On Sept. 20, 1986, Maryland resident Jane Marie Prichard drove her 1980 Chevrolet Blazer to a Delaware forest to conduct field research for the master’s degree in botany she was pursuing.
Prichard, 28, was a graduate student at the University of Maryland’s College Park campus. Although she lived in Clarksburg, Md., she’d stayed the night at a friend’s home in Lewes, Del., then set out early that morning for Blackbird State Forest in Smyrna, about an hour away.
By 7 a.m., she had settled on a spot in the forest to study native plants for her thesis work…