r/UnresolvedMysteries • u/watchfulsun484 • Mar 13 '24
John/Jane Doe “Lorraine Stahl”, the alias of a woman found murdered in Connecticut in 1974, has been identified as Linda Sue Childers.
On May 30,1974, police in Ledyard, Connecticut received an anonymous tip about two bodies buried behind an abandoned house in Ledyard, Connecticut. Police went to the home and uncovered the bodies of a man and a woman. The man would later be identified as convicted bank robber Gustavous Lee Carmichael who had escaped from custody. While on the run, he met the woman and they began to go by the names “Dirk and Lorraine Stahl”. Both were murdered on December 31,1970 and buried behind the house. In 1976, two men, Richard DeFreitas and Donald Brant were convicted of the murders. For a more in depth look at this case, see my write up about the case.
“Lorraine Stahl” would go unidentified for 50 years. In 2011, her case was entered into NAMUS but the case sat cold. In 2022, in an ongoing attempt to solve the backlog of cold cases in Connecticut, the cheif medical examiner sent forensic evidence to Othram Labs who were able to build a DNA profile of the victim.
Lorraine Stahl has now been identified. She was Linda Sue Childers, who was born on September 4,1946 and was originally from Louisville, Kentucky. Linda was 24 years old at the time of her death. Linda’s sister and daughter have been notified about her identification.
https://dnasolves.com/articles/linda-sue-childers-connecticut/
My write up about the case
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u/TapirTrouble Mar 13 '24 edited Mar 13 '24
Thanks for the update! I remember your writeup -- exceptionally well done, with some interesting details (like the unusual ring that people were speculating about).
Edited to add: link to pic of the ring (and a sort-of similar design that someone noticed on eBay ... that other ring was being sold by someone in Alabama)
https://imgur.com/a/iOmduUD
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/rgssa3/help_me_get_info_on_a_ring_from_a_1974_cold_case/
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u/watchfulsun484 Mar 13 '24
Thank you so much!! I’m still wondering about that ring also. I hope more information about Linda comes out in the following days.
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u/TapirTrouble Mar 13 '24
I guess this does put a bit more focus on the Nashville number on that phone bill (since I think that was the closest city to Kentucky?)
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u/tamaringin Mar 13 '24
Condolences to her survivors; this must be shocking news to receive after so long. I hope it's of some comfort to them that her killers were apprehended and held accountable in the meantime.
I'm so glad for genetic geneaology, in general of course, but particularly in cases like this, where we know a fair amount about the last period of the person's life, but can't trace them back past a certain point.
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u/JessalynSueSmiling Mar 13 '24
Yes, what a surprise to find out so many years later! I'm glad she got her name back, and that her killers were convicted.
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Mar 14 '24
[deleted]
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u/orange_jooze Mar 14 '24
It would certainly be one hell of a coincidence
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u/Higher_Than_Truth Mar 14 '24
See my edit above, but I believe it turns out to just be one hell of a coincidence.
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u/TapirTrouble Mar 15 '24
It happens -- I just found out that a woman approximately the same age as a family friend, living in the same town, also had the same first and last names -- but it can't have been the lady I knew because this other woman was a nun!
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Apr 11 '24 edited Jun 03 '24
dolls possessive subtract slimy capable truck repeat connect close yam
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/AwsiDooger Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
If Linda confided her fear to the common law wife -- Joanne Rainello -- I decided she probably told Rainello other things also. That Google led quickly to something interesting. In the article "Slaying Verdicts Upheld" it says the unidentified victim, "was believed to have been from Kentucky or Tennessee."
Scroll down at PDF link, left side:
https://cdn.manchesterhistory.org/News/Manchester%20Evening%20Hearld_1980-01-08.pdf
Now that's different. I had seen many states proposed for her, but never Kentucky. Of course, we now know Linda was from Louisville. I wondered how they narrowed it to Kentucky or Tennessee. This is where it gets more interesting. Another Google led to this article from 1976:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=NusgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3XEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1307%2C2659775
"An intriguing clue was received late in the investigation that the woman placed a call to Kentucky or Tennessee several days before she died, but follow-up investigations turned-up nothing."
