True Crime Collection

Dana Bradley

Dana Bradley was a 14 year old girl who disappeared in St. John's, Newfoundland on 14th December 1981.

Dana disappeared on the evening of 14th December 1981, while hitchhiking on Topsail Road in St. John's. She had been at a friend's home after school and was on her way home to a family birthday party. When she did not arrive, the family reported her missing to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. An eyewitness reported seeing Dana getting into a car with a male driver.

Dana's body was found in a wooded area on the Maddox Cove Road south of St. John's four days after she disappeared. Her skull had been fractured by a blunt object and she had been sexually assaulted. The body was laid out in "burial fashion" with her schoolbooks tucked under her arm.

The subsequent investigation has been described as "the most expensive and exhaustive murder investigation in Canadian history". Hundreds of people were interviewed; thousands of tips were received and investigated. More than 800 cars were examined in the weeks following Dana's disappearance. The initial task force was composed of 35 full time investigators from the RCMP and the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.

In 1986, David Grant Somerton was charged with Dana's murder after confessing to police. However, he later recanted the confession, alleging that it had been coerced, and the murder charges against him were stayed. David was later convicted of public mischief in relation to the false confession and sentenced to two years imprisonment.

In 2006, the RCMP reported that they were still receiving approximately 50 tips a year in relation to the Dana Bradley murder case.

In May 2016, a privately funded group conducted an excavation of two buried vehicles on private property in the Witless Bay area near St. John's. The group members were supporters of an alleged eyewitness to the murder, who claimed to have been in the car as a child when Dana was abducted. The car allegedly belonged to the father of the eyewitness, who claimed it was being driven by a family friend at the time. This car was later buried as landfill and was one of the two vehicles excavated. The RCMP investigated the eyewitness claims for 16 months before dismissing them; however, the witness and his supporters continued to lobby the RCMP to excavate the vehicles.

Subsequent to the excavation it was determined that no usable evidence was found in either vehicle, due to extensive degradation of the vehicles during the time period in which they were buried, and contamination from sewage runoff and other chemicals.

Also, in May 2016, the RCMP announced that they had uncovered new DNA evidence in the Dana Bradley case. Retesting of a sample recovered in 1981 connected the murder to an unknown male subject. The new DNA evidence was also used to rule out existing suspects, including the man alleged to be the murderer in connection with the private excavation of the two vehicles that month.

Dana's case remains unsolved.