The New Hampshire Attorney General's Office announced that the nearly 50-year-old murder of a Massachusetts woman had been solved, but the murderer cannot be arrested since he died in 2019.
On Wednesday, the attorney's office identified Albert Francis Moore, Jr. as the man they are convinced killed Arlene Clevesy in New Haven in June 1972.
Clevesy's body was found on June 4, 1972, in a wooded area of Hume Brook in Newton, New Hampshire. An autopsy revealed she suffocated due to trauma to her neck and drowning.
According to a report released by the attorney general's office, investigators learned that Clevesy had last been seen earlier that day in the company of Moore.
Investigators said Moore was the last person to see her alive as the two were spotted leaving the Eagle Club in Haverhill at around 1:15 a.m. Witnesses described him as intoxicated and violent that night "to the point of pulling a gun on an individual."
Over the years, officials said Moore "made a series of admissions to different individuals about his responsibility for Ms. Clevesy's death."
In April 1977, a grand jury indicted Moore for second-degree murder related to Clevesy's death.
But in November 1979, prosecutors decided not to pursue the case because Moore was already serving a life sentence for the August 1972 murder of Donald Rimer in Salem, Massachusetts.
In 2015, the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit reopened the case, interviewing witnesses and confirming their earlier statements, which included descriptions of the crime scene, prosecutors said.
Investigators said they also interviewed Moore in prison several times, but he denied murdering Clevesy and Rimer.
The report said that Moore died at age 88 of metastatic prostate cancer on Nov. 11, 2019.
The unit said they are convinced Moore killed Clevesy based on all the evidence gathered during the investigation.
But since Moore is dead, he cannot be prosecuted or arrested, and the case has been closed as "solved."
"Even after 50 years have passed, Arlene is still immensely missed, loved, and remembered," Clevesy's family said in a statement. "Though we can no longer prosecute, we still feel some relief in knowing what happened to Arlene that night and, more importantly, who is responsible."
