Connecticut Cold Case Solved By Multi-State Investigation

Their bodies were found a week and 40 miles apart in 1995— and no one could figure out who they were.

Years later, DNA testing suggested the body found first, in New Britain CT, was the daughter of the body found second, in Tolland, MA. Evidence including a cigarette pack with a New York stamp and clothing purchased in the Albany area gave police the next connection.

But despite the years of dogged police work, nobody knew who they were. It was odd, an investigator told a news team from Boston-based Fox 25, that no one had been reported missing. 

A month ago, a Virginia resident called state police in New York, seeking closure, or maybe just clarity, about relatives they hadn’t heard from since 1995: a mother and daughter. Did New York have anything?

What New York did was start a missing persons investigation. That led to the connected cold cases in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Detectives in the three states determined the two Jane Does to be Marcia and Elizabeth Honsch of Brewster, NY.

Today police announced they’ve found Robert Honsch, Marcia’s husband. He was living under an assumed name, with a new wife and children, in Dalton, Ohio.

Now he’s awaiting extradition.

Investigators from Hampden County, MA, New Britain and New York travelled to Ohio on July 22 and interviewed Honsch at his residence, police said. Then they got a search warrant and collected evidence. Looking again at items from the New Britain crime scene, they found connections.

Honsch is in custody in Ohio—police expect him to be arraigned there tomorrow. A complaint and warrant for his arrest in connection with the murder of Marcia Honsch has been issued by the Westfield District Court in Massachusetts and that’s where he’ll be taken next, police said.

Marcia was 53, Elizabeth 16 at the time of their death.

Their killings were very different, as Fox 25 News in Boston learned back in 2011 when reporter Bob Ward did a special on the mystery for “New England’s Unsolved.”

Marcia was dumped over a guard rail at the entrance to a state park.

“A lot of violence happening right here,” the Massachusetts detective showing a bullet hole in the guard rail at the Tolland crime scene told Ward. “She must have been screaming.”

In New Britain, Elizabeth’s body was found wrapped in sleeping bags near a door in the back of a strip mall.

“She was wrapped carefully,” the Connecticut detective told Ward.  

New York state police released this statement at the end of today’s release: 

This arrest comes as a result of the determined work of many detectives who never forgot this case and worked tirelessly to determine the identities of these victims and to find out who was responsible for their deaths.  

In particular, retired State Police Lieutenant Stephen Griffin is to be commended for working relentlessly over the years and seeking the assistance of other agencies and the public in an effort to learn where the victims were from and the circumstances leading to their deaths.    

It is also a tribute to the cooperation of the various law enforcement agencies who worked together on this case:  Hampden County State Police, New Britain Police, and New York State Police, all of whom had the cooperation and assistance of local and state law enforcement personnel in the Dalton, Ohio area."