Skeletal remains discovered in North Carolina nearly 50 years ago have been identified as those of a 15-year-old girl. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (NCSBI) stated that advanced DNA testing identified the remains as Cindy Marcell Blizzard.
The remains and clothing were found on 29 December 1977, in a wooded area near a tire manufacturing plant in Wilson, a city east of Raleigh. Blizzard, who was 15, had run away from her home in Monkton, Maryland, in the spring of 1977.
The NCSBI confirmed that investigators are treating the case as a homicide, and her death remains unsolved. The case had previously gone cold due to limitations in forensic technology, but was reopened in 2010 and again in 2024 using more advanced DNA testing.
Investigators are asking anyone with information about Blizzard to contact the SBI cold case tip line, email coldcases@ncsbi.gov, or contact the Wilson County Sheriff's Office.