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She survived the Great Depression only to vanish in 1978 and remain an unidentified Jane Doe until nearly a half-century later, when cold case detectives identified her as a possible victim of the Jersey Shore's infamous "Thrill Killer."
Sofia Margherita Marrone had been known for years only as "Montauk Mary" due to where she had been found by a U.S. Airman on his lunch break in a park near the eastern end of Montauk in the town of East Hampton, New York.
On March 22, 1978, the Airman saw Marrone's body near the Camp Hero radar tower that decades later would inspire Netflix's "Stranger Things."
On Thursday, investigators in Suffolk County identified her as the victim of a shooting 250 miles away from where she had last been seen. They said she had been shot and killed just hours before being found.
Marrone, of Pleasantville, New Jersey, was last seen leaving a hospital in Somers Point, New Jersey, on March 16, 1978. She was killed six days later at East Overlook Park in Montauk. The autopsy found three bullet wounds in her legs and one to her chest.
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Her identity remained unknown until Suffolk County investigators said they uncovered it with new DNA methods. They said she may have been a victim of Richard Biegenwald, also known as the Jersey Shore "Thrill Killer."
Biegenwald died in prison in 2008, serving life sentences for killing six people between 1958 and 1982, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said Thursday. He had been suspected in three other murders as well.
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Marrone had been killed with the same rare .22-caliber short rounds Biegenwald was using when New Jersey police arrested him in 1983, Tierney told reporters. He had been known to pick up victims he encountered walking in towns along the Jersey Shore.
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A contemporary witness had also reported seeing a man with a beard sitting in a gold-colored car with New Jersey plates near the Montauk park where Marrone's remains were found, Tierney said, adding that Biegenwald was known to have a beard and had multiple vehicles, including one that roughly matched the witness' description.
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Still, authorities stopped short of calling the case solved.
Marrone is among six victims recently identified by a cold case task force that retired NYPD cold case sergeant Joseph Giacalone said could become a model for law enforcement around the country.
"The district attorney has laid out a plan nationally that others should follow," he told Fox News Digital Friday. "Between establishing the cold case squad within the DA’s office, bringing in the federal and state partners, spending the money on cases that can be solved, and never giving up."
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Three of the six recently identified Does are believed to have been homicide victims, according to Tierney's office. One is believed to have drowned accidentally, and the cause of the final death remains under investigation.
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Authorities identified Marrone along with five other cold case victims Thursday. The others were:
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"Every person deserves to be known by their name, and every victim deserves answers and justice," Tierney said in a statement. "Five decades have passed since the first of these individuals was found deceased, but our commitment to identifying them and pursuing justice has never wavered."
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