Article on searching for Molly's killer. The interesting thing is 11 people FAILED the lie detector test. I don't know what type of questions they were asking, but it doesn't say much for the accuracy of the testWARREN, Mass. - The identification of Molly Ann Bish's remains has not given investigators any new answers about how the teenage lifeguard was killed, or by whom.
But it has brought a flood of new leads and may help them to narrow the scope of the probe, authorities said.
Teeth and bones found in the Palmer woods a few miles from where the 16-year-old disappeared nearly three years ago were identified Monday as Bish's, Worcester County District Attorney John Conte said.
Conte said investigators will revisit some of the suspects identified earlier in the case - including 11 who failed a lie detector test - and follow up on 200 new leads generated in recent weeks.
``We're going to search every lead that we have, new and old,'' Conte said Friday. ``And we feel this is the most important part right now, to see if we can't find out who committed this very heinous crime.''
Police still had a few acres of the hilly, swampy area to search and were planning to return to the area on Tuesday.
John Bish, joined by his wife on the Warren Town Common, told reporters Tuesday that he was confident investigators would track down their daughter's killer, whom he urged to surrender.
``The person who placed her at peril will be found also by the Massachusetts State Police,'' he said. ``We will now turn to helping them in every way we can to pursue this individual. We would ask this person to turn himself in now.''
His wife, Magi Bish, her voice quivering, said that Molly had finally ``come home.''
``We are extremely saddened,'' she said. ``The depth of our sadness no family should have to endure. No one wants to bring a child home, bone by bone.''
She said she was thinking back to the day Molly was born, and how her husband had cut the umbilical cord.
``Now we are at another stage when we need to cut the cord and let her go,'' she said.
``Molly now has moved to the endless journey where we know she will be safe and protected,'' she added. ``But we will miss her.''
The investigation intensified in recent weeks after a hunter revealed he'd found a bathing suit deep in the woods that resembled the one Bish was wearing when she vanished.
In the ensuing weeks, searchers combed woods near the Quaboag River, where a woman fishing found a ponytail holder with human hair stuck to it. Over the next several days, searchers uncovered human bones scattered about - parts of an arm and thigh, then vertebrae and teeth - definitive evidence that Bish had met a disastrous end.
DNA evidence from the first bone discovered help police to identify the remains. The identification was confirmed by comparing the teeth against Bish's dental records,
Conte said the area where the remains were found was likely the murder scene. He added that the location of the bones had led investigators to believe Bish had been buried in a shallow grave.
``It's going to be very, very difficult at this time to establish a cause of death,'' Conte said. ``The material that we found indicated no blunt trauma, no bullet wounds, or any things of that nature.''
Bish disappeared June 27, 2000, minutes after her mother dropped her off to work at Comins Pond in Warren. A water bottle, her lunch, a police radio and an empty chair were the only traces she left behind.
Her disappearance sparked a massive search, with searchers scouring hundreds of acres and divers searching the pond. Her story was also featured on the television shows ``Unsolved Mysteries'' and ``America's Most Wanted.''
Police released a composite drawing of a suspicious man seen in a white car in the beach parking area the day before Bish's disappearance, and rumors of her whereabouts popped up occasionally. But despite dozens of interviews and rewards of up to $100,000, there were no breaks in the case until the discovery of the swimsuit.
The hunter who found it first saw it months ago, but said he did not report it because it did not occur to him that a lifeguard would wear a blue bathing suit. He expected a lifeguard to wear an orange or red suit.
The discovery of the remains brought a flood of new leads, Conte said, and the location of the remains would allow officials to narrow their investigation.
``We have suspects, we have evidence, we have 11 people that failed a lie detector test. (Sunday) I said that we had 150 new leads - well you can add 50 more to that,'' he said.
Conte said there were as many theories on Bish's disappearance as there were investigators working on the case. But he added that the discovery of the body only five miles from where Bish was last seen, ``leads us to believe that the theory that it may have been a local person comes to the foreground right now.''
Printer-friendly copy
, Feb-09-01, 12:41 PM, (1)
, May-29-03, 10:45 PM, (9)
