Linda Pagano was a 17-year-old girl from Akron, Ohio, who disappeared on September 1, 1974, following an argument with her stepfather. After leaving the stepfather's apartment that evening, she was never seen alive again. Months later, on February 5, 1975, skeletal remains were discovered by three boys hiking in a park in Strongsville, Ohio, on the banks of the Rocky River.
The remains were weathered and missing key features such as a jawbone, and initial investigations concluded that the remains belonged to a young woman in her 20s. It was ruled that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, confirming the death as a homicide. However, no connection was made at the time to Linda's disappearance, and the remains were buried in an unmarked grave at Memorial Gardens in Highland Hills (Wikipedia, True Crime News).
The case remained unsolved for over four decades. In 2016, a student named Christina Scates came across information about the unidentified remains while doing research for her family history. Concerned about the young woman’s fate, Scates began investigating further, which eventually brought the case back to public attention. She shared her findings online, which caught the interest of a forensic artist, Carl Koppelman, who helped by creating a facial reconstruction of the victim. Following renewed interest, local authorities eventually reopened the investigation, and the unidentified remains were added to NamUs, the national database for missing persons. After significant effort involving exhuming the body and using advanced DNA testing, Linda Pagano's remains were positively identified in June 2018, 44 years after her disappearance (Wikipedia).
The identification brought a degree of closure to Linda's family, who had spent years wondering about her fate. Her brother, Michael Pagano, described the news as surreal, having believed he might never know what had happened to his sister. Linda's remains were returned to her family, and a memorial service was held in January 2019. Her cremated remains were interred next to her mother in Holy Cross Cemetery. Despite the identification, Linda’s murder remains an active investigation, with authorities shifting focus to finding her killer. The circumstances of her disappearance and death still hold many unanswered questions, and the investigation is ongoing (True Crime News).
