Old Forge Road boat landing

Old Forge Road boat landing is an unused, partly submerged waterside site where a fisherman found a green Subaru containing bloodied clothing and sneakers. The discovery connected the landing to the search for Frank Peterson’s killer and made the neglected location an important point in the investigation.

Setting and Approach

A fisherman knew the area as a place to catch catfish near Iron Bridge, off Old Forge Road. He went there shortly after sunrise intending to fish, but did not wet a line. His account places the landing at the end of the bridge, down a small spur road away from the highway.

The land around the landing had been bought several years earlier and enclosed with a wire fence bearing no-trespassing signs. No building had been put up; the unused acres had become overgrown, and the landing itself was half underwater. The fisherman normally parked his truck beside the fence, a familiar routine that brought him to the site on the morning of the discovery.

Discovery of the Subaru

That morning, the fence had been knocked down and a small green Subaru stood at the edge of the sunken landing, its front tires partly sunk in mud and close to the water. The fisherman approached because he thought a driver might have left a nearby bar while drunk and run off the road, perhaps remaining inside the car.

The Subaru was empty. On its passenger seat lay bloodied clothing; bloodied sneakers were on the floor of the passenger-side footwell. News reports had said police were looking for a green Subaru in connection with the murder of a boy, so the fisherman immediately recognized the possible significance of what he had found. He did not touch the car or its contents, explaining that he and his wife had watched forensic-investigation programs and understood the need not to disturb potential evidence.

Evidence and Investigative Significance

A later forensic report identified the vehicle as a 2011 Subaru discovered at an abandoned boat landing near Route 72, also known as Old Forge Road. It recorded substantial O-positive blood on clothing recovered from the vehicle, including a shirt, pants, socks, Adidas sneakers, and Jockey underpants. A small spot of AB-positive blood was found on the shirt’s left cuff, a detail the report treated as potentially relevant because AB-positive blood was comparatively rare.

The site thus yielded more than a suspicious abandoned car: it preserved a collection of bloodied garments that investigators could examine while maintaining a documented chain of evidence. The report noted that no AB-positive blood had been found inside the Subaru as of that examination and offered possibilities, rather than a firm conclusion, for its absence: any minor cuts might have clotted before the car was abandoned or might have been bandaged. The landing’s role in the investigation rests on this contrast between the visible clues left in the vehicle and the limits of what those clues could establish.

Investigative Significance and Evidentiary Limits

The landing’s contribution to the case extended beyond the eyewitness discovery: the clothing recovered from the Subaru became part of a forensic examination whose findings distinguished the blood present on the garments from blood detected elsewhere. The report documented a large quantity of O-positive blood on the recovered shirt, pants, socks, Adidas sneakers, and Jockey underpants, along with a small AB-positive spot on the shirt’s left cuff. It described AB-positive blood as relatively uncommon, occurring in about three percent of the population, and considered the possibility that it belonged to the perpetrator, who might have cut a hand while manipulating the branch used in the crime. That remained a forensic assessment, not a confirmed identification.

The examination also recorded an important absence: no AB-positive blood had been found inside the Subaru at the time of the report. The investigator proposed that minor cuts could have clotted before the car was left, or that they might have been bandaged, while emphasizing the small amount of blood involved. The contrast between the cuff stain and the vehicle’s interior therefore sharpened the investigative question without resolving it. The landing supplied a vehicle and garments for analysis, but the resulting evidence supported possibilities rather than a complete account of who had left them there or how.

An Unresolved Forensic Clue

The landing’s importance lies partly in what the recovered clothing could not establish. The report considered the small AB-positive stain on the shirt cuff potentially significant because that blood type occurs in about three percent of the population, and proposed that it might be the perpetrator’s. It further speculated that the person could have cut a hand while forcefully manipulating the branch used in the crime. Neither the stain’s source nor that proposed explanation was confirmed; investigators were advised to determine suspects’ blood types promptly because AB-positive blood was relatively uncommon.

The report also noted that no AB-positive blood had been found inside the Subaru as of the examination. It offered two possible explanations, not conclusions: any minor cuts might have clotted before the car was abandoned, or they might have been bandaged. With only small amounts at issue, the difference between blood on the cuff and its absence from the vehicle remained an evidentiary limit rather than a solution. The landing preserved clues for examination, but those clues did not by themselves identify who left the car or establish exactly what had happened.

An Unresolved Forensic Clue

The landing’s importance lies partly in what the recovered clothing could not establish. The report considered the small AB-positive stain on the shirt cuff potentially significant because that blood type occurs in about three percent of the population, and proposed that it might be the perpetrator’s. It further speculated that the person could have cut a hand while forcefully manipulating the branch used in the crime. Neither the stain’s source nor that proposed explanation was confirmed; investigators were advised to determine suspects’ blood types promptly because AB-positive blood was relatively uncommon.

The report also noted that no AB-positive blood had been found inside the Subaru as of the examination. It offered two possible explanations, not conclusions: any minor cuts might have clotted before the car was abandoned, or they might have been bandaged. With only small amounts at issue, the difference between blood on the cuff and its absence from the vehicle remained an evidentiary limit rather than a solution. The landing preserved clues for examination, but those clues did not by themselves identify who left the car or establish exactly what had happened.