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‘More questions than answers’ – Attempt to reunite remains of two babies linked to decades-old homicide proves unsuccessful

Cambria County Coroner Jeff Lees carries a plot marker from the suspected burial site at Laurel United Cemetery. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

EBENSBURG — Hours after Cambria County officials began exhuming the believed gravesite of babies linked to a decades-old homicide case in Gallitzin, Cambria County Coroner Jeffrey Lees said they were left with more questions than answers.

There was no indication that anyone was buried in the 30-by-30-foot area officials dug up in search of a pine box the babies’ bodies were believed to have been buried in more than four decades ago, Lees told a group of reporters Monday afternoon at Laurel

United Cemetery.

The Cambria County Coroner’s Office was attempting to exhume the bodies after receiving the skulls of two babies, identified late last year at the Mutter Medical Museum in Philadelphia as children of Gallitzin resident Stella Elizabeth Williamson, who died in 1980.

Lees said the plan was to exhume the remains of the babies, place the two skulls with the other remains and rebury the babies, together.

Officials used a backhoe to dig up the marked burial plot under a blue tent they pushed back throughout the day as the search area widened.

Lees said officials found some bricks and a drainage pipe upon digging deep into the gravesite. But they were unsuccessful in finding the remains, he said, noting the situation was both frustrating and heart wrenching.

“I was really hoping to reunite these five babies. But unfortunately, that’s just not possible,” Lees said. “We’re not finding anything.”

Mystery surrounds the babies

The case dates back nearly 45 years, but the babies’ deaths go back even further, to the early 1920s and 1930s, when Williamson would have been a young woman.

Williamson, born in 1904, died Aug. 26, 1980, at the age of 76, taking much of the story to her grave.

According to an article in the Sept. 4, 1980, Altoona Mirror, Williamson had neither married nor left the home at 310 Forrest Ave., Gallitzin, where she was raised.

She was a kind lady who scrubbed the floors of her church and made hoagies for the firemen’s benefit, her neighbors told the Washington Post.

Even after she sickened and diabetes took her leg, she would sit on a rocking chair and tease kids as they went by — playing with them, cuddling them and cooking treats for them, the Post article states.

In both the Mirror and Post articles, neighbors expressed their shock that Williamson harbored a secret — that she apparently had several children while dating a local man.

In a letter addressed: “To be opened after my burial,” Williamson confessed that there were bodies of five babies in a trunk in her attic.

The letter, written in 1960 when she thought she was going to die, was found after her death 20 years later and turned over to authorities. On Sept. 2, 1980, authorities opened a trunk in the attic and found the bodies wrapped in newspapers.

It was reported that the newspapers were from New York, Pittsburgh and Johnstown, with the dates ranging from 1923 to 1933.

According to Lees, a forensic autopsy was performed in the 1980s in the Philadelphia area. Through that autopsy, it was determined that the deaths of three children had been ruled homicides while the other two deaths were of undetermined causes, he said.

The ages or whether the children were male or female was never determined due to decomposition.

In her letter, though, Williamson seemingly confessed.

According to the Oct. 11, 1980, Washington Post article, which printed portions of the letter released by police, Williamson said “I want to make things right if anything should happen to me. In the attic in an old trunk you will find babies I had to (person’s name deleted) 30 years or more. How I got away with I don’t no but I did so I don’t want anyone else to be blamed for something they know nothing about. This is one reason I could never marry anyone else. I have lived a good life sense so as God is my judge this is the truth. Please forgive me if you can. Stella.”

In that 1980 Post article, police said the man’s name was listed in the letter. But, while he was alive and living in the area, he was not implicated in the deaths and due to his mental condition and health, he could provide no information.

The Post said one small statement within the letter that police also released said simply, “He never wanted me. Only something to play with and I was a fool in his hands.”

Babies’ remains returned from Philly

On Monday, nearly

45 years after the babies’ remains were discovered, Lees explained how his office was contacted in December 2024 after the Mutter Medical Museum’s staff were going through their archives and found the skulls.

The museum’s staff reassured Lees that the remains were in a safe, secure location. Therefore, Lees said, officials didn’t go immediately to Philadelphia to retrieve the skulls because of weather conditions.

Plans were put into motion, though, to reunite the babies, with Lees stating the exhumation was planned months ago.

When the babies’ skulls returned to his office from Philadelphia, Lees said they were photographed and documented.

The Post article baldly stated that three of the babies were strangled.

Lees said, when he received the skulls of the two babies, one still had a noose wrapped around its neck area.

“I immediately removed that noose (and) separated it from the two babies,” Lees said.

The exhumation was planned because Lees felt the correct thing to do was to try to put the two babies back with their three other siblings.

Although that plan couldn’t be carried out Monday, the skulls were wrapped with baby blankets and placed in a vault county officials purchased. The vault was buried Monday afternoon in the marked plot where the other babies were said to have been buried.

If the remains of

Williamson’s children can be found, Lees said he would like to bury them together properly.

During a news conference Monday afternoon, Lees was noticeably disappointed in the day’s outcome.

“I think this leaves all of us with more questions than answers,” he said of the failed attempt to find and reunite the babies’ remains.

Anyone with information about the case should contact the Cambria County Coroner’s office, Lees said.

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.

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