For half a century, the story of Jane Britain’s passing was a dark legend whispered in the halls of Harvard University. It was a tale of genius, ambition, and a chilling, unsolved transgression, all wrapped in the silence of one of the world’s most powerful institutions. The 1969 incident was not just a tragedy; it was a riddle. The scene was staged with such bizarre, symbolic detail that for 50 years, suspicion pointed directly at the academic elite—a colleague, a lover, or even a professor.

The university, critics said, was more concerned with its reputation than with the truth, allowing the case to go cold and the whispers to become history. But in 2018, a new generation of investigators, armed with revolutionary technology and pushed by the relentless efforts of a student journalist and the victim’s own brother, finally found a name.

The answer, extracted from a single biological clue preserved for 50 years, was not what anyone expected. It didn’t point to a professor. It pointed to a ghost, a stranger, a prolific criminal. And in solving the central mystery, it raised an even more troubling one: was the story the world believed for 50 years completely wrong, or is the new “answer” just a convenient way to close a very uncomfortable book?

A Chilling Discovery at 6 University Road

On the morning of January 7, 1969, just 12 days after Christmas, a Harvard graduate student named Donald Mitchell knocked on the door of room 6B at 6 University Road. He was there to meet his classmate, 23-year-old Jane Britain, for a study session. Jane was a star in the anthropology department, a brilliant and fiercely independent student from Radcliffe College who had been accepted into Harvard’s elite doctoral program.

When she didn’t answer, Mitchell grew concerned. The door was slightly ajar. What he saw inside would haunt him, and the university, for decades.

Jane Britain was on the floor of her room, her life tragically cut short. But it was the scene itself that baffled investigators. There was no sign of a struggle or forced entry. Her wallet was untouched. This was not a robbery. Instead, it was something deeply personal and deeply strange.

Her body had been dusted with a fine, reddish-brown powder—red ochre, a pigment used in ancient burial rituals. On her chest, someone had placed a small, ancient clay shard.

The unlocked door and the ritualistic elements created an immediate and powerful narrative. The person responsible was not a stranger. It was someone Jane knew, someone she trusted enough to let into her room late at night. And it was someone with specialized, intimate knowledge of anthropology. The suspect pool, it seemed, was small and exclusive. It pointed directly at the colleagues and professors within Harvard’s own anthropology department.

An Investigation Shrouded in Silence

The pressure on the Cambridge Police Department was immediate and immense, but it wasn’t just pressure to solve the case. It was pressure from Harvard University to contain it. The building at 6 University Road, owned by Harvard, was notoriously insecure. Jane’s own door latch had been broken, and the university had reportedly ignored requests to fix it. A scandal involving a brilliant student, an insecure building, and a potential suspect from its own faculty was a reputational nightmare.

Investigators focused on Jane’s inner circle. Her boyfriend, Jim Humphre, was questioned, but their strained relationship wasn’t enough to hold him, and his alibi was confirmed.

Suspicion quickly coalesced around one man: Professor C.C. Lamberg-Carloski, Jane’s imposing and sometimes-feared academic adviser. He had recently put intense pressure on Jane, and rumors swirled of his interest in female students. He, more than anyone, would have known the symbolic meaning of the red ochre. For decades, the campus legend held that Professor Carloski was the man. He, however, had a solid alibi—he was home with his wife—and no physical evidence ever tied him to the room.

Other students and faculty, including Professor Lee Parsons, who had access to the Peabody Museum’s red ochre collection, were also investigated and cleared. The trail went cold. The case file thickened, but the central question remained unanswered. For 50 years, the truth seemed to be protected by the high, ivy-covered walls of the university itself.

A Family and a Student Who Refused to Forget

Jane’s family—her father, Jay Boyd, her mother, Ruth, and her younger brother, Boyd Jr.—were left with an agonizing silence. Her father, a prominent Radcliffe vice president, channeled his grief into meticulous record-keeping, filling shelves with files on the case. Her brother, Boyd Jr., grew up to become an investigative journalist, driven by the injustice that had shattered his family.

Decades passed. The original detectives retired. Jane’s parents grew old, never getting an answer. But the evidence, including a crucial biological sample recovered from Jane’s clothing, was carefully preserved by a handful of dedicated officers and clerks who refused to let her be forgotten.

Then, in 2009, a Harvard sophomore named Becky Cooper heard the campus ghost story. She became obsessed, spending the next ten years digging into the case for what would become her book, We Keep the Dead Close. Cooper, with the full support of Boyd Britain Jr., re-interviewed witnesses, unearthed old files, and built a powerful case that the original investigation had been deeply flawed, possibly even diverted by Harvard’s desire to protect its own.

Her investigation, which was set to be featured by the Boston Globe‘s Spotlight team, put a new and intense pressure on the Cambridge police. The whispers had become a roar. It was time for a final, modern look at the evidence.

The Answer That Changed Everything

In 2018, spurred by the renewed public interest and the revolutionary success of forensic genetic genealogy in cases like the Golden State Killer, Sergeant Amelia Clark of the cold case unit sent the 50-year-old biological sample to Parabon Nano Labs.

The genealogists at Parabon extracted the degraded DNA and uploaded it to public databases. They didn’t find a direct match. Instead, they found distant cousins. From there, they painstakingly built a massive family tree, working backward and then forward through generations.

The genetic trail did not lead to a professor, an administrator, or any member of the Harvard community. It led to a career criminal named Michael Sumpter.

The name was a shock. Sumpter was a serial predator who had committed a string of violent acts against women in the Boston area. In January 1969, at the time of Jane’s passing, he was on parole. He had no connection to Harvard, no ties to anthropology, and no known link to Jane Britain.

Investigators quickly checked an archived DNA sample from Sumpter, who had passed away in prison in 2000. It was a match. The probability was astronomical. After 48 years, 10 months, and 4 days, the case was officially closed.

A “Convenient” Truth?

The announcement in 2018 was stunning. The community, which had spent 50 years believing in a complex, academic plot, was now told the answer was simple: a random, predatory stranger had seen an opportunity in a building with no security and an unlocked door.

But for many, including Becky Cooper and Boyd Britain Jr., the “answer” was too neat. It was, as Boyd called it, a “convenient” truth.

The DNA match was undeniable. But it only proved that Sumpter had been intimate with Jane. It did not explain the rest of the scene. How did a violent stranger, known for brutal attacks, get into her room without a sound or sign of forced entry? Why did he leave her wallet untouched? And most importantly, why would he stage the scene with red ochre and an ancient artifact—symbols that meant nothing to him but everything to the very department everyone had suspected?

The official narrative is that Sumpter committed the act, and the ritualistic elements are a baffling, unexplainable coincidence.

The other, more disturbing theory is that the full story is still unknown. This theory suggests that the DNA places Sumpter in the room, but it doesn’t preclude a second person—the person who staged the scene, the person everyone originally suspected. Or perhaps, as Cooper and Britain Jr. have argued, the case was simply closed on a deceased man because it was the easiest path. It provided an answer for the family while conveniently absolving Harvard of its 50-year-old negligence and the police of their flawed initial investigation.

We may now have a name, but we may never have the entire truth. The case of Jane Britain is no longer a “who-dunnit.” It is now a chilling exploration of institutional power, the fallibility of memory, and the unsettling possibility that even when DNA speaks, it may not be telling the whole story.