Woman found dead in wooded area 1971 positively identified as missing 26-year-old

CONCORD, N.H. (TCD) -- Investigators have positively identified the remains of a woman who was found deceased over 50 years ago in a wooded area.

According to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, on Oct. 6, 1971, a woman’s body was discovered at the end of Kilton Road in Bedford, New Hampshire, near Route 101, and analysis determined she had been dead for about one to three months.

The woman was described as being 25 to 35 years old and between 61 and 66 inches tall. She had brown hair and was wearing a maroon blouse with a lace collar, dungaree shorts, and size 7 shoes.

Her manner of death was declared homicide, but the coroner could not determine a cause of death.

On Monday, Jan. 9, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office identified the victim as 26-year-old Katherine Ann Alston from Boston.

Alston was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1945, and attended Dorchester High School, then Boston University. She married Ralph Lawson Garrett Jr., another Boston University student, in November 1967. The two later divorced.

According to the statement, Alston’s family moved to Texas in 1971. She was reportedly supposed to meet her family at Logan Airport in Boston for their flight but never made it on the plane.

Investigators made clay facial reconstructions of Alston in 1993 and 2006 with the hope it would lead to a positive identification. A digital reconstruction was designed in 2020.

The same year, in 2020, the New Hampshire State Police’s Major Crime Unit worked with the DNA Doe Project to create a genetic profile and find a common ancestor with her DNA. Scientists at the DNA Doe Project reportedly found a direct match that had been submitted by one of her relatives in Texas.

Alston’s siblings reportedly told investigators they had not seen her since they relocated from Massachusetts to Texas.

Now that she has been identified, the New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Unit is asking the public’s help in finding Alston’s killer. Alston was never reported missing.

Her ex-husband, Ralph Garrett, is dead, but the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said there was "no evidence to suggest the divorce was not amicable."

Before her death, Alston lived at 36 Beacon St. in Boston with a roommate named David Cormier.

Detectives would like information from anyone who knew Alston, her roommate, or anyone who went to school with her.

MORE:

• Identification of the Unidentified Female found in Bedford, New Hampshire on October 6, 1971, and Request for Assistance - New Hampshire Attorney General's Office