Authorities recovered human remains during a search for an 18-year-old Pennsylvania Amish woman who has been missing since last summer.
The Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office said on Wednesday that the remains were uncovered in a rural area in the eastern part of the county while law enforcement was searching for Linda Stoltzfoos, who went missing in June 2020.
Prosecutors said the county coroner’s office would make a formal identification and determine the cause of death. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, state police, and East Lampeter Township investigated the scene.
Wednesday marked 10 full months since Stoltzfoos disappeared, according to prosecutors. She was last seen walking home from church in the Bird-in-Hand area. The searches for her consisted of over 15,000 man-hours.
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Her friends and family say Stoltzfoos was happy with her life and never expressed any desire to leave.
District Attorney Heather L. Adams charged Justo Smoker, 35, with felony kidnapping and misdemeanor false imprisonment one month after her disappearance. He was charged with homicide in December, with prosecutors alleging evidence led them to believe Stoltzfoos was deceased and Smoker was the cause of her death.
Authorities said surveillance video enhanced by FBI forensic technicians showed a red sedan, the same kind of car used by the defendant, involved in the abduction.
On June 23, investigators found the vehicle parked at a rural location in Ronks and also discovered items of Stoltzfoos’ clothing buried in a wooded area. A DNA profile “attributable to Smoker” was found on one of her buried stockings, prosecutors have said.
Smoker is being held at Lancaster County Prison and is awaiting trial.
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The county’s chief public defender, Christopher Tallarico, argued in March that there was no proof Stoltzfoos ever got into Smoker’s car and cited testimony that her DNA was not found on samples taken from the car.
Christopher Jones, a detective from East Lampeter Township, said the DNA profiles recovered were insufficient for testing. However, a county judge ruled there was enough evidence for a homicide trial.
