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Lisa McBride was exhumed from Restland Memorial Park in East Hanover on Wednesday, March 9, the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office said.
McBride, 27, had just finished her workday at Lakeland Bank in Newfoundland before attending a concert with four friends in New York City on Friday, June 22, 1990, the SCPO said.
She then went to Big John’s Pub on Old Route 23 in Newfoundland, where she drank three bottles of beer, talked with several people, and gave her phone number to three old friends, investigators said.
McBride left around 1:15 a.m., claiming that she had to work the next day, and was seen by neighbors returning home shortly before 2 a.m. — the last time she was seen alive.
When McBride’s phone went unanswered the following day, a concerned family member entered her home with a spare key and found that a light on the bedroom dresser was on, but the sheets and blanket were missing from the bed.
McBride’s living room couch had also been pulled about six inches away from the wall, and a kitchen light had been left on, investigators said.
A follow-up police investigation found that the phone wire had been cut from the outside, and a window screen had been cut with two slits.
A hunter found McBride’s body in a wooded area off Old Mine Road, Sandyston Township in the Delaware Water Gap National Park on Saturday, Oct. 20, 1990, and an autopsy found that her left cheekbone was fractured from suspected blunt force trauma, authorities said.
Following the exhumation, McBride’s body was taken to Par-Troy Funeral Home in Parsippany before being transported to the Morris-Sussex Medical Examiner’s Office, where investigators collected evidence that was sent to a forensics lab in Lorton, Virginia, authorities said.
McBride’s body was returned to its resting place following the exhumation, which complied with a previously obtained court order.
Assisting agencies include the New Jersey State Police Cold Case Unit, the New Jersey State Police Crime Scene Unit, the New Jersey State Police Forensic Anthropology Unit, the New Jersey State Police, Augusta Barracks and the Vernon Township Police Department.
Anyone with information about McBride’s disappearance is urged to contact Lt. Nicholas Elmo with the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office at 973-383-1570.
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