Disappearance Of Stamford Mom Turns Into Murder Investigation Decades Later

STAMFORD, Conn. (CBSNewYork) -- A cold case is heating up 22 years after a young mother vanished in Fairfield County.

The baffling missing person case is now a murder investigation. The victim's sister, Geraldine Joseph, has tried to catch a glimpse of the life her sister never had by thumbing through the family album.

Marie Joseph was the eldest and the woman who vanished more than two decades ago from Stamford, leaving behind the two babies she had with an older boyfriend, Andre Lubin, who said she ran away.

"He said she left and she's never coming back," Geraldine Joseph told CBS 2's Lou Young.

Marie Joseph, though, was officially carried as a missing person until last year. It turns out her remains had been discovered years ago and stashed in an evidence locker.

What authorities found couldn't be called a body. It was a piece of skull and a few pieces of vertebrae dragged out of the woods by wild animals. In 1990, they didn't have the technology to match them to Marie Joseph.

The remains remained unidentified until the link was finally made 20 years later.

Detective Wayne Macuirzynski got DNA from Marie's family and matched it to the bones. Then he opened a murder investigation. Suddenly, all the stories Andre Lubin told Marie's now-grown daughters rang especially hollow.

"She was in a car accident. She ran off. She never wanted to be with you guys," Geraldine Joseph said, describing what Lubin allegedly said.

But Marie Joseph wouldn't go away.

A records check indicated the place where the previously unidentified remains were found was where Lubin used to work.

"Maybe she was somewhere upstairs. She was able to have some of her remains brought alongside the building where her common-law husband worked at," Det. Macuirzynski said.

"She's definitely pointing out at him from beyond the grave," Geraldine Joseph said.

For his part, Lubin wouldn't speak to CBS 2 from his home in Bridgeport or from his relatives' home in Stamford. The police and Geraldine Joseph believe the family knows more than they're saying.

Lubin is officially listed "a person of interest" in Marie Joseph's killing.