Remains found in 1973 identified as Pennsylvania teen girl who left for school and never returned

Officials have positively identified the remains of a girl whose body was found hidden in brush under a plastic tarp in 1973, Pennsylvania authorities said this week.

The remains belong to Ruth Elizabeth Brenneman, 14, Pennsylvania State Police Sgt. Josh Lacey told reporters at a news conference Wednesday.

Two game wardens found the decomposed remains of a young girl in a wooded area of Lebanon County on Oct. 10, 1973, approximately 47 miles from Brenneman’s home in York County, Lacey said.

It couldn’t be determined how she died.

Officials have spent the last 50 years attempting to identify the girl, Lacey said. In another effort to identify her, officials, with the help of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, exhumed the girl’s body from Mount Lebanon Cemetery in May 2016.

Finally, the positive identification was made last month after her remains were examined at Lehigh Valley Hospital. Lacey said she was identified using genealogy.

“As a result of their efforts, this young female will no longer be known as Jane Doe,” Lacey said.

Identifying the body is a “huge step in this investigation,” State Trooper Ian Keck said. “We have to know about the victim and their everyday life, who they associated with and their different activities.”

Brenneman was last seen “after she left for school and never returned home,” Lacey said. Officials are looking into whether she made it to school that day.

They are also trying to determine whether Brenneman was considered missing and on what day she went missing, Keck said.

“Just because we identified her today that doesn’t end our investigation,” Keck said. “We’re going to do our best and put our best foot forward here to come to a conclusion.”

Anyone who knew Brenneman or knows anything about her is asked to contact Pennsylvania State Police.

Lacey declined to say whether there is a person of interest in the case and couldn’t say for sure whether it was a homicide, as that is still “pending” with the coroner’s office.

He did say there was “some level of suspicion” to Brenneman’s death “given the fact she was found underneath a tarp in some brush.”

Brenneman’s family, in a statement read by Lacey, said her identification “has provided us with some closure on questions that have lingered for the past 51 years.”