50-Year-Old New Hampshire Murder Finally Solved

A New Hampshire murder mystery that lingered for half a century has finally been solved. State officials announced that modern forensic testing has identified the man responsible for the 1975 killing of 22-year-old Judith Lord.

According to WMUR, Lord was found strangled to death inside her Concord apartment in May of 1975 after what investigators described as a violent struggle and sexual assault. Her 20-month-old son was discovered in a nearby room, physically unharmed.

For decades, the case remained cold, not because of a lack of leads, but because a flawed forensic report in 1975 had wrongly cast doubt on evidence pointing to an early suspect. WMUR explained that hair and fingerprints found on a window of Lord’s apartment seemed to contradict the police theory at the time, and the case stalled.

Thanks to advances in forensic science, investigators recently re-examined the original evidence. New testing has now confirmed that the killer was Ernest Theodore Gable, a man Lord had feared and whose behavior toward her had escalated in the weeks leading up to her death, the news station reported.

“The evidence against Mr. Gable was compelling from the start,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Christopher Knowles said. “Multiple witnesses, including Ms. Lord’s sister, told police that Judy was genuinely afraid of him due to his unwanted and persistent sexual advances. One associate even recalled Gable boasting about trying to get ‘a piece of that meat.’”

WMUR went on to say that Gable was 24 years old at the time of the murder. He eventually moved across the country, adopted an alias, and lived the rest of his life under a different name. He died in Los Angeles in 1987 after being stabbed — never facing charges for Lord’s killing.

For Judith Lord’s family, the long-awaited answers bring some relief.

“I’ve found peace myself and a sense of closure,” her son, Gregory Lord Jr., said in a statement. “Closure doesn’t mean forgetting my mother or what happened to her. It gives me strength to move forward.”