Body at Scusset identified
Investigators decline to reveal the victim's name while the criminal probe continues.
By KAREN JEFFREY
STAFF WRITER
BARNSTABLE - Citing the need to protect their inquiry, investigators announced yesterday they know but will not reveal the identity of the woman whose body was found buried on Scusset Beach last week.
"I hate to be cryptic but, in a case of this nature, we have a period of time after discovery is made or when the crime occurred that is very sensitive," said Cape and Islands First Assistant District Attorney Michael O'Keefe.
"Our position is, we need to protect the integrity of this ongoing investigation," he said.
The body was identified Wednesday. O'Keefe would not say whether the victim's family has been notified or if the victim was originally from Massachusetts.
When pressed by reporters on these issues and others, he remained silent.
Speaking at a press conference at the Cape and Islands District Attorney's office, O'Keefe had little to add to information released last week after the body was discovered buried in a dune on Scusset Beach.
He did narrow the likely time the bodied had been buried at the beach.
Previously O'Keefe said the body had been there "six months to a year," based on information supplied by the forensic pathologist and forensic anthropologist who performed the autopsy.
Yesterday O'Keefe refused to be specific, but said the time-frame was narrower than "six months to a year."
This means the body was likely buried at Scusset Beach sometime this summer.
The Scusset Beach State Reservation includes a beach that received nearly 450,000 day visits last year. Between July and September this year, an estimated 32,000 people camped at the state-operated campgrounds that are within a quarter-mile of where the body was discovered.
The body was found late on the afternoon of Oct. 22 when two people playing Frisbee noticed what appeared to be a leg bone sticking out of the sand.
Police secured the area that afternoon but waited until the following day to exhume the body, which was found buried in a grassy area atop a small dune, about 50 yards from the mouth of the Cape Cod Canal.
The grave was more than 20 yards back from the high tide mark on this state beach.
The body has been identified as that of a post-adolescent female who died by violent means, according to an autopsy.
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