For decades, the family of 15-year-old Tracy Gilpin searched for answers in order to find her killer. The teen left a party in Kingston, Massachusetts in October 1986 and disappeared.
She was eventually found dead in Myles Standish State Park in Plymouth. Tracy died from a massive head fracture.
In March 2018, a suspect in Tracy’s killing was found.
The night she disappeared
Tracy’s family, including her sister – the colonel of the Massachusetts State Police – lived in the Rocky Nook neighborhood of Kingston, Massachusetts.
On the night of Oct. 1, 1986, Tracy went to a house party after babysitting. The party was at a house a couple streets away in the close-knit neighborhood.
Tracy left the party around 10:30 p.m. with a couple of friends. She walked alone to the Cumberland Farms on Route 3A, bought a pack of cigarettes and used the payphone.
Tracy called the woman throwing the party. She asked for a ride, but the woman couldn’t leave.
“That is the last time anyone saw her,” Kerry Gilpin told MassLive in a previous interview.
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Tracy’s body is discovered
A woman picking flowers in Myles Standish State Forest on the Plymouth side discovered Tracy’s body.
She was found three weeks after disappearing.
The location was almost 11 miles away from where Tracy was last seen.
Investigators used dental records to confirm the body was Tracy. The medical examiner determined she died from blunt force trauma to the head. She had a massive skull fracture.
No witnesses, but Tracy had to have known her killer, family said
To move Tracy from Kingston to Plymouth, a car had to be involved, Kerry Gilpin told MassLive in a previous interview
Tracy would never let a stranger grab her off the streets, Kerry Gilpin said.
“You only go down there (Rocky Nook) if you lived there or were going to a party. You knew everybody. That’s why it is tough to think it didn’t happen by somebody she knew,” Kerry Gilpin said. “She was a fighter. She wasn’t going to get into a car with someone she didn’t know. She wasn’t like that.”
Hand, who was indicted in May 2018 on murder, kidnapping and 𝒶𝓈𝓈𝒶𝓊𝓁𝓉 with intent to rape a child charges, admitted to knowing Tracy from the neighborhood, the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office said.
A trip to North Carolina to interview a “potential witness”
State Police detectives assigned to the district attorney’s office learned Hand may have been a witness in Tracy’s killing.
Investigators headed to North Carolina in March and interviewed Hand over several days.
“During the interviews, Hand, formerly a Kingston resident, made statements to investigators that could be construed as admissions to the crime,” authorities said.
Hand, according to investigators, also made statements that placed him in the park around the time of Gilpin’s killing.
Authorities say Hand told police “he picked up a 73-pound boulder and dropped it on Gilpin.” Hand identified the rock to investigators in evidence photos, the district attorney’s office said.
Hand tried to blame another man for Tracy’s killing
Authorities say Hand tried to blame Henry Meinholz, the man convicted in the unrelated killing of 13-year-old Melissa Benoit. Meinholz died in 2000.
Prosecutors said DNA testing excluded Meinholz as a suspect. Investigators also believed he was not in Massachusetts at the time of Tracy’s death.
Hand told investigators he saw Tracy and Meinholz drive away on Route 3 around the time of her killing. He claimed he spotted Meinholz on the side of the road, carrying a shovel and tarp, Sprague told the judge.