Investigators reached out to media all over the country. It is likely the girl did not live nearby, because her description did not match that of any of the local missing persons, Buccafurni said.
Her body might have been dumped by someone driving along the Garden State Parkway, who was long gone by the time the body was found, an estimated six or more months after she was believed to have died, according to Lt. Shawn Mildren of the Galloway police.
Black and white photos of the scene 37 years ago show remains barely discernible from the leaves. The skull sits eight feet away from the rest. Animals likely moved it, Buccafurni said.
After an autopsy, which determined the girl might have been strangled, police took the remains to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where an anthropologist studied them to help a composite artist come up with a sketch.
Despite their efforts and national media attention, the case was still unsolved in 2002 when another detective re-examined the case, hoping advances in DNA and forensic imaging could revive the investigation.
Nothing came of that attempt because the officer could not locate the girl's remains, figuring they were destroyed by a fire at the police station during the 1980s.
When Buccafurni picked up the file four months ago, she called the Smithsonian. The remains were still there.
Buccafurni enlisted the aid of a forensic anthropologist from the Smithsonian and a forensic artist from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They returned a more comprehensive description of the victim.
Buccafurni plans to have the remains sent to the New Jersey State Police Crime Lab, where technicians will check a DNA sample against a database in hopes that her parents submitted samples of their DNA.
