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Remains found 10 years ago are identified as 14-year-old girl who went missing in 1969

Joan Marie Dymond was 14 when she went missing from a park in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, nearly four decades ago.
Joan Marie Dymond.
Joan Marie Dymond.National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
/ Source: TODAY

Human remains found nearly 10 years ago were identified as those of a 14-year-old girl who went missing in Pennsylvania in 1969, authorities said.

Pennsylvania State Police said on Oct. 4 that the remains were those of Joan Marie Dymond, a teenager who disappeared from Andover Street Park in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on June 25, 1969.

"We never stopped pursuing answers, and this investigation remains very active," Pennsylvania State Police Capt. Patrick Dougherty said in a statement.

Dymond's remains were located on Nov. 17, 2012, when a group of people were "digging for relics in a trash-filled depression in the ground" on the site of a former coal mine in Newport Township, Pennsylvania, according to police.

An examination conducted at the time found the remains were those of a woman in her late teens to early 20s who died of suspicious or "foul play" circumstances, police said. Lab results also found that there was a high probability that the woman died in the late 1960s, according to police.

State police submitted the victim's DNA profile to national databases at the time, but no results came back. Detectives submitted the remains in March 2022 to Othram, Inc., a company that provides DNA testing and forensic-grade genome sequencing, to undergo genetic genealogy testing.

Othram connected officers with possible family members of the victim, and DNA samples from members of Dymond's family led to the identification of the remains, police said.

"She was a typical teenager," Dymond's sister Suzanne Estock said at a press conference on Oct. 4, according to NBC affiliate WBRE. "She was a sweet girl and didn’t deserve what happened to her."

Estock said the last time she spoke to her sister, Dymond told her she was excited to become an aunt.

"The last time I spoke with her, I was pregnant, I was due in August," Estock said. "She was excited about being an aunt and me having a baby and coming down to visit."

"Maybe we could find who did this to her. It’s a shame somebody so young and with her whole life ahead of her was taken. I would have had a sister up until now," Estock continued.

Police said the investigation into Dymond's death is still ongoing, and officers urge members of the public with any information to contact authorities.

“After 53 years, the family of Joan Marie Dymond very much deserves closure," Dougherty said in a statement. "We will do everything in our power to see that they have it."