Renewed interest in a 30-year-old cold case in Chelmsford

Investigators are searching the area behind a home on Gorham Street in Chelmsford following a discovery that could lead to a break in a 30-year-old cold case.

The home once belonged to the family of Judith Ann Chartier, a 17-year-old that went missing in 1982.

The Lowell Sun is reporting that police have recovered bones at the home and they have been sent to a lab for forensic testing.

Chartier's fiancé, Roger Balkum, was one of the last to see her before she disappeared. He shared his hopes for new information with FOX 25's Sharman Sacchetti on Friday.

"I'd like to find out exactly what happened, and who's behind it you know what I mean," says Roger Balkum.

Balkum says he went to a party with Judy the night she disappeared. He says they began arguing after a man began showing interest in her.

"I always got a little jealous too so that kinda turned into an argument that night," he told Sharman Sacchetti.

Balkum says they left in her car. He says Judy dropped him off at his home around the corner.

"Afterwards, she'd always pull in the driveway, drop me off and go right down Alvina (street). Then she'd call let it ring twice, and I'd know she was home, you know, but that night I never got a call," says Balkum.

It isn't clear if Judy went back to the party. Neither she nor her car has been seen since.

In 2001, FOX 25's Bob Ward sat down with Judy's parents, who are now deceased.

Judy's father told Ward about two strange men he says showed up at their door.

"One had a pair of nunchucks, swinging all over the place, and I says who are you guys? And he says, ‘oh we miss your daughter so bad I was in love with her and all of this,'" her father told Ward.

The home at 54 Gorham Street is now roped off with crime scene tape along with the town-owned pump station next to it.

Both are just a few doors away from 70 Gorham Street where Chartier lived with her family until her disappearance. Town records show it wasn't until 1994 that a family member purchased 54 Gorham Street. It was sold three years later.

"I've been questioned quite a lot, you know when it first happened that phone was tapped. I had to take a lie detector test, but I passed you know," Balkum said.  "A lot of questions were asked about the brothers how'd they get along, did they fight a lot?"

In the 2001 interview, Judy's mother said one brother, Michael, died unexpectedly and that prior to his death he had no pictures of Judy in his home because "he couldn't stand it."

The Middlesex County District Attorney's Office is only confirming they've helped Chelmsford Police in what's called an evidentiary search. They're not saying what or who led them back to Gorham Street. Judy's parents went to their graves never knowing what had happened to their only daughter.

Cox Media Group