It was August 7th, 1969, and workers along I-93 near Salem, New Hampshire spotted what appeared to be human remains in a small pit of water on the side of the highway not far from the Pelham Road exit ramp.
Examination of the corpse demonstrated that the individual was a white male between twenty-eight and forty years old, standing about five-foot-ten and weighing approximately two-hundred-twenty-five pounds. The man had clearly been the victim of foul play, for his cause of death was found to be four gunshot wounds, two in his head, one in his neck, and one in his chest.
Though investigators expended a great deal of effort in trying to identify the man and determine who might have killed him, no one came forward with any information, and the individual was buried as a John Doe. He subsequently became known as the Salem Unidentified Male.
In 2012, the man’s body was exhumed, a new autopsy was performed, and a new composite sketch of him was prepared by a forensic artist. It would take another seven years, though, for the victim to finally be given his identity back: in 2019, authorities anounced that the murdered man was thirty-year-old husband, father, and Air Force veteran Winston Richard Morris, better known as Skip, who had last been seen alive in Burlington, Vermont on July 25th of 1969.
The identity of Winston’s killer remains unknown, and the investigation is still ongoing.
Crime Immemorial 