Bellingham woman's body exhumed after almost 40 years

BELLINGHAM, Mass. — Massachusetts State Police investigators exhumed the body of a Bellingham woman's body Wednesday morning, hopefully that it will help them find her killer.

Theresa Corley, who was 19-years-old at the time, was found murdered on the side of Route 495 near her home after being missing for two days in 1978.

Corley's unsolved murder has devastated her family. On Wednesday, a State Police chemist collected nine and a half fingernails that will be analyzed for DNA in hopes of unlocking the case and finding her killer.

Crime Scene services crew carefully documented the process and the remains were meticulously examined.

"We really want these answers, and if it takes going to her grave to try to get that little piece of DNA that might get us those answers, we're willing to do it," said Gerri Houde, one of Corley's sisters.

According to police, on the night of her murder, Theresa had left a bar in Franklin after an argument and tried to walk home. Instead, she was picked up by three men who sexually assaulted her.

Theresa managed to escape the apartment she was held in early the next morning, and was last seen alive hitchhiking a mile away from her home.

Cox Media Group