A 19 yr old disappears after visiting her grandmother On a spring night in 1982, 19-year-old Brenda LaComb, a young mother to a nine-month-old baby boy, vanished after leaving her grandmother's apartment in Lowell, Massachusetts. She had been playing cards and drinking wine with her grandmother on the evening of May 15th. Around 12:45 a.m. on May 16th, after receiving a phone call, she left the apartment and was never seen alive again.
Her family knew something was wrong when she failed to show up for an appointment for her son, Matthew, the next day, as she would have never willingly left him.
Weeks turned into a grim waiting game for Brenda's loved ones. Their hopes of finding her alive were shattered on June 4, 1982, when a jogger made a gruesome discovery in a wooded area in the town of Harvard, Massachusetts. Behind a stone wall off Littleton County Road, the jogger found human remains that were later identified through dental records as Brenda LaComb. Her body was found partially naked, and it was evident she had been badly beaten. Due to the advanced state of decomposition, an official cause of death could not be determined, but her death was ruled as unnatural and is considered a homicide.
The investigation into Brenda's murder has spanned decades without a resolution. No arrests have ever been made, and no suspects have been publicly named. Police believe she may have been picked up or abducted after leaving her grandmother's home and was likely killed outside of Lowell. There were rumors that Brenda was involved with the wrong crowd, and had been a topless dancer and had been arrested for drugs and prostitution. A few months before her death, she and a friend may have witnessed an arson.
Despite the passage of time, Brenda's case has not been forgotten. Her niece, who was not yet born when her aunt was murdered, has been a dedicated advocate for justice, actively researching the case and pushing for new leads. The family has even considered exhuming Brenda's body in the hopes that modern DNA technology could provide the answers that have remained elusive for over four decades. The Worcester County District Attorney's Office considers the case to be an active, unresolved investigation.
