The murder of Dolores Della Penna is an unsolved murder case dating from July 1972 in which a 17-year-old high school graduate was abducted, tortured, murdered and dismembered by an unknown number of individuals in Kensington, Philadelphia. Her dismembered torso, arms and legs were later discovered in New Jersey, although her head has never been found.
Although the motive for Della Penna's abduction and murder remains unclear, investigators believe she may have been targeted by drug dealers either due to her being falsely blamed by former roommates for the theft of drugs or in an act of revenge against her boyfriend relating to an unsettled drug debt. The case itself has been described as one of Philadelphia's most gruesome and enduring unsolved murders.
Early life Dolores Marie Della Penna was born in Tacony, Philadelphia on December 13, 1954, the second of two children born to Ralph and Helen ( DiMichele) Della Penna. Her father was a chemist, and her mother a homemaker. The family resided in a semi-detached house in a blue-collar section of Tacony composed predominantly of families of Polish or Italian ancestry. By 1971, Della Penna's older brother, Ralph Jr., had married and moved into his own house.
An honors graduate of St. Hubert Catholic High School for Girls, Della Penna was described by her parents as a "kind, obedient and family-oriented" girl who was markedly studious and refrained from conflicts. She held aspirations to attend college in September 1972, with aspirations to ultimately become a radiographer. Della Penna did not own a car, although unbeknownst to her, her parents had plans to purchase a car for her eighteenth birthday.
Graduation Della Penna did not attend her high school prom following her June 1972 graduation, and according to her sister-in-law, Della Penna viewed the summer following her graduation as one which she intended to take full advantage of as it would be "the last summer she could enjoy before she had to work for the rest of her life". Her sister-in-law would also state that by approximately January 1972, Della Penna had become somewhat acquainted with several Kensington teenagers whom she knew to occasionally experiment with drugs, and that by the spring of 1972 Della Penna would travel to socialize with these individuals approximately four times per week.
Shortly after her graduation, Della Penna and three female friends with whom she had recently become acquainted opted to rent a bungalow upon Forget-Me-Not Road in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, with view to renting the property solely for the summer of 1972. The property was located approximately from her parents' home, and the money necessary to rent the property was provided by Della Penna's parents as a gift for her having graduated with honors from high school.
In late-June, Della Penna learned her parents, older brother and other family members planned to visit Walt Disney World. According to her mother, upon hearing this, Della Penna informed her, "You're not going without me." The entire family commenced their 10-day vacation on July 1, returning home on July 10.
July 11, 1972 On the morning of July 11, 1972 Della Penna assisted her mother with several household chores; that afternoon, she composed several songs upon the family organ before visiting a local store to purchase cigarettes. Shortly after returning home, she spoke with several friends on the telephone before making plans to meet two friends named Carol Nichols and Betty Nicastro that evening.
Abduction At approximately 8 p.m. on July 11, Della Penna, Nichols and Nicastro hitchhiked from Tacony to Kensington to visit Nichols's fiance. Shortly after 11 p.m., Della Penna and Nichols left her fiance's home, with both girls intending to take separate trolleybuses to their homes. According to Nichols, her friend exited the Route 5 trolleybus upon which both had been traveling at the corner of Frankford and Torresdale Avenues, where Della Penna expressed mild dismay at having just missed her intended connecting Route 56 trolleybus home and remarking to Nichols she would "have a twenty minute wait" for the next bus. Nichols remained aboard the Route 5 trolleybus.
Della Penna is known to have boarded the next Route 56 trolleybus to arrive at this bus stop at approximately 11:39 p.m. The driver of this trolleybus, Joseph Kilcoyne, would later inform investigators the girl alighted his trolleybus at the corner of Knorr Street—three blocks and approximately one mile from her home—sometime between 11:50 and 11:55 p.m.
According to an eyewitness to her abduction, Della Penna was attacked by a slender, brown-haired white male aged between twenty and twenty-five after she had walked approximately one block from the trolleybus stop. This witness observed Della Penna being beaten, then swiftly dragged "kicking and screaming" into a maroon 1965 or 1969 model Chevrolet parked close to her own home and hastily driven from the scene. The sole evidence recovered at the site of Della Penna's abduction was her maroon jacket, door key, a small cross and a crucifix which had been gifts given to her by friends at her high school graduation.
