Death of Jeannette DePalma
The case, currently unsolved, has become a matter of significant controversy due in part to coverage in Weird NJ magazine and in the 2015 book Death on the Devil's Teeth, which proposed several theories but no firm conclusions.[7] On the afternoon of Monday, August 7, 1972, 16-year-old Jeannette DePalma left her home on Clearview Road in Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey, telling her mother that she was going to take a train to a friend's house.Six weeks later, on September 19, DePalma's remains were found atop a cliff inside of Springfield's Houdaille Quarry after a local dog brought her decomposing right forearm and hand back to its owner.For undisclosed reasons, the coroner suspected that strangulation was the cause of death,[10] leading the Union County Prosecutor's Office to treat the case as an unsolved homicide.[21] Investigators continued to attempt to find leads, but due to a lack of tips from the public, along with inconsistent stories told to the police by her family, friends, and peers, the case eventually went cold.[6] Around two weeks after the discovery of DePalma's remains, several newspapers, including the Newark Star-Ledger and the New York Daily News, began reporting that she may have been the victim of an occult sacrifice[13][23] carried out either by Satanists or by a local coven of witches who operated inside nearby Watchung Reservation.[8] This coverage was spurred by reports that the body had been found surrounded by strange objects, and by the theories of James Tate, the pastor of the DePalma family's Assemblies of God church.[24] Moran eventually teamed up with Weird NJ correspondent Jesse P. Pollack to write the book Death on the Devil's Teeth: The Strange Murder That Shocked Suburban New Jersey.