More than five decades after a child’s body was found in a Virginia creek, authorities in Fairfax County said they have identified the remains as a 4-year-old boy from Philadelphia who was murdered and left in the water under a bridge.
Fairfax County detectives identified the boy Monday as Carl Matthew Bryant. The breakthrough in the cold case was credited to DNA extracted from hair clippings collected during an autopsy in 1972. Investigators now suspect both Bryant and his 6-month old brother were killed and discarded in separate locations — possibly by their mother and her boyfriend — as the couple traveled from Philadelphia to Virginia.
“It’s a testimony to the perseverance of the profession, the detectives and the world of science that now has a stronger role than ever before with these complex types of investigations,” Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said at a press conference Monday.
On June 13, 1972, remains were spotted by a child riding a bicycle along Massey Creek in Lorton — about 165 miles south of Philadelphia.
The body was found naked and there was no other evidence at the scene to help identify the boy. The autopsy determined he had died of blunt force trauma. There were no reports of missing children that lined up with the case at the time, and a local church group buried the boy under a different name at Coleman Cemetery in Alexandria.
For years, investigators hit dead ends searching for leads. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released a sketch of the boy in 2003. They received more tips than any other missing persons case in Virginia’s history, authorities said, but the information never provided a clear direction. The FBI was able to extract DNA from the boy’s hair in 2004 but could not find any matches at the time.
Fairfax County detectives reopened the investigation in 2021, hoping that advances in genetic genealogy could track down relatives. The profiling method has become a hallmark of cold case investigations over the last decade by allowing for more comprehensive analysis of DNA samples.
Authorities in Fairfax County contacted California-based Astrea Forensics and Virginia-based Innovative Forensic Investigations to see whether they could use hair samples to move the case forward.
“It was literally little specks — like razor stubble,” Fairfax County police detective Melissa Wallace said. “The lab … in California said normally they require at least 2 centimeters of hair to do testing. I said, ‘Well, I don’t know if I even have 2 millimeters.'”
Astrea Forensics managed to sequence Bryant’s DNA and develop a family tree that led to his mother, Vera Bryant, who had lived in Philadelphia in 1972. She died in 1980, but investigators were able to exhume her body to collect DNA and make a definitive match with her son.
At the time of Carl’s death, Vera Bryant was in a relationship with a man named James Hedgepath. Investigators learned that Hedgepath had previously been convicted of homicide in 1962 and spent time in prison before he was released and met Vera Bryant. Hedgepath was not Carl’s father or the father of Vera’s other son, James, who also went missing in 1972. His body has never been recovered.
Detectives believe Vera Bryant and Hedgepath traveled together from Philadelphia to stay with his family in Middlesex County the day Carl’s body was found in the creek. Both Carl and James likely were killed before or during the trip, investigators said. When the couple met with Hedgepath’s family, they did not have children with them. And at a later point, when Vera Bryant traveled back to Philadelphia to see her family, she claimed that her two boys were in Virginia with Hedgepath’s family, authorities said.
Hedgepath has since died, but investigators hope Carl’s identification will help track down more information about him and possibly lead to the discovery of James’ remains. The two boys had different fathers.
“We suspect that there are folks out there that know a little bit more about (Hedgepath),” Davis said. “1972 was a long time ago … but people have a funny way of remembering details.”
Philadelphia police assisted with the cold case investigation but could not immediately be reached for comment about Bryant’s identification.
The grave site where Bryant was buried was damaged several years ago by a storm, police said. Authorities and family members are hoping to restore his grave with his real name or potentially place a bench in the cemetery in his memory.
“He can have his name, we can get him his name back on his gravestone and the family can have some semblance of closure or resolution,” Wallace said.
The homicide investigation into Carl’s death is ongoing. Authorities said anyone with information can contact the Fairfax County Police Department’s Major Crimes Bureau at 703-246-7800 and select option No. 2 to provide tips.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
