New Castle County police say they have identified human remains found in a Wilmington park in 2011 as those of Hannah Graham Kleitz, a 29-year-old woman who died of a medical illness in 1907 and whose Riverview Cemetery mausoleum was desecrated in 2002, according to a New Castle County Police Department news release.
On June 5, 2011, officers responded to a wooded area of Sellers Park off Edgemoor Road after a skull and other partial remains were discovered. Forensic anthropologists estimated the remains belonged to a white woman between 25 and 50 years old. Investigators entered the case in NamUs and uploaded a DNA profile to CODIS but could not identify her at the time, police said.
The Cold Case Squad revisited the investigation in 2019. Detectives later obtained a three-dimensional scan of the skull and worked with George Mason University forensic art professor Joe Mullins on a facial reconstruction. The case was pursued with Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy, with research led by Montgomery County, Maryland, police Detective Steve Smugeresky, according to NCCPD.
In January 2026, investigators were notified of a potential familial match. A relative told police about a 2002 Riverview Cemetery mausoleum desecration in which remains similar to those found at Sellers Park had been removed. With family support, an exhumation and DNA comparison positively identified Kleitz, police said.
On Aug. 27, 2026, Kleitz’s extended family, New Castle County police, forensic investigators from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and others returned her remains to the mausoleum. Mealey’s Funeral Home and Masonry and Concrete Inc., which assisted with a 2002 reinterment, again helped voluntarily, the release said.
Fox 29 Philadelphia also reported on the announcement. Sources: New Castle County Police Department; Fox 29 Philadelphia.
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