CARBON COUNTY---It was December 20, 1976 when police said three suitcases were tossed from this bridge over the Lehigh River on the Carbon-Luzerne County border.
Inside, they said were the body parts of a young woman, horribly mutilated and the body of her unborn baby girl.
"A good friend of mine, I believe he was fishing under the Interstate 80 bridge and he found a suitcase that had a dismembered body in it. It was a shock to him and his family," said Jim Mariner of White Haven.
The grisly discovery was made close close to White Haven, a Luzerne County border where nearly 40 years later, people still remember.
"Since I was a kid, people talking about how a woman turned up on the side of the road in various pieces and no one ever found out who did it," said Chris Everetts of Luzerne County.
Investigators still do not know the identity of that woman. They named her 'Beth Doe,' and buried her and her baby in a field in Weatherly, Carbon County.
Investigators have updated images of what Doe may have looked like and images of the suitcases she was in, plus scraps of cloth also inside those cases.
Using DNA and other testing, they said the woman was between 15 and 25 years old, and originally from Western or Central Europe before coming to the United States. While here, investigators believe she may have lived in the southeast, possibly Tennessee.
They also said she was very close to giving birth to a baby girl when she was killed; they said she was strangled and shot in the throat.
"I remember reading about it when it was the in newspaper, and I have thought about it several times over the years, just wondering if this poor woman was ever identified," said Sue Johnson of Penn Lake.
After all this time, people Newswatch 16 spoke with said they are hopeful Beth Doe is identified and her killer caught. They said it is possible, but not probable.
"The technology today is a lot better than it was back in 1976 by any means," said Mariner.
"It was a cold case scenario, I have no idea. I would love to find out if they could track somebody down, it would be great but I don't know. It's a long time," said Johnson.
Investigators said in addition to the blankets in the suitcase, there were also newspapers inside dated September 26, 1976 from New Jersey.
Anyone with information on this cold case is asked to call state police.