On a Saturday night in late June of 1986, a 20-year-old college student went out with friends in a familiar place, celebrating her softball team's big win.

But in a narrow window of opportunity just after she was dropped off in the shadows outside her apartment building, the young woman faced an evil that managed to stay hidden

in those same shadows for decades. Investigators searched for connections, people who knew her,

places she had been, anything that might explain her senseless death, but nothing fit. Leeds faded,

the case stalled, and over time it slipped into that uncertain

space between open and unsolved. For decades, the answer remained just out of reach,

until advances in science and a single piece of preserved evidence began to tell a different story.

I'm Kylie Lowe and this is the case of Claire Gravel on Darkdowneast.

On a summer afternoon in Beverly, Massachusetts, a state public works crew was cleaning along a stretch of Route 128 when something caught their attention just off the roadway.

It was June 30, 1986, just before 3 p.m., and about 25 yards from the northbound lanes near the old grapevine road exit, they found a body lying along a wooded path. According to reporting by

David Leeshoe for the Daily Item, the road leading to that area was blocked by large boulders,

making it unlikely that anyone could have driven directly

to that location. However, Barbara Taramina reports for the North Shore Sunday that it was the

kind of place people knew about locally, a secluded stretch often used as a party spot. But it

wasn't somewhere you would expect a young woman to be alone in the middle of the day.

She was fully clothed, dressed in casual attire, but her shirts had been pulled up exposing her chest.

She wasn't wearing any shoes. A single white sandal was found nearby.

There was blood on the leaves around her body.

Some of her personal belongings, like a wallet, checkbook, makeup, and photographs

were found in a bag not far from where she lay.

It didn't look like a robbery.

The watch on her wrist and jewelry were untouched.

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