According to the authorities, DNA evidence links a man who died in jail some years ago to the 1984 homicide of a 19-year-old female whose corpse was not discovered for almost a decade after she vanished from her New Jersey home.
Last week, authorities in New Jersey and New York announced the identification of Nathaniel Harvey, a former resident of East Windsor, as the perpetrator of Donna Macho’s rape and murder.
A report shows that in late February of 1984, Macho, then 19 years old, vanished from the house she shared with her sisters and parents in East Windsor. Dental records verified her identification after her skeleton was discovered in a forested area near Cranbury in 1995 by the leader of a local Boy Scout troop.
Several sexual assaults and a murder investigation occurred around the time she vanished, and Harvey was arrested for all of them. He was reportedly suspected of killing Macho early on, but the case eventually went cold as investigators lost interest in the lead.
Authorities stated that old DNA testing equipment failed to identify a match for evidence found in the victim’s bedroom, but newer testing technology positively identified Harvey as the sole individual who shouldn’t have been there.
Authorities say they located Macho’s body in a wooded area near a farm where Harvey had worked briefly near where she disappeared, and her car was left near a sewer plant, both of which were within a short walk from Harvey’s home.
Macho was a legal assistant who dreamed of being a model.
According to a report, Julie Burger, whose elder sister went missing when she was 14, said that the searching and wondering destroyed her family.
For the first time in public, she revealed that the family had sought the help of psychics, private investigators, and trackers in their search for justice.
Burger said they spent all the funds they had. For a while, they held out hope that her sister was still alive. They thought perhaps she was hurt or maybe someone was holding her hostage.
Burger is relieved that they officially named the murderer, but she feels he was able to get away with it.
