Detectives hope DNA will solve girl’s ’62 slaying

Associated Press

AKRON

Authorities hope DNA can solve the slaying of a 12-year-old girl more than five decades ago in Northeast Ohio.

Marion Brubaker’s body recently was exhumed in Summit County to provide a DNA sample and fingernail clippings for testing by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Authorities say the girl was attacked and killed as she rode her bike home in an Akron suburb in the summer of 1962. Her body and bike were found in a wooded area in Coventry Township.

Detectives theorized then that sexual assault was the motive for the girl’s strangulation death, although tests showed no evidence of rape.

The Akron Beacon Journal reports that a teenage boy who reported finding the body has always denied any involvement in Marion’s death. The paper reported that the boy had a broken zipper, a torn shirt and unexplained scratches. He never was charged.

Now 67, he recently was questioned again by sheriff’s detectives. He told authorities in 1962 that he was bored that day and decided to walk through the woods where he found Marion’s body.

Detectives reopened the case again in 2012 but have released few details about their investigation. Marion’s bike remains in the evidence room more than 50 years later.

“We’re definitely doing everything we can,” Detective Larry Brown said. “It was a brutal homicide. I know it’s been 50 years, but I’m hopeful something is still there.”

Investigators have theorized that the girl was headed home from the Portage Lakes Public Library and took a short-cut through the woods when she was attacked.

A little more than a year after her death, a vagrant was arrested and confessed the crime. But the details he provided had been widely reported. He later was committed to a mental institution.

The girl’s parents have died. She has several relatives living in California, including a sister, who didn’t respond to a recent email.