In her pocket was a spare set of keys detectives had been looking for. Investigators said she was fully clothed and had not been beaten or sexually assaulted. They bought the house on Cynthia Avenue but the couple divorced in 1975 - she stayed at the house by herself.īy the time her body was found about 3.3 miles from her house, it was badly decomposed. She had moved to Rhode Island in 1972 when she married William J. Poitras had been looking forward to an early July two-week vacation in Maine - her parents lived in Caribou, Maine, where her father was an engineer. Poitras’ boyfriend who was the last known person to see her alive - he said he left her at about midnight on June 27. A neighbor told police she had heard screams at about 3 a.m. When the disappearance went public, tips began pouring in. Poitras had not reported to her job at Aetna Life and Casualty Co. Police said there were no signs of a struggle in the house.ĭetectives quickly learned that Ms. Inside the house were her two cats she apparently loved animals - a photo showed her holding a guinea pig. Tiverton Police found her car locked in the driveway, and her pocketbook containing identification, eyeglasses (which she usually wore) and contact lenses. The neighbor tried to check but the doors were locked. Poitras’ 70 Cynthia Avenue home in Tiverton had been on for two days but no other activity had been seen. Over the past 39 years additional leads have been reported and investigated.”Ī neighbor first raised the alarm after becoming concerned that the lights and television at Ms. Several persons of interest were identified, but no charges were ever filed. Poitras’ death) the Tiverton Police Department, the Rhode Island State Police and the FBI conducted an exhaustive investigation, following up on hundreds of leads. The case may have gone cold over four decades but it has not been forgotten by Tiverton Police who keep a summary of the investigation under ‘Cold Cases’ on their website. The medical examiner would determine that she had been killed by a single gunshot to the right side of the head by a small caliber handgun, possibly a. Just over two weeks later, crews cutting grass along William Canning Boulevard about 40 yards from the Stafford Road intersection found the 28-year-old woman’s body in thick underbrush about 40 feet in from the road (not far from the Fall River line and the casino construction site).

Poitras vanished from her Tiverton house sometime late on June 27, 1977.

TIVERTON - Forty years have now passed since Lyla J.

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