NEW LONDON — On Wednesday, law enforcement vehicles filled the parking lot of a wilderness area off Route 11 as part of the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit’s renewed search for leads on the homicide of a 27-year-old Sunapee resident, which has remained unsolved for 47 years.
“We’re conducting the search using technology that didn’t exist when Cathy Millican was murdered and when her body was discovered,” Chris Knowles, a senior assistant attorney general and the chief of the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit, said at the site of the search. “It’s our hope that by using new technology, we’ll be able to bring answers to the family and to the community.”
The search is getting additional help from the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department and the New London Police Department, Knowles said. The case is among 127 open cases across the state that the Cold Case Unit is currently investigating, he said.
The Cold Case Unit also released previously unseen photographs of Millican Wednesday.
On the afternoon of Oct. 24, 1978, the day before Millican’s body was found, she told others that she planned to go bird watching, said a Wednesday news release from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office and New Hampshire State Police, which comprise the Cold Case Unit.
Later, Millican’s brown Volkswagen Rabbit was seen parked at the entrance of some wetlands off of Route 11 in New London in what is now known as the Esther Currier Wildlife Management Area, according to the release, the release said.
Millican’s body was found the following day, several hundred yards into the woods.
An autopsy determined that she died from multiple stab wounds.
“It has been 47 years since Cathy was taken from us. She was an artist, a photographer, an ornithologist, and a national sailing champion,” Millican’s family wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “We remain ever hopeful that her case will be solved and that closure will ease the pain of everyone who knew her. We are encouraged to know that her case has not been abandoned but continues to be worked.”
The search poses no danger to the public and is focused on locating physical evidence, the release said.
If evidence is collected, it would likely be sent to the New Hampshire State Police forensic lab for testing and analysis, which could possibly further the investigation, Knowles said.
Anyone who may have seen Millican or her brown Volkswagen Rabbit on Oct. 24, 1978, or who has any information is encouraged to contact the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit at 603-271-2663 or coldcaseunit@dos.nh.gov.