A 44-year mystery ends: DNA says remains are missing girl’s
A 17-year-old Akron girl who disappeared 44 years ago is no longer missing.
Investigators have confirmed through DNA tests that remains buried in a pauper’s grave in Cleveland were those of Linda Pagano.
The news of the DNA match was bittersweet for Pagano’s siblings in Akron who have wondered for more than four decades what happened to Linda.
“I pretty much figured it was her,” said Mike Pagano, Linda’s brother. “I wasn’t really surprised. Relieved. It’s basically over — and we get some closure.”
Mike and his sister Cheryl Pagano learned Tuesday that investigators had confirmed the identity of the remains, which were buried in an unmarked grave in the Potter’s Field section of Highland Park Cemetery several months after Pagano disappeared in 1974. Akron Sgt. Jeff Smith, who works on missing persons cases and spearheaded an effort to take a fresh look at cold cases, shared the development with Linda’s siblings.
“I’m happy that I could do my part and at least get the family some answers,” Smith said.
Pagano disappeared in September 1974 after coming home late from a concert and having a quarrel with her stepfather, who told police he threw her out of their Kenmore home. She was never seen or heard from again.
The search for Pagano was reinvigorated by Smith and an internet sleuth who came across a reference to a young woman about 20 years old whose remains were found in Strongsville and who had been shot in the head.
Three teen boys found the partial skeleton Feb. 5, 1975, while strolling through Cleveland Metroparks land now known as Mill Stream Run Reservation. The remains were lying on the banks of the Rocky River.
The Cuyahoga County coroner determined the remains were those of a white woman in her late teens or early 20s and ruled the death a homicide.
Cleveland Metroparks rangers sent out an alert to law enforcement throughout Northeast Ohio. Several inquiries came in, but none matched. The remains were buried in a pauper’s grave on May 15, 1975.
Christina Scates, a genealogy researcher, came across a reference to the girl’s remains in 2015. She got information about the case from the Cleveland Metroparks rangers and uploaded it to Reddit, a social media platform where users can participate in forums on a variety of topics.
Scates’ efforts caught the attention of Carl Koppelman, a forensic artist, who did a drawing of the girl from a file photo showing a side view of a partial skull caked in mud. He asked the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office about the girl’s remains, and the office discovered that the bones had never been listed in NamUs — a national database for missing persons — because of a misspelled word and added the case to the database.
Smith, who was entering Akron’s missing persons cases into NamUs, input Pagano’s case and got a hit for a possible match from Cuyahoga County. This prompted the Cuyahoga County coroner’s office to exhume the remains and send them for DNA testing, comparing a sample with DNA from Pagano’s siblings.