Woman found dead after missing family trip in 2013. Arrest now made, NJ officials say
A woman wasn’t answering her phone after she missed a trip with family and friends in 2013.
When police officers visited her for a welfare check, they found her car parked outside her apartment and saw her keys inside — but she wasn’t there on June 21, 2013 in Gloucester Township, New Jersey, according to law enforcement officials.
A few days after Carol Reiff, 59, was reported missing, her body was found in the woods behind the Lakeview Apartment Complex’s old maintenance building on June 24, 2013, authorities said. Not long after an initial investigation, the case went cold.
Now, one of the first people detectives interviewed after officers found Reiff’s body is accused of killing her — due to advancements in DNA technology, according to the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office.
Joseph Grisoff, 59, of Mount Laurel, is charged with first-degree murder in Reiff’s death, the office announced in a May 10 news release.
In June 2013, Grisoff was employed as a maintenance worker and lived near Reiff, according to the prosecutor’s office.
During the initial interview with detectives a decade ago, Grisoff said he had seen Reiff around the apartment complex and complimented her before, the prosecutor’s office said.
He maintained he had never stepped inside her apartment — but that was a lie, according to prosecutors.
After Reiff’s body was found, her pants and an empty beer bottle inside her apartment were tested for DNA but no leads turned up, the prosecutor’s office said.
The pants and beer bottle have since been retested. As a result, Grisoff’s DNA has been linked to those DNA traces left behind at the scene, according to the release.
“For the last decade, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office and Gloucester Township Police Department have remained focused on getting justice for the Reiff family,” said Camden County Prosecutor Grace C. MacAulay said in a statement. “I’m thankful to the detectives and assistant prosecutors who remained dedicated to this case and to holding the person responsible who unjustly took Ms. Reiff from her loved ones.”
Grisoff awaits a detention hearing while in the Camden County Correctional Facility.
Gloucester Township, New Jersey, is about 15 miles southeast of Philadelphia.
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