Police say a 23-year-old woman was dumped in the woods of Bridgewater back in 1997. Last week, detectives tracked down her alleged killer, all the way in Canada. News 4’s Jen Maxfield reports.
Decades after a woman was killed and her body was dumped in the woods of New Jersey, a suspect has been extradited from Canada to face murder charges, according to law enforcement.
It was during the afternoon of Nov. 4, 1997, that the body of Tammy Tignor was found near a hiking trail off Gilbride Road in Bridgewater, near Washington Valley Park. The 23-year-old had been strangled and her death was ruled to be a homicide.
It was an ATV rider who had found Tignor's body on the dirt access road that ended in a cul-de-sac, Somerset County Prosecutor John McDonald said. Bridgewater police and Somerset County investigators searched the woods for days, looking for any evidence or clues that could lead them to the killer. But for years, the case remained unsolved.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox.> Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
DNA evidence found on the Newark woman's body provided no answers. Her family, meanwhile, suffered the agony of losing their daughter while knowing the person who killed her was walking free.
"Tammy’s mom called our office every year on November 4, the anniversary of Tammy’s death, looking for an update," said Somerset County Assistant Prosecutor Mike McLaughlin.
Tignor has been dead longer than she was alive.
For years, investigators with the county's major crimes and cold case units, along with town police, continued to look into the mysterious killing.
In Jan. 2023, evidence in the case was allowed to be resubmitted for DNA testing, which the prosecutor's office said may not have been possible in previous years. A few months later, state police got a high stringency match based on on resubmitted evidence for a possible suspect in the case: Robert Creter.
A first-degree murder charge against Creter was authorized in May 2023, the prosecutor's office said, but there was an issue: Creter had since moved to Winnipeg, Canada, in 2002. After the Somerset County prosecutor's office worked with the U.S. Department of State, Creter was taken into custody on June 27, 2024, by Canadian authorities based on the warrant for his arrest in New Jersey,
Just before Thanksgiving, there was a big development in the search for justice for Tignor: On Tuesday, Creter was extradited back to New Jersey and taken into custody in connection to the killing nearly three decades ago.
"It has been 27 years, 9,885 days since her body was found," said McLaughlin. "I spoke with the victim's mother. I told her that we had arrested the man who killed her daughter. It was incredibly emotional. She was very thankful to our detectives today and our detectives at the time."
Prosecutors said it was not a genealogical DNA finding made through a family member, but rather was a case where New Jersey State Police used new DNA testing to run the sample again and compare it to CODIS, a DNA index system, which led to a match for Creter.
"I spoke with the victim’s mother— I told her we arrested the man who killed her daughter, it was very emotional and she was grateful to our detectives today and at the time," said
Creter's first court appearance was scheduled for Wednesday morning in Somerville.
County officials said Monday that there are eight other cold cases they were investigating, and hope the DNA technology will give families of those victims hope that justice is still possible, even decades later.
"The arrest of a suspect in this decades-old case is a testament to the unwavering dedication of law enforcement to seek justice, no matter how much time has passed,” said Colonel Patrick J. Callahan, Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police.
