Jeannette DePalma

The Death of Jeannette DePalma (August 3, 1956 - c. August 7, 1972) is believed to have occurred sometime on or around August 7, 1972 in Springfield Township, New Jersey. The case, currently unsolved, has become a matter of significant controversy thanks in part to coverage in Weird NJ magazine. Background: On the afternoon of Monday, August 7, 1972, 16-year-old Jeannette DePalma left her home on Clearview Road in Springfield, telling her mother that she was going to take a train to a friend’s house. When she did not arrive at the friend’s home or return later that evening, Jeannette’s parents filed a missing person’s report with the Springfield Police Department. Six weeks later, on September 19, the remains of Jeannette DePalma were found high atop a cliff inside of Springfield’s Houdaille Quarry after a local dog brought a decomposing piece of her right forearm back to its owner. According to several witnesses at the scene, DePalma’s skeletal remains were surrounded by a series of strange and possibly occult objects. Descriptions vary, but the most commonly agreed upon account states that the remains were found inside a coffin-shaped perimeter of fallen branches and logs, and inside this perimeter were several small makeshift wooden crosses. Later, some Springfield residents would claim that DePalma’s remains were actually found lying on a pentagram, and surrounded by mutilated animal remains, though law enforcement denies this. Further controversy was aroused when it was discovered that DePalma’s body had been discovered on a cliff known to locals for several decades as “The Devil’s Teeth”. Investigation: The Springfield Police Department immediately began an investigation into Jeannette DePalma’s death after an autopsy failed to reveal a cause of death. Her remains and clothing showed no evidence of bone fractures, bullet wounds, or knife strikes, and no drug paraphernalia was found on or around the body. For undisclosed reasons, the coroner suspected strangulation as the cause of death, leading the Union County Prosecutor’s Office to treat the case as an unsolved homicide as opposed to a suspicious death. The coroner also discovered an unusually high amount of lead in the remains, but no explanation was found for this occurrence either. Early on in the investigation, the Springfield Police Department received a tip regarding a homeless man living in the woods near the location where Jeannette DePalma’s body had been found. This man was known to locals simply as “Red”, and was alleged to have fled his campsite in the woods shortly after DePalma had vanished. While the lead initially looked promising, the Union County Prosecutor’s Office ultimately decided that “Red” had nothing to do with Jeannette’s death. Investigators continued to attempt to find leads, but due to the DePalma family’s private nature, along with inconsistent stories told by her friends and peers, the case eventually went cold. Allegations of Sacrifice: Around two weeks after the discovery of DePalma’s remains, several newspapers including the Star-Ledger and the New York Daily News began reporting that the teenager was suspected to have been the victim of an occult sacrifice[28][29] carried out either by teenaged Satanists or a local coven of witches who operated inside of the nearby Watchung Reservation. This coverage was spurred on by the revelation that DePalma’s body had been found surrounded by strange objects, and the theories of the DePalma family’s Evangelical pastor, James Tate of the Assemblies of God Evangel Church. These rumors set off a local panic in several Union County communities, many of which were still recovering from the shock of the John List murders, which had occurred only ten months prior. Resurgence of Interest: In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Weird NJ magazine began to report on the decades-old cold case after receiving several anonymous letters regarding Jeannette’s death. Editor and co-founder Mark Moran began investigating Jeannette’s death and discovered many suspicious details, including the allegation that the Springfield Police Department had lost or destroyed Jeannette’s case file. The Springfield Police Department maintain that the file was lost due to flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999, while others allege that a copy is still on file. Moran eventually teamed up with Weird NJ correspondent Jesse P. Pollack to write the book Death on the Devil’s Teeth: The Strange Murder That Shocked Suburban New Jersey, which was released by The History Press on July 20, 2015. Throughout the course of their research, Pollack and Moran discovered several instances of a possible cover-up, connections to other unsolved murders, and uncovered previously unknown suspects.