Shana Renee Price of Springfield might soon be turning 52, had she not been murdered before her life really began.
Instead, the Springfield native is forever the smiling 17-year-old who lived with her grandmother on Dartmouth Street, prayed at the Christian Hill Baptist Church, hung out at the Carew Street Boys and Girls Club and cared for her 1-year-old son, Mark Joseph.
Price’s memory lives on with her family – and in the offices of the Hampden District Attorney. Staffers with the Unresolved and Unidentified Case Investigation Unit continue to pursue justice in her name, 35 years after she was found strangled to death in Blunt Park.
This Sunday, the DA’s team will staff a booth at a holiday event at the MassMutual Center, hoping to catch a break in the Price case through the donation of DNA samples.
People attending the Springfield United Toy Drive & Holiday Celebration will be invited to contribute samples taken from cheek swabs. The material collected will be analyzed and added to a database used in a process known as forensic investigative genetic genealogy. The goal is to identify even distant relatives of the person who killed Price more than three decades ago, then find connections to DNA evidence of the unknown suspect already in hand.
“It’s a huge part of finding success in these cases,” Anthony D. Gulluni, the district attorney, said in an interview this week at his Tower Square offices.
Second attempt
Sunday’s collection, from 2 to 5 p.m., will be the second time this year Gulluni’s office has held a community event seeking to build the database.
People who provide DNA samples will receive, in exchange, reports on their own genetic ancestry and extended family tree, the DA’s office says. Gulluni said he hopes the collection adds several dozen new samples to the database.
Three years ago this month, the office released a sketch of a potential suspect in the Price case. The image was created through phenotyping, which uses genetic material to model possible physical traits and facial features. Gulluni said that the image, which showed a light-skinned man of Caribbean, Dominican or African American descent, produced some tips.
The same DNA evidence used to create that image had been uploaded in 2003 to international databases. To date, that step has not yielded a suspect.
“That technology is going to find its way into investigations much more, going forward,” Gulluni said. “It’s a fascinating process.”
When the sketch was released, one of Price’s three sisters, Laquana, flew in from her home in Las Vegas to represent the family. Price’s son, Mark, also attended, as well as an uncle. “I’m glad my sister’s case has come to the forefront and that there is some traction,” Laquana Price said at the time. “It has been almost 32 years of struggle, no closure, wondering … looking over our shoulders and hoping that we get some answers.”
In the Oak Grove Cemetery, Shana Price’s stone carries the inscription “BELOVED DAUGHTER, SISTER & MOTHER.”
After Price’s murder, one clue surfaced, but failed to provide anything to go on. About a month before she was killed, Price had been taken by an officer to the Ludlow Police Department after she said she’d jumped from the car of a man she said had threatened to kill her. Price was able to provide only vague descriptions of both the driver and the car.
A Ludlow officer relayed that information to Springfield police after seeing a photo of Price on a local TV broadcast about her murder – and recognizing her as the teen who reported the threat.
DNA collection
Thomas Sullivan, a state police trooper assigned to the detective unit at the DA’s office, works full time with the unresolved cases unit, along with two assistant district attorneys and a victim witness advocate.
“It’s important for a family to have a contact person who’s consistent,” Gulluni said of unresolved cases. “It’s a positive thing for the community to know that we’re working on these cases and don’t forget about victims and their families.”
Anyone with information on the Price case is asked to contact the Springfield Police Detective Bureau at 413-787-6355 or use Text-A-Tip by texting 274637, typing SOLVE and then entering the tip.
