Mary Alice Pultz : “Mother Vanished in 1968: Human Remains Identified After 40 Years”

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A tragic mystery that spanned decades has finally been solved as skeletal remains discovered on a beach in St Augustine, Florida nearly 40 years ago have been identified as those of Mary Alice Pultz, a mother-of-two who vanished in the late 1960s.

Mary Alice Pultz, a 25-year-old woman who was raised in Rockville, Maryland, disappeared in 1968 after leaving with a man named John Thomas Fugitt, severing ties with her family in the process, according to the St Johns County Sheriff’s Office. This disappearance marked the last time her family saw her.

Last week, the sheriff’s office made a significant announcement, confirming that the remains found in a shallow grave by construction workers on Crescent Beach, Florida in 1985 belonged to Pultz.

While the exact circumstances of Pultz’s death remain unclear, authorities are treating it as a homicide and have named John Thomas Fugitt as a person of interest in the case.

Fugitt, also known as Billy Joe Wallace, had previously been convicted of murdering his male roommate in Georgia in 1981. Although he was sentenced to death for that crime, he passed away in prison before the sentence could be carried out.

St. Johns County Sheriff Rob Hardwick expressed determination in solving the case, stating in a press release, “This investigation is a powerful example that we will never give up. The combination of highly skilled detectives and advanced DNA technology has given Mary Alice’s family some answers about her disappearance close to 40 years ago.”

Initial investigations into the remains back in 1985 indicated that the victim was a white female aged between 30 and 50 at the time of death, with the manner of death being determined as homicide. However, the case went cold over the years as the victim remained unidentified.

In 2011, the victim’s skull and jaw were sent to the Florida Institute for Forensic Anthropology and Applied Science at the University of South Florida, where experts created a facial reconstruction graphic to potentially identify her.

Despite generating some leads, the facial reconstruction did not provide definitive answers. In 2023, detectives collaborated with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to extract DNA from the remains and create a DNA profile.

This breakthrough led to Pultz’s living relatives, including her son Norman Jenkins of Yuma, Arizona, and her sister Patricia Allamong of Winchester, Virginia, providing DNA samples to confirm the match. In January 2024, detectives received confirmation of the match, officially identifying the victim as Mary Pultz.

Further examination of the remains by medical examiner Dr. Wendolyn Sneed revealed multiple injuries, including nasal bone fractures, rib fractures, and lower leg injuries, some of which had healed. Additionally, three surgical burr holes were found drilled into Pultz’s skull.

According to the sheriff’s office, Dr. Sneed stated that these injuries and the surgical burr holes indicated severe trauma requiring hospitalization, possibly resulting from a vehicle crash or being struck by a vehicle.

It remains unclear if Pultz had relocated to Florida with Fugitt, as there are no records of her whereabouts or employment between her disappearance in 1968 and the discovery of her remains in 1985.

While Fugitt is a key person of interest in the investigation, detectives acknowledge that other possibilities cannot be ruled out. They expressed hope that the information gathered so far will lead to closure for Pultz’s family.

Pultz’s son, Norman Jenkins, who was a child when she disappeared, expressed a desire for closure, saying, “I would just like to know if anyone ever saw her or knew her.”