https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion...s-cold-case/PmWB9UQVZnZBtTHPhuan0K/story.html
Middlesex DAs office
SOLVED MA - Jane Britton, 22, Harvard student, Cambridge, 7 Jan 1969
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fred&edna
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Thank goodness we weren't holding our breath. What a shame!!
"Ryans stonewalling is par for the course in Massachusetts, which studies have shown is among the worst of the 50 states in the publics access to records."
CuriousinNY
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Hello All. I stumbled on this case and have read up to this point. I may have missed it but the unnamed suspect...what do you think his motive may have been? Unrequited love? Professional jealousy?
Mary Simpson was killed in Elmira, NY on 3/15/1964. Her case is still unsolved.
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/s...pson-12-Elmira-15-March-1964&highlight=elmira
Guess who was raised in Elmira, NY and lived there in 1964.
RMG
Cold cases seem to follow RMG like a shadow.
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/s...pson-12-Elmira-15-March-1964&highlight=elmira
Guess who was raised in Elmira, NY and lived there in 1964.
RMG
Cold cases seem to follow RMG like a shadow.
Oregonmama
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I have confidence in the Globe for hopefully getting the case records. They took on the Catholic church for the cover up with their priests and succeeded.
My apologies im new and entering your discussion, you have been very active investing may i ask if a criminal back ground check has been conducted on (J. Boyd) "to the best of your knowledge." Submitted with the upmost respect. OAK
DonMitchell
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You're wondering about a criminal background check on Jane's brother, who was nowhere near Cambridge when she was killed? Why on earth are you wondering about that?
rosesfromangels
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It’s a very rational question. Most murderers are known to the victim. Establishing if her brother had a criminal past or criminal friends is a good query.
Amateur opinion and speculation.
Fede
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Dont know if this article has been already posted: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...-get-chance/PY1xtN0QyBavie7wYPNeKO/story.html
TinfoilYarmulke
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Bump. Happy Birthday, Jane.
DonMitchell
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For immediate release: November 19, 2018
Media Advisory: Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan to Announce Development in 1969 Cambridge Homicide
WOBURN – Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan has announced that there will be a press conference tomorrow, November 20, 2018at 1:00 p.m. at the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office located at 15 Commonwealth Avenue, 4th Floor in Woburn to announce a significant development in the case of the 1969 murder of Jane Britton.
“Over the past year our office has been in the process of conducting DNA testing on the evidence taken from a 1969 Cambridge homicide. Tomorrow I am excited to announce a significant development in the case as a result of that testing,” said District Attorney Ryan.
On January 7, 1969 at 12:40 p.m., the body of Jane Britton, 23, of Needham, a graduate student in Anthropology at Harvard University, was found in her fourth floor apartment, located at 6 University Road, in Cambridge by her boyfriend who came to check on her after she had failed to appear to take an examination that morning. She had been sexually assaulted and sustained multiple blunt force injuries to her head.
Media attending the press conference should check in on the 3rd floor at the main reception desk. RSVP is appreciated but not required. Media interested in attending can respond to Elizabeth Vlock
Media Advisory: Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan to Announce Development in 1969 Cambridge Homicide
WOBURN – Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan has announced that there will be a press conference tomorrow, November 20, 2018at 1:00 p.m. at the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office located at 15 Commonwealth Avenue, 4th Floor in Woburn to announce a significant development in the case of the 1969 murder of Jane Britton.
“Over the past year our office has been in the process of conducting DNA testing on the evidence taken from a 1969 Cambridge homicide. Tomorrow I am excited to announce a significant development in the case as a result of that testing,” said District Attorney Ryan.
On January 7, 1969 at 12:40 p.m., the body of Jane Britton, 23, of Needham, a graduate student in Anthropology at Harvard University, was found in her fourth floor apartment, located at 6 University Road, in Cambridge by her boyfriend who came to check on her after she had failed to appear to take an examination that morning. She had been sexually assaulted and sustained multiple blunt force injuries to her head.
Media attending the press conference should check in on the 3rd floor at the main reception desk. RSVP is appreciated but not required. Media interested in attending can respond to Elizabeth Vlock
Thanks for this awesome update, nice to "see" you again DonMitchell!
rbbm.
Advances in DNA technology led to breakthrough in 1969 cold case
"For decades, her murder went unsolved. Public calls were made for the DA to open the case file to outside investigators.
