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Two red-headed young women disappeared in the early 2000s from mobile home parks in Milton. Years later, hunters found their remains less than five miles apart, hidden deep in the woods of Greenfield. Neither slaying has been solved.
Investigators do know one thing: their deaths are most likely related.
Saratoga County Sheriff Michael Zurlo said the similarities are uncanny. “They lived in close proximity of each other,” he said. One was 18 years old, the other was 19 when they disappeared on summer days two years apart. Zurlo declined to say how the women died, saying investigators want to see if tips match their facts.
The cold cases resurfaced Friday after the sheriff’s office published the details of five unsolved homicides online in the hopes to generate new leads. “Any little thing helps,” Zurlo said.
SEE THE WEBSITE HERE
The web page states “there is a strong possibility” the 2003 and 2005 deaths of the two young women are related.
Eighteen-year-old Jennifer “Moonbeam” Hammond was reported missing on Nov. 2, 2003. She was last seen in August selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door at the Creek and Pines mobile home park on Middleline Road in Milton.
Coworkers with Atlantic Circulation Inc. had dropped Hammond off by herself. Two hours later, she did not show up at their designiated pickup spot.
Hammond was from Littleton, Colo., but had been staying in an Albany hotel with five other coworkers. All of her belongings were left there when she vanished. She’d made arrangements for a bus ticket home but the ticket was never picked up and she had no further contact with her family.
Six years after her disappearance, a hunter found human skull fragments and three teeth on the ground deep in the woods near Lake Desolation in Greenfield on Oct. 25, 2009. A State Police forensic expert confirmed the remains were Hammond’s.
Nineteen-year-old Christina White was reported missing in 2005. She was last seen by family members the night of June 30 leaving her home in Saratoga Village mobile home park in Milton. Witnesses told police they saw White walking along the road near Geyser Road and Rowland Street.
A year later, on March 10, 2006, a hunter found her skeleton remains in the Daketown Forest in Greenfield. Authorities believe she was stabbed to death.
Zurlo said he hopes that by publicizing the women’s cases, and the other three unsolved homicides, his office will motivate someone to come forward with new information. “We’re hoping … this can stir some activity,” he said.
Saratoga County investigators are also probing these three unrelated cold cases:
• On July 6, 1988, a passing truck driver found 28-year-old Pamela Ann Devizzio’s body in a ditch on the side of Putnam Road, just east of Jacob Drive. He called the sheriff’s office at 9:45 a.m.
Devizzio’s father Tony had reported her missing to Saratoga Springs police the day before her body was found. He told police his daughter hadn’t returned his phone calls, wasn’t at the 78 Court St. apartment she shared with another woman and hadn’t shown up for work at Mangino’s Restaurant.
Devizzio worked at the Malta restaurant as a waitress and was known to enjoy Saratoga Springs nightlife. She regularly partied with other food services employees and she was last seen leaving a bar on Caroline Street by herself in the early morning hours of July 5.
Devizzio was bludgeoned to death, with the blows primarily landing on her head. Police believe she’d been dead for about 30 hours when her body was discovered. The remains were damaged by the heat, insects and a dog.
• On July 8, 1993, police found 37-year-old Betty Conley dead, with a single gunshot wound to the head, at about 3 a.m. inside a Charlton Xtra Mart. Conley worked at the Route 67 shop as a clerk. Cash had been stolen from the register.
Witnesses told police a mid-1980s white sedan, with a rust spot partially covered in primer on the driver’s door, had been parked in the lot. Witnesses also said a white man in his early-to-mid-30 wearing a peach-colored tank top had been at the store. He was described as a clean shaven, six-foot-two man with a medium build and blond shoulder-length hair.
• On August 6, 2001, family members reported 28-year-old Peter Lorang missing after a week without contact.
Lorang lived alone on Cook Road in Charlton. His 1994 Chrysler convertible was missing and his dog was home alone without food or water.
Almost two weeks after he was reported missing, on Aug. 18, his car was towed from a private parking lot in Albany. It had been parked there for two to three days.
His disappearance has not been ruled a homicide but investigators have labeled the circumstances as “suspicious.”
Anyone with information on any of these five cases is asked to call county investigators at (518) 885-6761.
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