Initial investigation The circumstances regarding Della Penna's disappearance led police to rapidly determine she had been abducted, and numerous investigators were assigned to the investigation into her abduction. In addition to the eyewitness testimony pertaining to her being beaten and hastily forced into a Chevrolet containing more than one individual, several local residents also informed investigators they had heard a young woman's high-pitched screams emanating from the vicinity of Tulip and Rawle Street—corroborating the actual eyewitness's account of her actual abduction. More than 20,000 circulars describing the abduction vehicle were distributed across Philadelphia in efforts to trace the vehicle and identify Della Penna's abductors in the weeks following her abduction, although this initiative failed to bear fruit.
Subsequent leads garnered would extend inquiries as far afield as New York, although all leads of inquiry ultimately proved fruitless. A substantial reward for her safe return was also offered, to no avail.
Within the first week of investigative inquiries, over 150 individuals within both Philadelphia and New Jersey—in particular within and around the Jersey Shore district—were questioned with regards to Della Penna's disappearance. Several are known to have failed polygraph tests, and these individuals were typically involved in the usage or trafficking of narcotics, leading detectives to suspect a conspiracy of silence; however, investigators found no evidence Della Penna had herself used or sold drugs.
Discovery Della Penna's mutilated torso and severed arms were discovered by a man walking his dog through a wooded area close to Oakwood Avenue in Jackson Township, New Jersey on July 22, 1972; her legs were found beside a dirt road in adjacent Manchester Township, New Jersey seven days later. Both body recovery locations were close to Route 571 and were separated by a distance of approximately . Her body was formally identified on July 24 via X-ray records of her spinal column taken while a patient within Nazareth Hospital in 1970.
An autopsy was unable to determine the cause of death nor whether Della Penna had been sexually assaulted, although the coroner did note that she had been extensively beaten prior to her death and that the dismemberment of her body had been conducted in a methodical manner with a sharp instrument, as opposed to in a hacking manner, indicating that the dismemberment had occurred after death. The degree of precision with which the mutilation and disembowelment had been inflicted indicated that the individual responsible likely possessed an advanced degree of anatomical knowledge. Furthermore, her fingertips had also been severed from her hands after death in an evident effort to prevent identification. Despite numerous searches of locations such as lakes, woodland, and the Toms River, Della Penna's head has never been recovered.
Funeral Dolores Della Penna was laid to rest on the morning of August 4, 1972. Her interment followed a 9:30 a.m. concelebrated Mass held at the Galzerano Funeral Home and Our Lady of Consolation Church in accordance with her Roman Catholic faith. She was laid to rest within Resurrection Cemetery in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Further investigations The disappearance of Della Penna and the subsequent discovery of her dismembered body generated intense press and public interest. Following the discovery of her remains, the Philadelphia Police Department, the New Jersey State Police and the FBI launched an intense, coordinated manhunt to apprehend the individual or individuals responsible. Over 1,500 individuals would be questioned in the two months following the discovery of her body alone, with inquiries ultimately expanding nationwide and as far afield as Scotland. Investigators would gradually accrue over sixteen separate boxes of documentation pertaining to the investigation; however, all lines of inquiry failed to yield results.
On what would have been Della Penna's eighteenth birthday, the Philadelphia Daily News increased a previously offered reward of $4,000 to $10,000 for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of her murderer or murderers, with the periodical assuring the public they could remain anonymous in submitting any information should they wish. This appeal and reward offer generated several public tips, although none resulted in the apprehension of her murderers.
Despite intense investigative efforts, Della Penna's murder gradually became a cold case, although the case remained open—receiving periodic reviews in the following decades.
Later developments In June 1990, a 34-year-old prison inmate testified before a grand jury convened to rule upon testimony pertaining to several known local drug dealers' potential involvement in Della Penna's abduction and murder that he had actually witnessed the events following her abduction and preceding her actual murder. The inmate himself had been 16 years old and a minor participant in logistical street-level operations relating to drug dealing within Philadelphia at the time he claimed to have delivered a package of drugs to a Kensington garage where he testified to having witnessed Della Penna—with both "tears and blood" streaming down her face—tied to an old car seat with her hands bound behind her back.
According to the inmate's testimony, Della Penna had been falsely accused by two of her three Wildwood Crest roommates of stealing a caché of drugs worth $200 (the equivalent of about $1,550 ) and that the motive for her murder had been revenge. He had briefly witnessed four assailants surrounding her after she had received an evident beating, with one of the assailants also yelling "Bitch! You're going to pay!" before striking her upper arm with a machete before the witness himself left the scene. Furthermore, this individual emphasized the participants in the murder later learned Della Penna had not actually stolen the drugs. He further testified he had never informed police of his knowledge of Della Penna's torture and murder due to fears for his own safety but that as he was now an inmate at Graterford Prison, he no longer feared potential repercussions from the perpetrators.