CONCORD, NH- A cold case in New Hampshire dating back 50 years has been solved after the murderer, who was identified as the original suspect but wasn’t arrested due to a bungled FBI report, has been positively identified.
Unfortunately for the victims’ loved ones, the suspect was stabbed to death in Los Angeles on Feb. 1, 1987, and won’t pay the price for his crime.
The New York Post reports that Judith Lord, 22, was found dead inside her apartment in Concord, New Hampshire’s capital city, on May 20, 1975, only months after moving in, New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella said this week. Her body was discovered by a building manager, who went to collect her unpaid rent. She was found dead in an upstairs bedroom.
Lord’s 20-month-old son was found in an adjacent room alive and unharmed. An autopsy revealed she died of homicidal strangulation.
Investigators discovered the room was in disarray, and the evidence indicated a violent struggle and sexual assault had taken place, with hairs found on the victim’s body and bed. In addition, seminal fluid was found dried up on top of a still-damp towel.
Police zeroed in on Lord’s neighbor, Ernest Theodore Gable, then 24, as a suspect. Unfortunately, despite Gable being identified as a suspect, he couldn’t be accused appropriately because “the case was severely hindered by a flawed forensic report issued by the FBI in 1975,” Formella said.
“At the time, microscopic hair analysis led to an incorrect conclusion that the suspect could not have contributed the hairs found at the scene,” the report indicated.
However, other forensic evidence found at the scene, including Gable’s fingerprints found at the scene, as well as witnesses telling police that Lord feared Gable, were seemingly ignored.
Detectives found that Lord was afraid not only of Gable but also of her husband; in Gable’s case, it was due to his “persistent and unwanted advances.”
“Judith told her sister she was afraid of both her husband and her African American neighbor next door, indicating Mr. Gable, because he ‘had made remarks to her about wanting to see her nude,’” the attorney general’s report said.
Lord moved into the Concord Gardens apartment complex with her husband and their son three months earlier, after returning to the U.S. from Germany, where Gregory Lord was stationed for several months. He went on leave, and the couple returned to the U.S. along with their son.
The couple lived together, however, Gregory Lord assaulted his wife on May 4, 1975, just over two weeks before she was murdered. Gregory was arrested and immediately entered a guilty plea for simple assault and was fined $100.
He moved out of the apartment and moved to his grandmother’s across the street, taking everything from the apartment, leaving only Judith, their son, a bed, and a crib behind in the apartment.
After the victim was found, police turned their attention to her estranged husband, however, both his brother and grandmother corroborated his alibi.
After her husband assaulted her, Judith Lord resigned from her job at a nearby nursing home, leaving her with nothing. She cashed her final paycheck the day before her death, and returned to the apartment complex to “hang out” with neighbors. She returned home just before midnight. Gable’s wife told police she heard Lord in the shower minutes later.
Sometime before 1:00 a.m., neighbors said they heard screaming from Lord’s apartment, then heard what appeared to be “moaning” sounds, which they believed to be a couple having intercourse that resonated through the walls.
After Lord’s body was found, several witnesses contacted police and told them about Lord’s “disturbing” interactions with Gable, including a time when he knocked on her door at 2 a.m. while his wife was out of town and asked her if she “wanted to party with him.”
“One coworker specifically recalled Ms. Lord saying that this man was ‘always bothering her and hanging around her doors and windows,” the report said.
Gable was never charged in Lord’s death.
Formella said that had Gable lived, he would have been charged with first-degree murder for knowingly causing Lord’s death during the commission of aggravated felonious sexual assault, and for purposely causing her death by strangulation.
“It is my hope that this long-awaited conclusion will finally bring peace and closure to Judy Lord’s family and the entire Concord community after nearly five decades of delayed justice,” Formella said. “This resolution proves that no cold case is ever truly closed until the truth is found.”
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