Now, however, DA Ryan says advances in DNA technology have changed everything and led to a breakthrough in this case.
"Using new DNA technology as well as good, hard investigative work, we have had a break through in terms of where we are in this matter," said DA Ryan. "DNA left in place by itself doesn't necessarily lead you to a conclusion, it's all the investigative framework that goes with that."
SOLVED!!
Press conference now. rbbm.
Who killed Jane Britton? 50-year murder investigation finally closed
"The Combined DNA Index System is a national database run by the FBI, which catalogs the DNA profiles of people convicted of crimes.
The profile made in 2017 came back to a man named Charles Sumpter."
Sumpter lived in Cambridge as a young child, dated a girl in Cambridge in the mid-1960s and, in 1967, was working on Arrow Street – just a mile from Jane Britton’s apartment.
Sumpter was arrested and convicted of physically assaulting a woman he met at the Harvard Square MBTA station three years after Jane’s murder.
But in 1975, Sumpter was out of jail and raped a woman in her Boston apartment. It was then that he was sent to prison for 15-20 years.
Just 13 months after he was paroled, Sumpter died on Cancer in 2001.
After his death, Sumpter’s DNA profile was matched to the rape and murder of 23-year-old Ellen Rutchick in her Beacon Street Apartment in 1972. He was also connected to the 1973 rape and murder of 24-year-old Mary Lee McClain in her Mount Vernon Street Apartment.
In 2018, 17 years after his death, investigators finally matched the profile for Jane’s killer closely enough to Sumpter’s brother to determine that Charles Sumpter was the man who apparently scaled Jane’s fire escape on the evening of January 6, 1969, and raped and murdered her in her apartment"
"Investigators say Sumpter had no connection to Jane Britton and they probably didn’t know each other."
Press conference now. rbbm.
Who killed Jane Britton? 50-year murder investigation finally closed
"The Combined DNA Index System is a national database run by the FBI, which catalogs the DNA profiles of people convicted of crimes.
The profile made in 2017 came back to a man named Charles Sumpter."
Sumpter lived in Cambridge as a young child, dated a girl in Cambridge in the mid-1960s and, in 1967, was working on Arrow Street – just a mile from Jane Britton’s apartment.
Sumpter was arrested and convicted of physically assaulting a woman he met at the Harvard Square MBTA station three years after Jane’s murder.
But in 1975, Sumpter was out of jail and raped a woman in her Boston apartment. It was then that he was sent to prison for 15-20 years.
Just 13 months after he was paroled, Sumpter died on Cancer in 2001.
After his death, Sumpter’s DNA profile was matched to the rape and murder of 23-year-old Ellen Rutchick in her Beacon Street Apartment in 1972. He was also connected to the 1973 rape and murder of 24-year-old Mary Lee McClain in her Mount Vernon Street Apartment.
In 2018, 17 years after his death, investigators finally matched the profile for Jane’s killer closely enough to Sumpter’s brother to determine that Charles Sumpter was the man who apparently scaled Jane’s fire escape on the evening of January 6, 1969, and raped and murdered her in her apartment"
"Investigators say Sumpter had no connection to Jane Britton and they probably didn’t know each other."
Last edited:
Suglo
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No justice for three women that we now know of. It just goes to show that sometimes it is a stranger that has no ties to the victim. I feel awful for all those men/friends who were at one time or another accused of this heinous crime. I’m glad that their names are finally cleared. RIP Jane, Ellen and Mary Lee.SOLVED!!
Press conference now. rbbm.
Who killed Jane Britton? 50-year murder investigation finally closed
"The Combined DNA Index System is a national database run by the FBI, which catalogs the DNA profiles of people convicted of crimes.
The profile made in 2017 came back to a man named Charles Sumpter."
Sumpter lived in Cambridge as a young child, dated a girl in Cambridge in the mid-1960s and, in 1967, was working on Arrow Street – just a mile from Jane Britton’s apartment.
Sumpter was arrested and convicted of physically assaulting a woman he met at the Harvard Square MBTA station three years after Jane’s murder.
But in 1975, Sumpter was out of jail and raped a woman in her Boston apartment. It was then that he was sent to prison for 15-20 years.
Just 13 months after he was paroled, Sumpter died on Cancer in 2001.
