Missing Pennsylvania girl’s remains found 53 years later in Newport Township

Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) on Tuesday identified the remains of a teenage girl who went missing more than five decades ago.

Joan Marie Dymond was 14 years old when her family reported her missing from Andover Street Park in Wilkes-Barre Township on June 25, 1969, according to the state police.

“It didn’t reduce the sadness,” Suzanne Estock, Joan’s older sister, said during a Tuesday press conference, adding, however: “I’m glad she was found, so we can have a service for her.”

Estock said she never expected her family to get answers regarding her sister’s disappearance, but her mother believed up until the day she died that Dymond would be found.

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“She never gave up hope,” Estock said.

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In 2012, a group of individuals who were digging for relics left over from a coal mining operation in Newport Township, Pennsylvania, discovered the girl’s remains.

Authorities examined the remains and determined they belonged to a woman in her mid-teens or late 20s who died of suspicious circumstances or “foul play” in the 1960s, state police said in a press release.

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PSP submitted the victim’s DNA profile to various national genealogy databases in an effort to find matches among relatives. When Othram, Inc. found a potential link between the remains and Dymond’s family, the Dymonds provided DNA samples to Othram’s lab.

Results received earlier this month indicated that Dymond’s DNA matched her family’s, according to PSP.

“We never stopped pursuing answers, and this investigation remains very active,” PSP Captain Patrick Dougherty said in a Tuesday statement. “After 53 years, the family of Joan Marie Dymond very much deserves closure. We will do everything in our power to see that they have it.”

An investigation into her death is active and ongoing. Authorities are asking anyone with information about the case to call 570-542-4117.