On a spring day in New Haven, Connecticut, 11-year-old Diane Toney, an African American girl, went to the annual Freddy Fixer parade. It was May 18, 1969, and she was dressed in a green polka-dot dress. At some point during the festivities, she became separated from her grandfather. When she didn't return home that evening, her mother reported her missing.
An extensive search for the young girl yielded no results, and months passed with no sign of Diane.
The tragic answer to her whereabouts came in September when a mushroom picker discovered her skull in a wooded area in the Meshomasic State Forest, 15 miles from her home. A subsequent search of the area uncovered the rest of her skeletal remains and fragments of the green polka-dot dress she was last seen wearing. Due to the condition of her remains, the medical examiner was unable to determine an exact cause of death but ruled it a homicide.
Diane Toney's death was the first in a string of unsolved murders of young girls in Connecticut between 1969 and 1970, sparking fears of a serial killer. Other victims included 10-year-old Mary Mount and 14-year-old Dawn Cave, who were also abducted and murdered within weeks of Diane's disappearance. Investigators noted similarities in the cases, as the victims were all young girls whose bodies were found in wooded or remote areas.
Years later, a truck driver named Harold Meade, who was convicted of murdering three intellectually disabled individuals in 1970, was considered a suspect in Diane's case and the other killings. The method in the murders he was convicted of, bludgeoning his victims with rocks, was similar to the deaths of the other young girls. Despite suspicions and some witness statements placing him in the vicinity of the disappearances, Meade was never charged in connection with Diane Toney's murder. He denied any involvement, and her case remains unsolved to this day, one of Connecticut's most haunting cold cases. In a sad postscript to the tragedy, Diane's remains went unclaimed for 27 years before she was finally laid to rest.
