Decades after her death, the "Nation River Lady" has been identified as Jewell Parchman Langford by The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and other agencies, and an 81-year-old Florida man, Rodney Nichols, has been charged in connection with her death.
On May 3, 1975, the remains of a woman were found in the South Nation River, a short distance from the Highway 417 bridge near the Town of Casselman in Eastern Ontario. The police never stopped working on the case, says Bill Dickson, Acting Manager for Media Relations at the OPP.
Dickson credits breakthroughs in DNA technology for solving the cold case. In late 2019, a new DNA profile of the victim was obtained by the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto and submitted to a specialized lab in the United States. Through whole genome sequencing, the samples matched those collected from two nieces listed in a family DNA tree. In 2020, the victim was subsequently identified as 48-year-old Jewell "Lalla" Langford (née Parchman).
This is believed to be the first case in Canada of this nature to identify human remains through Forensic Genealogy. Dickson, who worked on the case for 20 years and has always felt haunted by it, said that her alleged murderer has been found; Rodney Nichols is still alive and was just charged with her murder.
Here is the story from Dickson:
