Police seek information on husband of 'Lady of the Dunes'

Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Massachusetts police are looking for information about a man who is believed to have been married to Ruth Marie Terry, the 37-year-old woman who was named, on Monday, as the victim in one of America's most notorious unsolved murders.

Terry's mutilated body was discovered amongst the Race Point Dunes in Provincetown Massachusetts, in 1974. For decades Terry was known only as "The Lady of the Dunes," and became the subject of countless urban legends and online theories.

On Monday investigators announced that they finally identified Terry using genealogical DNA, a technique that can be used to identify an individual by analyzing the DNA of relatives. Last week investigators asked Terry's biological son Richard Hanchett to submit a DNA sample to positively identify the remains.

On Wednesday police asked members of the public to come forward with any information they might have about Guy Rockwell Muldavin, a now-deceased antiques dealer who is believed to have married Terry months before her body was discovered.

Muldavin was arrested in 1960 in connection with the disappearance of his second wife Manzanita Mearns, and her daughter Dolores Ann Mearns, whose mutilated bodies were discovered in a septic tank at the Seattle home they shared with Muldavin. Muldavin received a suspended sentence and was released in 1962.

Over the decades, police made several unsuccessful attempts to identify "The Lady of the Dunes." Terry's body was exhumed in 1980, 2000 and 2013 by investigators hoping to find new evidence.

In 2015 Joe Hill, the son of horror author Stephen King, contacted police after he spotted a woman resembling police reconstructions of the then-unidentified Lady of the Dunes amongst extras in the film Jaws. The theory gained traction online but was dismissed by police as far-fetched.