Cold case reopened in South Kingstown after 47 years

By Bianca Buono

bbuono@abc6.com

@BBuonoABC6

New information is heating up a cold case that’s nearly 50 years old. It centers around the mysterious death of a teenage girl in South Kingstown.

After decades collecting dust in their archives, South Kingstown police say they’ve received new information that may help them figure out how a 16-year-old girl from Providence ended up dead in their town 47 years ago.

"This case gnawed on me for decades and there has to be an answer,” said South Kingstown Police Chief Vincent Vespia.

Vespia first saw the face of 16-year-old Louise McMillen when he worked for the Rhode Island State Police back in 1969 after she went missing.

"I was actually a part of the investigative team that investigated it,” said Vespia.

Unfortunately she wasn’t found alive. Instead, her decomposing body was found weeks later off of Broad Rock Road in South Kingstown. Although investigators at the time thought they had a murder case on their hands, an official ruling from the medical examiner’s office never came.

"It was inconclusive and it remained inconclusive for all these years,” Vespia said.

But now, nearly fifty years later, the case is suddenly back in Vespia’s hands after his department received new information.

"Information was developed through what I believe a very credible source. If everything falls in place, we will pursue an arrest of those responsible people for this crime,” said Vespia.

Chief Vespia says the next step to solving the mystery is digging-up McMillen’s body and handing it over to the current medical examiner for tests.

"There’s an answer. We’ve got to find the answer. And we may have done that,” Vespia said.

Chief Vespia said since reopening the case, the department has been re-interviewing many of those who were interviewed back in 1969.

The chief also says he’s been working closely with the McMillen family who are on board with exhuming her body so they can get answers too.

© WLNE-TV 2016