On Dec. 29, 1977, skeletal remains and clothing were found in a wooded area near the Firestone plant at 3001 Firestone Parkway in Wilson. The Wilson County Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation responded.
A medical examiner determined the remains belonged to a white female, approximately 16 to 23 years old, who had likely been there for six months to two years, said the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation said in a news release on Sept. 8. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) classified the manner of death as undetermined. However, circumstances surrounding the location and recovery of the remains raised the probability of foul play, and the investigators are treating the case as a homicide.
For years, investigators compared dental records against missing persons cases without finding a match. The forensic tools of the time weren’t enough, and the case went cold.
In 2010, the case was reopened by a state anthropologist. He submitted the victim’s teeth for DNA testing and entered the resulting profile into CODIS and NamUs. No match came back.
The Wilson County Sheriff’s Office held jurisdiction on the case for nearly five decades. In 2024, the SBI’s Cold Case Investigative Team assigned Special Investigator Andy Murr to review it again, this time with forensic tools that didn’t exist in 1977.
Working with OCME, Murr determined the case qualified for advanced DNA testing. OCME sent a bone sample to a forensic DNA lab, which extracted genetic material and built a SNP profile — a comparison of hundreds of thousands of genetic markers, detailed enough for forensic genetic genealogy. A genealogy service used the profile to trace potential relatives, pointing investigators toward a 15-year-old girl who had run away from Monkton, Maryland, in the spring of 1977.
With help from the FBI’s NCIC Investigation and Operational Assistance Group, the Maryland Department of State Police Homicide Unit, and the Raleigh Police Department’s Intel Unit, investigators confirmed her identity: Cindy Marcell Blizzard, missing for more than 49 years.
Her death remains unsolved. Investigators are still looking for answers.
Anyone with information about the 1977 case involving Cindy Marcell Blizzard is asked to call the SBI Cold Case Tip Line at 919-582-TIPS, email [email protected], or contact the Wilson County Sheriff’s Office at 252-237-2118.
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*Contributed article and photo by NCSBI.
