A Graduate Student Drove to a Delaware Forest to Study Native Plants. She Never Made It Out Alive

NEED TO KNOW

In Sept. 1986, Jane Marie Prichard, 28, drove to Blackbird State Forest in Smyrna, Del., to do some research on vines she was studying

Prichard unpacked her equipment and was about 30 feet into the forest when someone shot her in the back. She died of blood loss

Police are still searching for her killer in 2025

On Sept. 20, 1986, Maryland resident Jane Marie Prichard got in her Chevrolet Blazer and drove to a forest in Delaware to do some research for the master’s degree she was pursuing in botany.

Prichard, 28, a graduate student at the University of Maryland's College Park campus, lived in Clarksburg, Md., but had stayed at a friend’s house in Lewes, Del., waking up early to drive about an hour away to Blackbird State Forest in Smyrna.

At 7 a.m., she found just the rig