Skeletal remains are found in a wooded area next to the Sugar River Ellen Ruth Fried, a 26-year-old nurse from Claremont, New Hampshire, went missing in 1984, marking the beginning of one of the area's most enduring unsolved cases. On the evening of July 22, 1984, Ellen was last seen using a payphone outside a convenience store in Claremont. She had been speaking with her sister when she suddenly disappeared. Her skeletal remains were discovered over a year later, on September 19, 1985, near the Sugar River in a wooded area in Newport, New Hampshire.
Due to the advanced decomposition of her body, the exact cause of death could not be determined, but it was suspected she had been sexually assaulted and murdered. Her death has since been classified as a homicide.
Ellen Fried's case is linked to the infamous Connecticut River Valley murders, a series of unsolved killings of young women in the late 1970s and 1980s in the New Hampshire and Vermont area. The similarities between the murders — in terms of the victims' profiles and the violent nature of their deaths — suggest that a serial killer may have been responsible. Fried's murder, along with the deaths of other women like Bernice Courtemanche and Eva Morse, became part of this broader investigation. Despite years of speculation, no conclusive evidence has been found to identify the killer, and the Connecticut River Valley killer remains an elusive figure to this day.
Several suspects have been considered over the years, including Michael Nicholaou, a Vietnam War veteran with a history of violence. He was later linked to other possible crimes, including the murders of his own wife and stepdaughter. Although one survivor of the killer, Jane Boroski, who was attacked in 1988, identified Nicholaou as her assailant, no definitive evidence has emerged to officially confirm his involvement in the Connecticut River Valley murders. This case, along with Fried's unsolved death, continues to haunt the region, with investigators still searching for answers decades later.
