EERIE footage has been revealed of the woods where a teen girl’s body was found, sparking rumors about a satanic cult connected to her murder.
The mystery shrouding Jeannette DePalma’s killing is still being investigated more than 50 years after the 16-year-old was found in a quarry in Springfield, New Jersey.
Jeannette DePalma, who was found dead in 1972[/caption]
A shed near the Houdaille Quarry, in Springfield, New Jersey, where DePalma’s body was found[/caption]
The teen was missing for six weeks before she was found deep in woodland in September 1972.
Video obtained by Justice for Jeannette, a group dedicated to keeping DePalma’s memory alive and searching for answers in her murder, shows creepy details from the area near where Jeannette was found.
The area is made up of 120 acres of steep hills, dead trees, and loose quarry stones and is known locally as the Devil’s Teeth, which played a part in the satanic panic and rumors of witchcraft that developed around DePalma’s mysterious death.
The case and the speculation surrounding it are analyzed in Hulu’s Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal, a series exploring eight true crime cases that might be related to supernatural activity.
Ed Salzano and Holly Zuelle, who run Justice for Jeannette, told The U.S. Sun that the quarry is one of the “eeriest places you’ve ever been.”
Salzano said it wouldn’t be out of the question for devilish activities to happen in the rock pit, saying, “There was some really crazy stuff going on in there.”
The Hulu series reveals that when police found the high school student’s body, it was so badly decomposed that an autopsy couldn’t be performed.
Officers also reported that they saw stones placed around her head.
Local outlets at the time referred to the case as the “witchcraft” death as rumors swirled about witnesses also reporting “wooded crosses” being found near DePalma’s body.
“I heard that some people from the department supposedly brought a witch out there, but I know nothing about it,” George Parsell, then-Springfield Police Chief told the Associated Press at the time.
More speculation began to grow that satanism was involved in the evangelical teen’s death when it was revealed that a copy of the Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey was found in DePalma’s room after she went missing.
However, redacted pictures of the scene show that there were no stones or formations of any kind left around the teen’s body.
Salzano and Zuelle said that suspicions over DePalma’s case over the years have warranted their efforts to have the teen’s body exhumed and the case reinvestigated because her killer has never been found.
For over 10 years, the couple has advocated for cops to reclassify her cause of death from “suspicious” to homicide and to find DePalma’s killer.
You would have to have intimate knowledge of that area.
Ed Salzano
Salzano slammed the cops’ investigation upon finding DePalma’s body as “rushed and bungled.”
“Jeannette’s death certificate still says pending further study 52 years later. It’s really atrocious. The medical examiner said it can’t stay this way so the case needs to be investigated,” Zuelle said.
The Springfield Police Department found DePalma’s body after the dog of a woman who lived near the quarry came home with the teen’s arm in its mouth.
At the time, cops reported that the dog could have torn the teen’s arm from her body in the quarry.
However, Salzano and Zuelle pointed out that the foliage around DePalma’s body seemed undisturbed in the redacted crime scene pictures – which would be “impossible” if the dog wrestled the limb away.
“Her arm was already off,” Salzano believes.
‘IMPOSSIBLE’ THEORY
The investigators also quickly shot down the notion that DePalma might have been murdered by serial killer Richard Cottingham.
In 2021, Cottingham made statements alluding to him having possibly abducted and killed DePalma when she was hitchhiking after she went missing.
Cottingham, also known as the Times Square Killer or the Torso Killer, is linked to at least 12 murders in the New Jersey area around the same time that DePalma was murdered – but Salzano and Huelle said it would have been “impossible” for Cottingham to be the teen’s killer.”
“You would have to have intimate knowledge of that area,” Salzano said, confidently adding that there’s “no way” the serial killer would have known to bring her up to the quarry.
“It’s all gravel that’s been piled up. We’ve been up there, it’s impossible to get to,” he added.
As for who actually might have done it, Salzano and Zuelle think that people connected to the case know more than they’re saying.
“I think there’s something very sinister that went on here,” Salzano said.
“Enough to cover it up forever and for people that we’ve talked to to be still afraid to talk about it.”
Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal is available for streaming on Hulu.
