Diane Cusack, a 55-year-old White/Caucasian woman, was last seen in the late summer or early fall of 2003 in New Britain, Connecticut. For years, her whereabouts remained unknown, as she had been out of contact with her family and was never officially reported as a missing person. The quiet mystery of her disappearance took a grim turn on August 20, 2007, when a person scouting for hunting locations made a startling discovery in a wooded, swampy area behind a shopping mall on Hartford Road in New Britain. The individual stumbled upon skeletal remains, which prompted a thorough search of the fifteen-acre patch of land by law enforcement. In the days that followed, the remains of three women were unearthed.
The process of identifying the victims was a lengthy one due to the condition of the remains. It wasn't until December 2010 that some of the remains were positively identified as belonging to Diane Cusack. Further investigation revealed that Cusack was one of multiple victims of a serial killer. Alongside her remains, those of Joyvaline Martinez and Mary Jane Menard were also found in 2007. All three women were known to frequent the same downtown New Britain neighborhood and had struggled with substance abuse. The investigation expanded in April 2015 when law enforcement, with the help of an FBI cadaver dog, discovered the remains of four more individuals in the same wooded area, bringing the total number of victims to at least seven.
A break in the case came with the identification of a prime suspect, William Devin Howell, a drifter with a criminal history. Howell was already incarcerated for the manslaughter of another woman, Nilsa Arizmendi, who also disappeared in 2003. Investigators linked him to the New Britain murders, and in September 2015, he was charged with the murders of Diane Cusack, Joyvaline Martinez, Mary Jane Menard, and three other victims. Court documents revealed that Howell had confessed to fellow inmates, referring to his van as the "murder mobile" and describing himself as a "sick ripper." In 2017, Howell pleaded guilty to the murders of all six women, including Diane Cusack, and was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences, ensuring he would spend the rest of his life in prison.