After his death, Sumpter’s DNA profile was matched to the rape and murder of 23-year-old Ellen Rutchick in her Beacon Street Apartment in 1972. He was also connected to the 1973 rape and murder of 24-year-old Mary Lee McClain in her Mount Vernon Street Apartment.
In 2018, 17 years after his death, investigators finally matched the profile for Jane’s killer closely enough to Sumpter’s brother to determine that Charles Sumpter was the man who apparently scaled Jane’s fire escape on the evening of January 6, 1969, and raped and murdered her in her apartment"
"Investigators say Sumpter had no connection to Jane Britton and they probably didn’t know each other."
This link has video of full press conference by DA Marian Ryan
DNA evidence solves 1969 cold case murder, DA says
DNA evidence solves 1969 cold case murder, DA says
DonMitchell
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I'm going to paste in something I posted on Facebook, rather than retype everything.
==========
Here why I was looking for a maile lei last Friday.
Early in the morning on January 7th, 1969, my friend Jane Britton – a fellow graduate student in Harvard’s anthropology department – was murdered in the apartment next to mine. Her boyfriend and I found her body the next morning. Her skull had been beaten in, probably by a Lower Paleolithic stone tool that happened to be in her apartment.
Several of us were grilled by the police, given lie detector tests, and had our pictures splashed across the pages of the Boston papers, and even the New York Times. We testified before a Grand Jury.
It was clear to me that, at least for a time, I was a suspect. But I was not the only one. An archaeologist connected with the Peabody Museum (which housed the Anthropology Department) was also a candidate. There was no evidence; no one was arrested, although over many years those us of close to the case continued to believe that he was the killer. In the 1990s, he died.
So far as any of us knew, the case – though never closed by the Massachusetts State Police – had become inactive. My last contact with Lt. Frank Joyce, the lead MSP investigator, was in the late 1970s.
In 2017 a young woman named Becky Cooper, a New Yorker writer and Harvard graduate, located me in Hilo, and told me she was writing a non-fiction book about Jane. I agreed to help her with her book in any way that I could. Becky came to Hilo and spent several days interviewing me.
Around the same time, Becky and three other people had begun filing Freedom of Information Act requests to examine the case records. One, Alyssa Bertetto, a private investigator in Colorado, put me in touch with another, a reporter for the Boston Globe named Todd Wallack, who was writing an article about the case. Todd interviewed me for his article, which can still be found on the Globe’s website. Becky was in contact with a man named Michael Widmer, who had been in the higher levels of Massachusetts politics and was interested in the case in part because Jane’s murder had been his first story as a cub reporter.
All of their FOIA requests and appeals were denied, on the grounds that the case was still active. And yet the case did not appear to be active.
I think it’s fair to say that those four effectively put pressure on the Middlesex County DA and the Massachusetts State Police to work again on the case.
One of the results of their pressure was that Detective Sergeant Peter Sennott came to Hilo to talk to me and to collect a sample of my DNA, so that I could be “excluded.” He never said what the source of the DNA that mine would be tested against was, and I didn’t expect him to. He was professional and personable and we got along well. We had a semi-formal interview and then a couple of days later we knocked around on Mauna Kea in my 4Runner.
But after Sgt Sennott left and I heard nothing, I was discouraged. I began to think that it was what in Hawai’i we sometimes call “shibai,” a sham, a front, pretense, putting on an act.
I had suspected that the investigation restarted because the law holds that if an investigation is active, then no FOIA requests need be granted.
But I was wrong about shibai. In fact, Sgt Sennott was doing some amazing detective work, though of course that’s not something he would have revealed to me; I only learned about his investigations recently.
During the next year I thought a lot about Jane and I stayed in close contact with Becky, while trying to work on my own fictional treatment of the murder.
So I decided to plant a tree in Jane’s memory. I chose a yellow ‘ōhi’a; Ruth and I had already planted an ‘ōhi’a for Becky, who had become a good friend and was so closely linked to Jane, to me, and to Ruth.
And then I waited. Recently, there were rumblings that the killer had been found and that at some point there would be an announcement.
Last Friday I heard that on Tuesday, there would be a press conference at which the killer would be named.
Jane’s ‘ōhi’a was already in the ground. It came to me that – just as I had wreathed the calabash containing my father’s ashes with a maile lei, and later did the same with my mother’s – that placing a maile lei around Jane’s ‘ōhi’a would be a fitting tribute.
