“I wanted to find her, but not find her deceased,” said Colon Jr., after a long search for his aunt, Evelyn Colon, finally ended 44 years later.
Evelyn Colon was a typical teenager in the 1970s. She was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, and lived with her five siblings. However, things took a turn in 1976, when she became pregnant at just 15, with her 19-year-old boyfriend, Luis Sierra, by her side.
“Back then, things were a little different. It was a different culture, a different time, in the 70s. You get your girlfriend pregnant, you move out, and that’s how it is,” said Miriam Colon-Veltman, Evelyn’s niece. And that is exactly what happened. Colon and Sierra moved out immediately after they learned she was expecting, a decision Colon’s parents approved.
One day, Colon called her mother up and asked her to bring her soup. Her mother did, but when she arrived at their residence, the couple was nowhere to be found. After speaking with the neighbors, Colon’s family learned the two had “apparently” moved away.
To ease the family’s worries, a letter arrived from Sierra in January 1977, written in Spanish and postmarked from Connecticut. It said Colon had given birth to a boy and asked the family not to worry, adding that she would contact them if she needed anything.
But days turned into months, and months turned into years, and Evelyn Colon didn’t show up. She hadn’t called, sent a message, or written a letter, until one lucky guess worked.
The Lehigh River suitcase discovery in White Haven in 1976
On December 20, 1976, a teenage boy playing near the Lehigh River in White Haven, Pennsylvania, found the dismembered remains of a full-term pregnant woman.
The victim was sexually assaulted, strangled, and shot in the neck. The gunshot wound was inflicted after death. Her body was dismembered postmortem using a fine serrated tool. Some parts of her body remain undiscovered, including her nose, breasts, and ears. On initial inspection, letters and numbers were written in ink on her left hand, but they were unreadable.
The head and body of the fetus had also been removed from the victim and were found about 10 feet from the suitcases. When discovered, the remains showed signs of decomposition. The estimated time of death was about 24 hours before the discovery, around December 19, 1976.
The parts of the victim’s body, along with those of her unborn daughter, were packed into 3 suitcases. Two of the suitcases were striped in red, blue, and white, and the third was tan with a plaid design. All three were the same size and made of vinyl. Traces of black spray paint were visible on the outer surface, and the handles had been cut off.
Apparently, to dispose of the body, the suspect had thrown the suitcases off a bridge over the Lehigh River in White Haven, Pennsylvania, along Interstate 80. It is suspected that the suitcases were thrown out of a vehicle traveling west.
The aim was to throw the remains into the water so that they would never be discovered, but out of the three suitcases, two landed in the woods approximately 20 feet away from the river, and the third one was found on the riverbank. Because the suitcases were thrown from around 300 feet, they were forced open, and the parts of the body were exposed, including the head, fetus, and the two halves of the torso.
Inside the suitcase, the police also found straw, dry packing foam, and a cut-up chenille bedspread with six sections of the New York Sunday News dated September 26, 1976. The bedspread and the newspaper were used to wrap the parts of the body.
The bedspread was most likely originally pink in color. Due to being exposed to worn and dirty conditions, the color appeared more like a reddish-orange. It also had yellow and pink embroidered flowers.
The Beth Doe autopsy and the forensic profile investigators built
After the discovery, the body was immediately and safely removed by the police. It was transported in plastic bags to the nearby Gnadden Huetten Hospital. The autopsy went on for three hours. On December 23, 1976, the victim was identified as a white woman in her late teens or early twenties, but the authorities struggled to find a name for her. The main cause of death was determined to be strangulation.
The victim was believed to be between 4 feet 11 inches and 5 feet 4 inches tall. She weighed around 140 to 150 pounds. She had dark brown, shoulder-length hair, and her blood type was O. She had a 2 to 6 inch scar above one of her heels, with two moles on her face, one believed to be above her left eye and one on her left cheek.
A severe tooth delay was also discovered. Some of her molars had already been extracted before she became a teen, and she had received fillings in her teeth. It was evident that she had not gone to the dentist recently. One of her front incisors also had a visible fracture.
According to the autopsy, she was believed to have been born in Europe.
How investigators tried to identify Beth Doe and why the Maggie Cruz lead collapsed
Desperate to find the identity of the victim, her fingerprints were circulated, her teeth were examined, and missing persons reports were compared extensively. Even the numbers written on her wrist were investigated. The police checked license plates and CB call signs, but nothing worked. Because she remained unknown and unnamed, a sketch was circulated, which resulted in a few leads, but none that worked.
Failing to find the identity of the victim, investigators gave her the name “Beth Doe.” The body was finally buried in 1983. Then, in 2007, her remains were disinterred to obtain additional forensic evidence and to create a new facial reconstruction. The latest two reconstructions were released in May 2015 by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Investigators remained searching for the real identity of Beth Doe. To their surprise, in September 2019, there was a possible lead. From the discovery until then, around 12 missing women had been excluded as possible identities. The Pennsylvania State Police announced that there may be a possible connection between “Beth Doe” and Madeline “Maggie” Cruz.
The investigators received a tip through a woman who knew an individual who looked similar to the sketches that were circulated in the name of “Beth Doe.” According to the woman, Madeline “Maggie” Cruz attended school with her and spent time in the Massachusetts cities of Lenox and Framingham.
