In Swampscott, a stunning development in a fifty-year-old unsolved murder.
In Swampscott Cemetery, law enforcement this week exhumed the body of 15-year-old Henry Bedard.
The high school student was beaten to death with a baseball bat in December 1974.
Five decades later, authorities are seeking to examine Henry’s remains a second time.
Beth Saucier Goodspeed is an assistant professor of forensic science at Laselle Unverisity.
She spent nearly a quarter of a century at the State Police Crime Lab, and she has experience with exhumations.
“What could still be there after 50 years?” I asked.
“There could be potential DNA evidence. It really depends on the condition of the area, the deceased; there’s many factors that come into play,” Goodspeed said.
She believes, even after 50 years, an exhumation in the unsolved Bedard case could be a game-changer.
“There could be a possibility of finding any hairs, fibers, there could be DNA collections done in order to preserve the evidence that might be there for testing,” Goodspeed said.
In 2013, Boston Police exhumed the body of Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo and matched his DNA to evidence collected in the 1964 murder of Strangler victim Mary Sullivan.
Former Boston Police Chief Dan Linskey was part of that effort.
He also believes an exhumation in the Bedard case could yield important information.
“They might have a new witness, new evidence, new statements, they want to do a new autopsy to go back and see what was missed or something that somebody told them that the victim’s body can verify,” Linskey said.
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