LIGHTHOUSE POINT, Fla. – Police on Thursday were searching a Lighthouse Point property where a woman who has been missing since 1982 may be buried.
"We're working a cold case," Lighthouse Point police Chief Ross Licata told Local 10 News. "It's a missing-persons case involving a 63-year-old woman who was reported missing in April of 1982."
Police said wife and mother Mary Dussich disappeared 34 years ago. Eight months after her disappearance, police received an anonymous tip that she was buried on the property of a home that was under construction.
"During that eight-month period and subsequent to that, the house was completed on the property next door," Licata said. "So now that the property has been demolished, we're checking the property."
John Spadavecchia said he smelled a foul odor from the lot next to his, but police dismiss that claim, saying that if a body were buried there, it's had 34 years to decompose.
Licata said Broward Sheriff's Office and Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office crime scene technicians were helping in the search.
"Their crime scene units are on site with some ground-penetrating equipment to determine if there's any voids or anything suspicious underground," Licata said.
Police said Dussich's husband was a person of interest in her disappearance, but he was uncooperative and has since died.
So far, no remains have been found.