I also decided to place one on Becky’s ‘ōhi’a, to signify her link to Jane, and her importance in helping bring about the solution to the crime.
And that’s why I started looking for maile here on Facebook.
This is what happened: a man named Michael Sumpter raped and murdered Jane Britton. He was not connected with Harvard or Jane’s circle of friends in any way. An evil man, he had killed before Jane and may have killed after her. He died in 2001.
Here are some things I need to process:
For almost half a century I suspected that certain man killed my friend, but now I know he was innocent. I owe him an apology that I can’t give to him because he is no longer alive. Having a strongly-held belief like that turned upside down is humbling.
For almost half a century I believed that Jane had somehow gotten herself into a situation that unexpectedly and lethally turned bad. Mainly this was because most of us only looked for suspects within our own crowd, the anthropologists and archaeologists, and none of us seemed to be violent killers. So we thought Jane must have died because something unexpectedly escalated into lethal violence.
For all those years, though, I never could come up with a possible situation that didn’t seem strained or flawed. And when, working on the novel, I tried to imagine a fictional situation, nothing seemed to work.
I don’t think that any of us who knew Jane ever thought that her death was a random act of violence. I know I didn’t.
But it was, and so that’s another thing I have to process. Don’t cling to a hypothesis that doesn’t seem quite right just because it’s the only one you can think of. But that’s what I did and it’s a sobering thought.
People talk about closure, and I guess that’s what I have now. I know how Jane Britton died which means I now know something I deeply wanted to know for half a century. And, to tell the truth, I always wondered whether I was still considered a suspect, particularly when Sgt. Sennott came to collect DNA from me. Over the years, I’ve wondered how many people out there thought I might have been the killer; now, if they’re paying attention to the news, they know I’m not.
Jane’s story needs to be told – and not just the story of the crime, although that’s the nexus. The Anthropology Department, all of us, the Cambridge community and how it was in the late sixties and the ways that Jane’s story has endured and has been passed from student to student all these years. And more subtly, the ways Jane and her story have influenced our lives over the years – well, I should only speak for myself. I don’t think two months have ever gone by that I didn’t think of her. And the ways those of us who never forgot her, who, like me, never completely abandoned hope that the case could be solved, helped keep her memory alive.
That is the story that Becky Cooper is writing, and I know in my bones that it’s going to be a great one.
“We Keep the Dead Close” by Becky Cooper will be published in 2020, by Grand Central Books, a division of Hachette.
Todd Wallack of the Boston Globe will publish an article tomorrow morning.
https://www.middlesexda.com/…/dna-used-identify-man-respons…
==========
Here why I was looking for a maile lei last Friday.
Early in the morning on January 7th, 1969, my friend Jane Britton – a fellow graduate student in Harvard’s anthropology department – was murdered in the apartment next to mine. Her boyfriend and I found her body the next morning. Her skull had been beaten in, probably by a Lower Paleolithic stone tool that happened to be in her apartment.
Several of us were grilled by the police, given lie detector tests, and had our pictures splashed across the pages of the Boston papers, and even the New York Times. We testified before a Grand Jury.
It was clear to me that, at least for a time, I was a suspect. But I was not the only one. An archaeologist connected with the Peabody Museum (which housed the Anthropology Department) was also a candidate. There was no evidence; no one was arrested, although over many years those us of close to the case continued to believe that he was the killer. In the 1990s, he died.
So far as any of us knew, the case – though never closed by the Massachusetts State Police – had become inactive. My last contact with Lt. Frank Joyce, the lead MSP investigator, was in the late 1970s.
In 2017 a young woman named Becky Cooper, a New Yorker writer and Harvard graduate, located me in Hilo, and told me she was writing a non-fiction book about Jane. I agreed to help her with her book in any way that I could. Becky came to Hilo and spent several days interviewing me.
Around the same time, Becky and three other people had begun filing Freedom of Information Act requests to examine the case records. One, Alyssa Bertetto, a private investigator in Colorado, put me in touch with another, a reporter for the Boston Globe named Todd Wallack, who was writing an article about the case. Todd interviewed me for his article, which can still be found on the Globe’s website. Becky was in contact with a man named Michael Widmer, who had been in the higher levels of Massachusetts politics and was interested in the case in part because Jane’s murder had been his first story as a cub reporter.
All of their FOIA requests and appeals were denied, on the grounds that the case was still active. And yet the case did not appear to be active.
