Amid internet speculation about a serial killer in New England, a New Hampshire woman who survived a suspected serial killer in the 1980s is urging residents to be “vigilant.”
Between March and April, seven sets of human remains were discovered in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, according to social media users and local news reports. While the victims’ causes of death are unknown, and there appears to be no link between the cases as of Thursday, the recent findings have locals concerned.
“I’m talking about this because, for starters, do I believe all of these cases are related? Maybe not, but it’s unusual to have so many remains and bodies turn up in such a short period of time,” Jane Boroski, the only suspected survivor of the Connecticut River Valley serial killer, told Fox News Digital.
“My big thing is: I don’t want people to dismiss this or forget about it because the more it’s talked about… then the authorities have more of a reason to investigate.”
Boroski, who hosts the podcast “Invisible Tears,” recently shared a video on her Facebook page about a private group called “New England SK,” where thousands of users discuss morbid findings from New England.
Over the last two months, human remains have been discovered in New Haven, Norwalk, Groton, and Killingly, Connecticut; Foster, Rhode Island; and Framingham and Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Some social media users believe the discovery of human remains, particularly female remains, across three neighboring states points to a serial killer.
However, Connecticut State Police told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that “there is no information at this time suggesting any connection to similar remains discoveries, and there is also no known threat to the public at this time,” regarding the deaths in Connecticut.
Nonetheless, Boroski encourages New Englanders to “be more vigilant.”
“Especially women, whether they’re jogging or walking down trails. Use a buddy system and be more vigilant. “And be more aware of your surroundings,” she advised.
Boroski was 22 years old and seven months pregnant when she was driving home from a fair in New Hampshire on a hot August afternoon. She stopped in the parking lot of a closed store to purchase soda from a vending machine. As she returned to her car and opened the soda, a man believed to be the Connecticut River Valley serial killer approached her.
“Evil stepped into my life.” Jane Boroski
The man attempted to pull Boroski from her car, but she resisted, at which point he held a knife to her throat and threatened her to get out. The two confronted each other, but it wasn’t until Boroski ran to a vehicle driving down a nearby road for assistance that the man attacked her, stabbing her 27 times.
“He sliced my jugular.” I had two collapsed lungs. “He lacerated my liver, sliced a tendon in my thumb, and a tendon in my knee,” Boroski said.
The Connecticut River Valley Killer’s case is still unsolved, and his identity is unknown. He is thought to have targeted and killed several women in New Hampshire and Vermont during the 1980s.
Peter Valentin, chair of the Forensic Science Department at the University of New Haven’s Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, told Fox News Digital that the remains discovered in three New England states over two months are “curious.”
“It’s certainly … a large number of human remains to find in a short period of time.”
“The first thing that strikes me as curious is the fact that seven sets of remains have been found over the span of two months,” Valentin told the press. “And so whether that is the product of a directed search in particular areas because there’s a belief that more remains will be found, we can’t know, because that information is not public at this point, or whether or not there’s information to suggest that there’s a reason to search, or that information isn’t publicly available.”
He did, however, note that while some of the remains were intact bodies that could be identified, others were so degraded that authorities will need time to determine who the victims were. In other words, the fact that the remains were discovered over a two-month period does not mean that the victims died at the same time.
“Even though these remains were found within the last two months, at least some of them have been in these conditions or in a state of decomposition for a period of time,” according to him. “Now, forensically speaking, the only way to say with any degree of certainty that these cases were related would be to discover some kind of physical evidence.
That would allow you to connect a person or an object to multiple [cases], and I believe most people would agree that DNA is the most definitive piece of evidence.”
Valentin added that authorities will need to compare analyses of the remains to identify victims.
At least three of the victims in these seven cases have been identified as women: two in Connecticut and one in Rhode Island. Police believe the victim in Killingly, Connecticut, was a woman aged 40 to 60.
The New England Serial Killer Facebook group, which has 57,000 members, added more than 10,000 new members last week and over the weekend, MassLive.com reported.
Google searches for “New England serial killer” peaked around April 7, according to search engine data.
