Bones found in home once owned by missing girl's family

CHELMSFORD, Mass. (WHDH) -- Thirty years after Judith Chartier went missing the house once owned by her family is a crime scene.

Sources told 7News on Thursday that they found bones in the basement of a home on Gorham Street in Chelmsford. The bones will be tested before police can say if they are human or animal.

For two days neighbors have watched investigators go in and out of the house.

“[Thursday] afternoon when I got home from work I did see the yellow tape around the yard. I didn’t know what was going on,” said Joanne Graziano, a neighbor.

The Middlesex District Attorney’s office and Chelmsford police are investigating. Neither will confirm if the case could be related to the teenager who disappeared in June 1982.

“She disappeared a long time ago and they never found anything, any trace of her, so it’s scary and sad story,” said Michael Demerdjian, a neighbor.

Chartier was 17 years old when she went to a party in Billerica and never came home. At the time her family lived in a different house on Gorham Street. Her parents later bought and eventually sold the house police are searching.

Sources said testing the bones found in the basement could take from a couple days to a few weeks.