For 35 years, the skeletal remains pulled from a shallow grave in a wooded corner of Quincy had no name. Now they do. Massachusetts State Police have identified the remains, discovered near 270 Quarry Street on March 21, 1991, as Glenn Powers, a 1970 graduate of Randolph High School, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has ruled his death a homicide caused by blunt-force trauma.
The identification, announced by Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey, closes one of the region’s longest-running identity mysteries even as the question of who killed Powers remains unanswered. According to Boston 25 News, a civilian walking through the wooded area near 270 Quarry Street stumbled on the grave back in 1991, in a stretch of Quincy that has since been developed, according to Fall River Reporter.
Morrissey said his office and its local police partners deliberately avoid the term “cold case” when describing files like Powers’. “Every victim deserves justice,” he said, adding that his office is committed to bringing some measure of closure to victims’ families, per the Fall River Reporter’s account of his remarks.
How Investigators Finally Put a Name to the Bones
Cracking the case required forensic genetic genealogy, a technique that pairs advanced DNA sequencing with traditional family-tree research. The Norfolk District Attorney’s Office said Ramapo College of New Jersey’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center handled the genealogical work, while the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab and BODE Technology conducted the DNA analysis, the Fall River Reporter reported…