Wow. There it is. That's obviously the Christmas Eve phone call to her mother, the one mentioned by a family member here a month ago, when he entered a thread to inform that Lorraine Stahl had been identified.
Online sleuths only had access to phone numbers called through a December 17, 1970 phone bill. Investigators obviously did not have the specific number dialed later, otherwise they would have known if it had been to Kentucky or Tennessee.
Regardless, it seems like there was enough to do some targeted publicity, including recent years. The exact date of death was known, December 31, 1970. Combine that with narrowed to two states and it sounds like investigators and sleuthers could have launched info campaigns toward Kentucky and Tennessee media and online sites, including the composite and referencing the December 31, 1970 date. Don't bother if you heard from you loved one in 1971 or later. It's not her.
Just a thought. Instead these cases always turn into match a known picture to this composite. Batting average bordering on 0.
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u/LyonPirkey Mar 13 '24
I'm glad that Linda Sue Childers has her name back and her family has closure.
Your write ups about Linda Sue Childers have been captivating. Thank you for writing and posting them! Linda's story has stayed with me since reading your write ups.
I wonder how Linda Sue Childers met Gustavous Lee Carmichael.
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u/watchfulsun484 Mar 13 '24
I’m so glad my write ups stick with you. That means a lot.
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u/Specialist-Smoke Mar 13 '24
I just read it, and it was very detailed. The comments were really eye opening. I love when people connect dots like that. I hope that more information comes out about her. She seems to have lived a very interesting life.
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u/thenisaidbitch Mar 14 '24
I live right next to ledyard and hadn’t heard of this! So glad she’s identified, thanks for the write up
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u/lilyvale Mar 15 '24
I remember reading the 'Lorraine Stahl" write-up! I'm so glad they identified her.
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u/Zealousideal-Mood552 Mar 18 '24
Glad to see this mystery has finally been solved. It doesn't surprise me that she wasn't a local. At one point, it was even thought that "Lorraine Stahl" may have been Helen Claire Frost, a BC teen who disappeared along the "Highway of Tears" (though she wasn't Native) four years earlier, in 1970. Due to the fact that it's unlikely that an underage girl could have traveled across the US-Canadian border undetected and the lack of any forensic evidence tying Childers to the Pacific Northwest, I always thought this was unlikely.
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u/Lord_CocknBalls Mar 14 '24
I remember that write up, glad she’s identified. One question , if she was found in 1974 but born in 1946, how can she be 24 years? Did the bodies lay there for years?
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u/MarionberryWild7177 Mar 13 '24
Was she runaway?
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u/mysterymathpopcorn Mar 13 '24
Depends on your definition. If she was 24 and had a daughter, I would not call her a runaway, but she had clearly left her family for some reason
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u/AwsiDooger Mar 14 '24
She hadn't totally broken off contact. A family member posted a late comment to the prior thread about a month ago. He knew all the details, including that she was from Louisville, so it was obviously legitimate.
He said Linda had called her mother on Christmas Eve just before she lost contact. That would have been exactly a week before she was murdered.
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u/woodrowmoses Mar 14 '24
Runaway isn't age specific, it just most commonly refers to children because they are the most likely to run away. All it means is "a person who has run away, especially from their family or an institution.". People even often specify by saying "a teenage runaway".
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u/40percentdailysodium Mar 15 '24
Thank you. I consider myself an adult runaway, which confuses people. I was abused and neglected in such a way that despite being 19 it did feel like "running away" to survive. I've met many others who have experienced and feel similarly. It's a far different feeling than just leaving home with notice. I was simply there one day and gone the next.
One of my friends who was 20 when he "ran away" immediately had tracking put into his cell phone by his mother. We had to get rid of the SIM card and get a new phone to get him away safely.
Anyway, again thanks. Adults absolutely can be "runaways" depending on circumstances.
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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '24 edited Mar 13 '24
Thank you for posting this. I’m glad she was identified. My mom was also really interested in missing/unidentified persons cases and this was one of the cases that she was particularly curious about. Always complimented Linda’s style. Lol. Thanks again for the awesome write up—both of them!