I think it’s fair to say that those four effectively put pressure on the Middlesex County DA and the Massachusetts State Police to work again on the case.
One of the results of their pressure was that Detective Sergeant Peter Sennott came to Hilo to talk to me and to collect a sample of my DNA, so that I could be “excluded.” He never said what the source of the DNA that mine would be tested against was, and I didn’t expect him to. He was professional and personable and we got along well. We had a semi-formal interview and then a couple of days later we knocked around on Mauna Kea in my 4Runner.
But after Sgt Sennott left and I heard nothing, I was discouraged. I began to think that it was what in Hawai’i we sometimes call “shibai,” a sham, a front, pretense, putting on an act.
I had suspected that the investigation restarted because the law holds that if an investigation is active, then no FOIA requests need be granted.
But I was wrong about shibai. In fact, Sgt Sennott was doing some amazing detective work, though of course that’s not something he would have revealed to me; I only learned about his investigations recently.
During the next year I thought a lot about Jane and I stayed in close contact with Becky, while trying to work on my own fictional treatment of the murder.
So I decided to plant a tree in Jane’s memory. I chose a yellow ‘ōhi’a; Ruth and I had already planted an ‘ōhi’a for Becky, who had become a good friend and was so closely linked to Jane, to me, and to Ruth.
And then I waited. Recently, there were rumblings that the killer had been found and that at some point there would be an announcement.
Last Friday I heard that on Tuesday, there would be a press conference at which the killer would be named.
Jane’s ‘ōhi’a was already in the ground. It came to me that – just as I had wreathed the calabash containing my father’s ashes with a maile lei, and later did the same with my mother’s – that placing a maile lei around Jane’s ‘ōhi’a would be a fitting tribute.
I also decided to place one on Becky’s ‘ōhi’a, to signify her link to Jane, and her importance in helping bring about the solution to the crime.
And that’s why I started looking for maile here on Facebook.
This is what happened: a man named Michael Sumpter raped and murdered Jane Britton. He was not connected with Harvard or Jane’s circle of friends in any way. An evil man, he had killed before Jane and may have killed after her. He died in 2001.
Here are some things I need to process:
For almost half a century I suspected that certain man killed my friend, but now I know he was innocent. I owe him an apology that I can’t give to him because he is no longer alive. Having a strongly-held belief like that turned upside down is humbling.
For almost half a century I believed that Jane had somehow gotten herself into a situation that unexpectedly and lethally turned bad. Mainly this was because most of us only looked for suspects within our own crowd, the anthropologists and archaeologists, and none of us seemed to be violent killers. So we thought Jane must have died because something unexpectedly escalated into lethal violence.
For all those years, though, I never could come up with a possible situation that didn’t seem strained or flawed. And when, working on the novel, I tried to imagine a fictional situation, nothing seemed to work.
I don’t think that any of us who knew Jane ever thought that her death was a random act of violence. I know I didn’t.
But it was, and so that’s another thing I have to process. Don’t cling to a hypothesis that doesn’t seem quite right just because it’s the only one you can think of. But that’s what I did and it’s a sobering thought.
People talk about closure, and I guess that’s what I have now. I know how Jane Britton died which means I now know something I deeply wanted to know for half a century. And, to tell the truth, I always wondered whether I was still considered a suspect, particularly when Sgt. Sennott came to collect DNA from me. Over the years, I’ve wondered how many people out there thought I might have been the killer; now, if they’re paying attention to the news, they know I’m not.
Jane’s story needs to be told – and not just the story of the crime, although that’s the nexus. The Anthropology Department, all of us, the Cambridge community and how it was in the late sixties and the ways that Jane’s story has endured and has been passed from student to student all these years. And more subtly, the ways Jane and her story have influenced our lives over the years – well, I should only speak for myself. I don’t think two months have ever gone by that I didn’t think of her. And the ways those of us who never forgot her, who, like me, never completely abandoned hope that the case could be solved, helped keep her memory alive.
That is the story that Becky Cooper is writing, and I know in my bones that it’s going to be a great one.
“We Keep the Dead Close” by Becky Cooper will be published in 2020, by Grand Central Books, a division of Hachette.
Todd Wallack of the Boston Globe will publish an article tomorrow morning.
https://www.middlesexda.com/…/dna-used-identify-man-respons…