On an August evening in 1982, children playing in Boston's Franklin Park stumbled onto a scene

that would quietly become one of the city's most troubling, unsolved cases.

The victim was a 16-year-old girl who had already endured instability, displacement, and independence far beyond her years.

Her murder received little attention at the time.

But within months, rumors began to swirl.

Allegations of sexual assault inside a private police club, whispers of a cover-up,

and a detective who refused to back down.

I'm Kylie Lowe and this is the case of Lucia Kai Roberts on Dark Down East.

It was a hot Sunday evening in Boston on August 15, 1982,

and around 6.30 p.m. that night, two children were playing in Franklin Park while their family

picnicked nearby. In an overgrown area of the park, those kids, kicking a soccer ball,

made a discovery that would shift the mood of the park from late summer ease to something far darker.

It was a badly decomposed body.

Early media coverage by Ed Corsetti for the Boston Herald described to the body as fully

clothed and wearing a backpack. However, later accounts reported

in the Staten Island Advance by Peter Spencer suggests a more unsettling scene. The victim's

shirt was pulled up over her bra and her pants were pulled down past her thighs. She had a gold

chain in her hand and her head rested on a red backpack.

Around her, a suitcase, clothing, and several photographs were scattered on the ground.

Because of the state of decomposition, investigators couldn't immediately confirm who the victim was, but those papers found near the body provided a tentative name, Lucia Roberts.

Investigators believe she had been dead for at least two weeks.

The location wasn't remote wilderness.

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