Thank you, Don.

Once more, it chafes a bit that we cannot go off sleuthing this person, and that the one witness to a possible confession passed away. But just to have a suspect at all is *something* here.

And you never know what might turn up in years to come, information-wise.. cases have been blown wide open after 50 years, by small but important snips of info. I keep my hopes up that this is what will happen for Jane's case.
 
Veidt said:
By the way, it's been mentioned here in this thread that Jane's brother became a radio DJ. Is he still alive? I wonder if there could be some way to ask him to help out if he'd be willing to help.
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Jane's brother is indeed alive and well with a family. He became a very successful radio DJ in a large market area. I received information a while back that someone reached out to him and was not received well. From what I understand he is not interested in helping to solve this case.
 
TtheBibliotaph83 said:
Jane's brother is indeed alive and well with a family. He became a very successful radio DJ in a large market area. I received information a while back that someone reached out to him and was not received well. From what I understand he is not interested in helping to solve this case.
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As a celebrity of sorts, one can understand that he would not want his name associated with an ugly and unsolved murder, maybe LE told him to stay out of it?
Still, it is his sister.....
Could he be afraid of something or someone, maybe the caller who tracked him down made him nervous? jmo.

Has the " black-out " imposed on this case by LE, ever been lifted and if not, why not after all these years??
 
dotr said:
Has the " black-out " imposed on this case by LE, ever been lifted and if not, why not after all these years??
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I was previously talking with someone in the district attorney's office about trying to look into the case files and evidence of this case, but after several emails and conversations they just stopped responding. I live in MA a little over an hour drive from the crime scene. LE has repeatedly referred me to the DA's office who, as I said, have stopped responding to inquiries. I posted the birth and death certificates on this thread a while back that I obtained from one of my trips to Boston/Cambridge. You can find them in previous posts. I have hit a dead end, which saddens me. Lots of good info on this case in the posts, but being that the suspect(s) have since passed away I don't know how likely it is that a resolution will be found.
 
TtheBibliotaph83 said:
I was previously talking with someone in the district attorney's office about trying to look into the case files and evidence of this case, but after several emails and conversations they just stopped responding. I live in MA a little over an hour drive from the crime scene. LE has repeatedly referred me to the DA's office who, as I said, have stopped responding to inquiries. I posted the birth and death certificates on this thread a while back that I obtained from one of my trips to Boston/Cambridge. You can find them in previous posts. I have hit a dead end, which saddens me. Lots of good info on this case in the posts, but being that the suspect(s) have since passed away I don't know how likely it is that a resolution will be found.
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This may be a silly suggestion. But, have you thought about contacting Bob Ward from Fox25 news? I am not a regular Fox watcher, but I believe BW looks into cold cases.
 
Xara said:
This may be a silly suggestion. But, have you thought about contacting Bob Ward from Fox25 news? I am not a regular Fox watcher, but I believe BW looks into cold cases.
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I have talked with Deborah Halber (Author of Skeleton Crew) who previously expressed interest. She has been busy with media events and promotion of the book, but said she may be available to talk this winter. I have also though about reaching out to Howie Carr who has written several books about crime in the Boston area and continues to host a syndicated radio show. I haven't done that yet. Unfortunately I am under time constraints and am not able to pursue this case as actively as I would like. If someone would like to reach out to Bob Ward or Howie Carr, I encourage you to do so.
 
If I was not so far away, I would for sure take it up. I feel this sort of thing is best left to locals, though, it's less strange than me saying "Hi, I'm Australian and ..." It actually helps is some cases, I've found - Americans are always highly bemused by a phone call from Oz and tend to be obliging. But my gut says this one's better left to the locals.

It's worthwhile taking a moment to reflect on how much more we all know about this case, and about Jane as a person and her life, than we did at the beginning of the thread. We've been fortunate in so many ways, to have people who knew her come forward, people great at sleuthing, people putting the time and effort in to post here and help make sure Jane's not a distant, forgotten tragedy. Ir's awesome. I'm amazed at how much more we know now.
 
Bumping

This link has no doubt been posted here before, but it showed up as "new" in a google search today.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9dpNu3jLO3teTdNRHZRS0JGbXM/edit?pli=1


Woke up this morning with Jane on my mind, no idea why, perhaps this news item made me think of her, fwiw.

http://af.reuters.com/article/moroccoNews/idAFL1N0SO32F20141029


"NEW HAVEN, Conn. Oct 29 (Reuters) - A Moroccan national, accused of plotting to attack Harvard University and a federal building with bombs attached to a drone, was sentenced to two years in prison on Wednesday by a federal judge in Connecticut.

U.S. Attorney Krishna Patel had sought a maximum penalty of five years in prison for El Mahdi Semlali Fathi, 27, for a alleged plan to attack the Cambridge, Massachusetts, university and an unnamed federal building"
 
dotr said:
Some interesting responses..

http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/murder-at-harvard/
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We saw this blog posting (and the comments) months ago. But maybe references to it were deleted, because the bloggers were named. I haven't gone back through this thread to see what, if anything, survived.

Heck, I named them myself -- one of the guys associated with the site's operator was my roommate in Cambridge for a year.

Anybody who would post a fossil skull and tag it as Jane's is worthy of contempt. If it's the guy who runs the site, he's worthy of contempt anyway, on other grounds.

I'm afraid that this thread has died because everybody who has anything to say has already said it. I know I have.
 
DonMitchell said:
We saw this blog posting (and the comments) months ago. But maybe references to it were deleted, because the bloggers were named. I haven't gone back through this thread to see what, if anything, survived.

Heck, I named them myself -- one of the guys associated with the site's operator was my roommate in Cambridge for a year.

Anybody who would post a fossil skull and tag it as Jane's is worthy of contempt. If it's the guy who runs the site, he's worthy of contempt anyway, on other grounds.

I'm afraid that this thread has died because everybody who has anything to say has already said it. I know I have.
Click to expand...

I just read all responses. Never seen so many mental riffs on a blog, but then I don't read many blogs. Yes, that was a hideous thing to do (the skull)
 
dotr said:
Apologies to everyone for having (re) posted it, I was trying to bump the case..
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No need to apologize. I didn't recognize the link and clicked through, only to realize I'd been there before. And then I thought that maybe the old references to it had been taken down.
 
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