In around 1974, when she was 16, Maggie ran away to Tarrytown with her foster sister from her foster home in Framingham. Her foster sister returned home only a week later, but she did not. Later, in the summer of 1976, Maggie called a friend and requested that she grant her some money, and stated that she was pregnant. This was her last encounter with the said friend, and nobody ever heard from her again.
Due to sharing similar circumstances to the body, the investigators suspected that she may be linked to Beth Doe. But after a thorough investigation, police confirmed that Madeline “Maggie” Cruz was actually alive and well. In the end, the discovery, which initially seemed promising, did not lead to Beth Doe’s identity at all.
How Beth Doe was identified as Evelyn Colon through DNA genealogy in 2021
Colon Jr and Miriam Colon-Veltman, children of Evelyn Colon’s brother, always thought that their aunt was living happily with her family and wanted nothing to do with her siblings and parents, whom she left when she was 15. However, they still wanted to look for her. The siblings narrated how their grandmother looked around for her daughter, wanting to find her.
Colon Jr. made desperate attempts to find his aunt, including submitting his DNA to several genealogy sites. Several months and a few failed attempts later, he got a call in early March saying that his DNA matched that of a victim of a homicide, and that is when “Beth Doe” got an identity as Evelyn Colon, finally, on March 31, 2021.
Colon’s identity was confirmed through an advanced DNA analysis conducted by Othram, Inc. It was also verified later through interviews and records linked to the victim’s family. However, when Evelyn Colon was actually identified, both of her parents had passed away. Her mother, who is said to have suffered severe depression until her death, had asked her family to “Find Evelyn.”
How Luis Anthony Sierra was arrested after DNA linked him to Evelyn Colon
The prime suspect in the homicide was Luis Sierra, Colon’s boyfriend and the father of her child. Sierra was born in 1957 and grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey. He lived next door to the Colon family. The couple began dating in 1976 and moved to an apartment together in Jersey City after Colon’s pregnancy.
Their relationship was bumpy, with Sierra portrayed as abusive, jealous, and possessive. As per the family members, he kept Evelyn locked inside their apartment, and Colon would often tell her family that if anything happened to her, Sierra would be the cause. After Colon disappeared, Sierra moved back to his father’s home. As of 2021, he was found living in Ozone Park, Queens, New York, working as a bus driver.
In 2021, Sierra was confirmed to be the father of the fetus found with Colon’s body through DNA extraction. Colon was also last seen alive with Sierra in their Jersey City apartment around mid-December 1976.
Before Sierra moved to New York, he is said to have fabricated the letter sent to Colon’s family, stating that Colon was well and didn’t want anything to do with her family. Investigators believed that the letter was fabricated because of Colon’s limited knowledge of writing, and the letter was also dated after her death.
Due to witness statements and inconsistent accounts, on March 31, 2021, Pennsylvania State Police arrested Luis Anthony Sierra, then 63, at his residence in Ozone Park, Queens, New York.
Luis Sierra’s homicide case collapsed over jurisdiction in Pennsylvania
Luis Anthony Sierra faced charges of criminal homicide for the murder of Colon and her unborn child, filed in Carbon County, Pennsylvania. He was sent to Pennsylvania on April 14, 2021, and transported to the Carbon County Correctional Facility. He then remained in custody without bail.
His first court appearance was on April 28, 2021, for a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Joseph Homanko in Weatherly, Carbon County. The decision came out in favor of the victim, where it was ruled that there was sufficient evidence to hold a trial on Sierra for the homicide charges, and he was ordered to remain detained without bail.
However, disappointment awaited the victim and her family in 2024, when a Carbon County judge dismissed the homicide charges against Luis Sierra related to the 1976 murder of Evelyn Colon. The reason for the dismissal was a simple logistical jurisdiction issue. Apparently, the murder took place in Jersey City, New Jersey, which was outside Pennsylvania’s jurisdiction. There was investigative evidence that Colon was actually killed in New Jersey, and that later her remains were transported and discovered in Pennsylvania.
Carbon County District Attorney Michael Greek confirmed that the case had been dismissed as of March 10, 2025. He also stated that the case can be refiled with the New Jersey authorities. However, as of November 2025, no charges have been filed against Sierra in New Jersey.
After the case was dropped, Sierra was released from custody and had been out on bail since 2022.
From Beth Doe to Evelyn Colon and the fight for justice
After finding Evelyn Colon, the family’s hunt came to an awful end, but at least it was an end. The family organised memorial arrangements, although the burial had already taken place in 1976 at a cemetery in White Haven, Pennsylvania.
To honour their beloved Evelyn, the family established a GoFundMe campaign, “Official ‘Beth Doe’ Evelyn Colon Memorial,” to help them fund a headstone and travel for relatives nationwide so that they can honour not only Evelyn but her unborn daughter, who was named “Emily Grace.”
The campaign raised around $6000 in April 2021, and as of the new data in November 2025, around $12000 have been raised; however, there is no announcement of a headstone placement or other services.
According to the public statements given by the family members, they are still fighting for justice. As Luis Colon Jr stated, “Until then (justice), I’m not going to rest… We got her name, that’s important.” his statement carries a sense of peace but also unresolved pain and trauma, while the killer remains as free as he ever was.
