On August 23rd, 1973, a fifteen-year-old boy named James Teta vanished from his home in Revere, Massachusetts. Two days later, his nude body was found in a wooded area off Route 119 in Rindge, New Hampshire. He had been raped and strangled.
The investigation into his death remained stagnant for years, until an unsettling clue turned up in a Montana garage in 2001.
Detectives examining the long and horrifying career of child molester, suspected serial killer and cannibal Nathaniel Bar-Jonah discovered the word, “Tita,” possibly written in blood, on the wall of a garage owned by the convicted criminal. Since Bar-Jonah—who had been imprisoned multiple times for kidnapping, sexual assault, attempted murder, and impersonating a police officer, among many other charges—was known to keep extensive diaries in which he noted the names of his child victims, authorities in Montana wondered if Tita was also the name of an undiscovered victim, at which point they attempted to link Bar-Jonah to the death of James Teta in New Hampshire. They also speculated that Bar-Jonah may have been responsible for the disappearance of seven-year-old Janice Pockett, who had gone missing on July 26th, 1973 from her home in Tolland, Connecticut, and whose body has never been found.
Nathaniel Bar-Jonah was finally incarcerated for good in 1999, and died in prison in 2008. Though there was never enough evidence to charge him with any murders or with any particular incidents of cannibalism, he was ultimately convicted of several abductions and sexual assaults, many of which involved torture against his victims.
Investigators are still exploring the possibility that Bar-Jonah killed James Teta, and continue to pursue numerous other unsolved cases that may be tied to this deceased multiple offender.
Crime Immemorial 