Jane Sanders Britton, 23, was murdered in her University Avenue apartment in Cambridge on January 7, 1969. (Photo: Shari Small/WBZ NewsRadio 1030)
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (WBZ-AM) -- A notorious decades-old murder case out of Cambridge has finally been solved.
The Middlesex County District Attorney’s office says advances in DNA testing helped investigators finally determine who killed Harvard grad student Jane Sanders Britton back in January 1969.
Britton was 23 when she was murdered after a night out with her boyfriend, who discovered her body the morning after she failed to show up to class. The medical examiner ruled Britton had suffered several blunt force injuries to the head, and had also been sexually assaulted.
DA Marian Ryan says Michael Sumpter had a lengthy criminal history. He has been linked to the murders of two other women in the Boston area, along with several sexual assaults. Back in July, the State Police crime lab matched DNA from evidence to that of Sumpter, which had been stored in a database. To verify, investigators reportedly used genealogy websites to find one of Sumpter’s relatives, and that DNA was also a match.
Sumpter died of cancer back in 2001 at the age of 54, 13 months after he was paroled for a 1975 rape conviction.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Shari Small reports: