Authorities have announced the recovery of human remains in the search for an 18-year-old Amish woman who vanished without a trace in Pennsylvania last summer.
The Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday that human remains were found in a rural area during a search related to the June 2020 disappearance of Linda Stoltzfoos.
The FBI was processing the scene with the help of state police and East Lampeter Township police, reports said.
The county coroner’s office is now working to positively identify the deceased and determine the cause and manner of death, prosecutors said.
Wednesday marked exactly 10 months since Stoltzfoos was last seen walking home from church in the Bird-in-Hand area.
Family and friends said Stoltzfoos was generally happy with her life and that it didn’t make sense for her to walk out and leave everything behind.
On the day she went missing, Stoltzfoos had plans to meet up with a church youth group.
The suspect in her disappearance, 35-year-old Justo Smoker of Paradise, was initially charged with felony kidnapping and misdemeanor false imprisonment, but in December those charges were upgraded to homicide, with prosecutors alleging that the passing of time, along with the complete cessation of all routine activities led to the inevitable conclusion that Stoltzfoos was dead and that Smoker was responsible.
In March, a county judge ruled that there was enough evidence to hold him over for trial.
Surveillance video enhanced by FBI forensic technicians revealed a red sedan similar to one owned by the defendant was involved in the abduction.
Stoltzfoos’ clothing was found buried in a rural wooded area in Ronks, where authorities said the vehicle was seen parked last June, prosecutors said.
A DNA profile “attributable to Smoker” was found on one of her buried stockings, prosecutors alleged.
Christopher Tallarico, the county’s chief public defender, however, argued in March that there was no proof that Stoltzfoos was ever in Smoker’s car, and he elicited testimony that her DNA wasn’t found on samples taken from the car.
East Lampeter Township Detective Christopher Jones said DNA profiles recovered were insufficient to test.
Information provided by The Associated Press was used to compile this report.
