Sue Gehris is still waiting. After her daughter, Lisa Marie Gehris, disappeared from Montgomery County in 1984, she waited more than 10 years only to find Lisa had been murdered and that a human torso that had washed ashore in Maryland was all that remained of her daughter. In the 10 years following that grim discovery, Gehris continued to wait — for word of an arrest in her daughter’s murder; for officials to tell her where the remains of her daughter were buried; for information on whether a former Harrison man had anything to do with Lisa’s death. Finally, her vigil may be nearing its end because:

Gehris may know soon whether former Harrison resident Jack Lee Colin Jr. will be charged in Lisa’s death. Colin — found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1973 of killing his parents in their McWilliams Drive, Natrona Heights, home — is in a Cape May, N.J., jail awaiting trial on charges of illegally possessing guns and child pornography. He’s also being investigated in connection with the Gehris murder and the murders of two other suburban Philadelphia women. A Valley News Dispatch reporter learned that Lisa’s remains are buried in a common grave on the grounds of a Maryland hospital. Sue Gehris said she once was told by officials to drop her search because the remains would be almost impossible to find in a pauper’s grave. Agonizing wait After Lisa Marie’s disappearance, time dragged on. Sue Gehris said her family searched newspapers, watched TV and prayed. She said she endured interviews by reporters and obscene telephone calls at home and asked herself why anyone would be so cruel. Finally, about one week later, Lisa’s photo appeared in a newspaper. Yet for months, there was no news, no response. Then Gehris saw something on TV that she couldn’t get out of her mind. A woman’s torso washed up on the shore of Elk River in Cecil County, Md., on April 14, 1984. Somehow, Sue Gehris said, she knew it was her daughter’s body. Detectives agreed that it probably was, but they needed proof. That would have to wait for advances in science. By early 1995, after the advent of DNA testing, a sample of Sue Gehris’ blood was compared to tissue taken from the torso. Indeed, the remains were of Lisa Gehris. Yet knowing it was her and finding her remains were not the same thing. It had been 10 years since the torso had been found. Maryland police kept a tissue sample but the torso itself had long since been cremated, the ashes buried somewhere in a common grave because authorities had no identification, no family to contact. Gehris said she was told by a Montgomery County detective that Lisa was in a “pauper’s grave in Maryland,” but she wasn’t told where. The detective — Gehris can’t remember his name — told her that “Lisa was a number and it would be difficult to find her.” Nevertheless, after a reporter’s phone calls to the Maryland State Police, who still have Lisa in their “cold case” files, the state’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner, and the Maryland Anatomy Board, and calls between the medical examiner and the board, Lisa’s final resting place was revealed. “She was given an unknown person number of 84-036,” said Ron Wade, who directs the Maryland Anatomy Board. “Her body part was cremated and the ashes were put in a memorial grave site at the Springfield State Hospital in June 1994,” Wade said. That means her ashes were buried six or seven months before the DNA tests that proved her identity. He mother waited 10 years for a call from authorities that never came. “There must have been a miscommunication. The mother should have been told about the memorial site. Maybe she misunderstood or the detectives misunderstood,” said Cheryl Walker, a Maryland Medical Examiner’s office supervisor who worked with Wade to find out what happened after getting calls from a reporter. Sue Gehris said she may have misunderstood or the detective may have, but she remembers being told about a pauper’s grave. “That’s what has lingered with me all these years,” she said. Still, she isn’t pointing a finger at the officials. Instead, she is planning a trip to the memorial grave site, located off U.S. Route 70 west of Baltimore. “This is not a pauper’s grave,” Wade said. “It’s for the ashes of people who donate their bodies to science and for any unclaimed bodies.” Wade said the state holds a memorial service every third Monday in June for those buried there. Wade has talked with Gehris to answer questions. A VND reporter arranged for memorial site photos to be e-mailed to Gehris, who sent them to her four other children, and told her how to get an application for Lisa’s death certificate. The state of Maryland wants $12 to mail it to her. Still waiting Meanwhile, Gehris continues to wait for a phone call from Montgomery County prosecutors telling her another DNA test has revealed whether Colin or someone else killed her daughter. In Pennsylvania, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. said he is investigating whether Colin killed Lisa Gehris and the other women. Castor has said he hasn’t been able to rule Colin out in the death, so late last year DNA samples were taken from Colin’s house and car in New Jersey. Colin, who now is 52, was jailed last December in Cape May, N.J., for allegedly having guns even though he is a felon who cannot legally have them. He was later charged with possessing child pornography. Officials said Colin remains in the Cape May jail in lieu of $500,000 bond. Meanwhile, Castor is waiting for the FBI lab to check DNA samples taken from Colin’s New Jersey apartment against samples from Lisa and the other women. Sue Gehris still lives in Montgomery County but not in the house that Lisa left on the snowy night of Jan. 25, 1984. Gehris said she last saw her daughter looking into a hallway mirror, fluffing her hair, grabbing a coat and walking out to meet her boyfriend at an arcade. Lisa was 18. Gehris said Lisa was a good girl who rebelled and eventually dropped out of school. However, by that fateful day, Lisa and her mother were waiting for a GED packet to arrive in the mail. Things seemed to be getting back on track, Sue Gehris said.

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