Massachusetts Family Finds Closure Decades After Cold Case Murder
Nearly forty years after the murder of college student Claire Gravel in Massachusetts, her family found closure as her killer was convicted following a DNA breakthrough.
Nearly four decades after the tragic murder of 20-year-old college student Claire Gravel in Massachusetts, her family finally found a sense of closure. Last July, her grieving father and five siblings gathered at her gravesite for the first time since her killer was officially convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Tragic Disappearance in 1986
Claire Gravel, a political science student at Salem State College, dreamed of becoming a lawyer and starting a family. On June 30, 1986, she failed to show up for work, prompting her brothers to report her missing. Hours later, police cruisers crowded their driveway. Her body was discovered in roadside brush near Salem; she had been strangled to death with her own tank top.
Investigators pursued numerous leads, including a potential link to a string of unsolved murders in New Bedford, but the case went cold for years. A major breakthrough occurred in 2004 when touch DNA testing was performed on the garment, isolating an unknown male genetic profile that initially yielded no matches in national databases.
DNA Match and Conviction
The breakthrough ultimately came from an unrelated violent attack in 2007. John Carey assaulted Rosemary Diskin in her nearby home in Hamilton, but was stabbed by Diskin's 12-year-old son who rushed to her rescue. Carey was convicted of home invasion and attempted murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
"This brings a profound sense of relief, though the pain of the past remains with us," remarked the victim's younger brother during a media interview.
When Carey's DNA was subsequently entered into the national database, it matched the genetic profile recovered from Gravel's tank top. In March of this year, following a nearly three-week trial, a jury found Carey guilty of murder, and a judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
