Evelyn Colon would have turned 60 last month.

Instead of celebrating her milestone birthday, her family was grieving. The young girl who went missing nearly 45 years ago was recently discovered to be “Beth Doe,” who was murdered, dismembered and dumped in three suitcases along Interstate 80 in Carbon County.

The suitcases were found by teenagers on Dec. 20, 1976, and the case remained a mystery until now.

The journey to give back her identity, charge her former boyfriend and bring closure and peace began one day nearly 14 years ago in a cemetery outside Weatherly.

On Oct. 30, 2007, Colon’s remains were exhumed from the Potter’s field cemetery on Laurytown Road where she was buried with her unborn daughter in 1983 after spending seven years in a Philadelphia morgue. There wasn’t a death certificate originally because she had no identity.

Former deputy coroner and funeral director Phil Jeffries documented that scene that changed everything.

Jeffries was acting as a funeral director that day when police asked to have the remains exhumed. She was buried in a cloth-covered wooden casket.

A burial vault would have kept the grave intact, especially in this cemetery where there is a high water table.

“There was no vault ordered. It was a matter of money,” Jeffries said.

There are others like that in Potter’s field, a post-Civil War era cemetery, known as the “Poor Farm.”

Colon’s remains were in a sealed bag, similar to the ones Jeffries saw when he was in Vietnam.

“There was no DNA testing in the mid-70s. The deceased and the infant were frozen at the morgue at that time,” Jeffries said.

Because the body was frozen, she was not fully embalmed in the Philadelphia morgue after Dr. Herbert J. Filinger of the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office performed the autopsy on Dec. 23, 1976. He determined that Colon died of manual strangulation and the death was a homicide.

In 1983, the unidentified remains were sent to Carbon County, where the Lamont Zimmerman Funeral Home handled the burial, under Coroner Bob Deibert’s watch.

A powder preservative helped to maintain what they needed 30 years later.

What they knew

Beth Doe was found with a chenille blanket in the suitcase and some hay or straw. A New York Times newspaper found in the suitcase was dated Sept. 26, 1976, and linked to the areas of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, Morris, Sussex, Passaic, Somerset and Union counties in New Jersey.

Body parts were wrapped in the pages of the newspapers. The handles were removed from the suitcases.

Her body and face were mutilated, making the mystery even harder to solve.

Police never gave up.

“Tom McAndrew was always looking. He needed something to fall in place,” Jeffries said.

McAndrew, who is now working as a detective for the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office Homicide Task Force, took over the case in 2004.

“This particular case my partner Shawn Williams and I worked quite often,” McAndrew said.

“Around 2007 we made a conscious decision to bring this case up to contemporary standards - meaning we wanted to apply all investigative techniques, scientific advancements, and media resources available - things that were not possible or available in 1976.”

McAndrew said the appropriate biological samples were not obtained in 1976.

“We knew that we could not accomplish the things we wanted to do without exhuming her,” McAndrew said. “Gary Dobias (DA at that time) and Phil Jeffries were very receptive to helping us.”

The case nagged at him.

“I always kept a list of her descriptors posted at my desk while I was with PSP, and continued to do so after I retired and joined the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office. Again, Shawn and I strongly felt that this case stood a great chance of being solved (at least in terms of the victim being identified).”

In 2018, genealogy started becoming more widely used by law enforcement, with the arrest of the Golden State Killer.

“We knew this would likely be the answer,” McAndrew said.

They kept in touch with Trooper Brian Noll, who took over the case after he retired.

“Fortunately he was dedicated to this case, and with the assistance of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Carbon County Coroner’s Office - he was able to get the victim’s profile uploaded to genealogy websites, which ultimately led to the victim being identified as Evelyn Colon.”

The second autopsy

Once the remains were exhumed, they were placed in a protective wooden box in Jeffries’ 2005 Toyota Sienna van. Jeffries remembers being part of a parade of police cars going down the turnpike to Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, where the second autopsy was performed.

Jeffries joked that was the day he learned the van could top 90 mph.

“That’s how fast they were driving,” he said. “I was trying to keep up.”

At the hospital, Dr. Isidore Mihalakis, Warren County medical examiner, and Conrad Quintyn, forensic anthropologist, conducted the second fateful autopsy.

Tissue samples and a femur were sent to a lab in Texas for identification.

Forensics showed that the woman was in the 15-25 age range.

The DNA showed the woman was of Mediterranean or Italian descent. They were able to estimate her height and weight. Police said she stood between 4-foot-11 and 5-foot-4, weighed 140-150 pounds and had brown hair.

The original facial reconstruction in the ’70s was close but the new computer model “hit the nail on the head,” Jeffries said when he saw how Colon’s pictures from high school matched the computer version.

Photos were distributed through the media and social platforms.

Her identity

Colon’s family had not reported her missing because they received a letter supposedly from Evelyn, telling them she gave birth to a son and she was OK. Later they became suspicious and talked to police.

Colon’s parents died and siblings and relatives migrated west from Jersey City to the Poconos and Wilkes-Barre.

It was when her nephew signed up for a DNA registry that the pieces came together.

Once police knew Evelyn’s identity, they turned to Luis Sierra, who was 19 at the time. Now 63, he has been charged with homicide in the case and appeared in front of Judge Joseph D. Homanko in late April. Charges were held for court.

A proper burial

On Nov. 1, 2007, Beth Doe’s remains were reinterred. Jeffries said they gave her a proper funeral. Evelyn and her baby, now named Emily by her family, were buried together in a sealed Ziegler metal case, this time with a concrete vault.

They didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for the service. Disinterment orders required a quick reburial.

But they made it meaningful.

Six members of Pennsylvania State Police acted as pallbearers. A few other troopers were in attendance.

The Rev. Donald J. Stump Sr. of Salem UCC Weatherly, Father Floyd Caesar and Deacon Ray Wilkinson of Our Lady of Lourdes in Weatherly conducted the brief but prayerful committal service. A dozen interested people from the community attended.

Colon’s family has started a GoFundMe account to bring members from all over the country to honor Colon and Emily. So far they’ve raised $11,490.

Proceeds will go toward all costs for arrangements in travel and anything else the Colon family will need to honor Evelyn and her baby.

“A special thank you to all of the people in Carbon County, Pennsylvania. You have loved Evelyn as much as we do for all 45 years,” the family posted.

Jeffries said he remained hopeful all these years that Beth Doe’s identity would be found. “I’ve been doing this a long time. You’d be surprised at how lucky you can get.”

The family thanked “the Pennsylvania state troopers for their continued tireless effort and investigations.”

Jeffries agreed. “I just can’t say enough about Pennsylvania State Police. They are the nation’s finest.”