On November 8, 1988 a highway cleanup crew found the remains of 35-year-old Debra Greenlaw DeMello, a White woman and mother of three, off the Reed Road on-ramp to Interstate 195 eastbound in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Her body was nude and her clothing was discovered scattered in nearby tree branches. Forensic analysis indicated she had likely been dead for several months before discovery; identification by dental records came about a month later.

DeMello had walked away from a work-release program at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, Rhode Island on June 18, 1988, and was last seen on July 11, 1988. Her case has been linked to the New Bedford Highway Killer, a suspected serial offender blamed for at least nine similar deaths in 1988–1989; no one has been arrested in DeMello’s killing. A previously indicted suspect in the wider series, attorney Kenneth Ponte, was never charged in DeMello’s death and later died in 2010.

Did anyone in the Dartmouth or New Bedford area know Debra or have information about her movements between June and November 1988?