Who was Forrest Clyde Williams, suspect identified in murder of Pamela Conyers, Glen Burnie High School student, in 1970?

Forrest Clyde Williams has been identified as the suspect in the murder of Pamela Conyers, Glen Burnie High School student, in 1970.

After 52 years, law enforcement officers with the help of FBI investigators isolated the suspect using investigative genetic genealogy, which is the practice of compiling DNA evidence, creating matches and generating a family tree. Conyers, who was 16 years old and a student at the Glen Burnie High School, was strangled after her trip to the Harundale Mall  in October, 1970.

Who was Forrest Clyde Williams?

Police said that Williams moved to Pasadena as a teenager. He attended the Northeast High School. Officers also presented a mugshot of him from his time in Anne Arundel County.

Authorities said that he had been arrested before for “nothing big,” infractions like acting drunk and disorderly. He worked as a carpenter and returned to Virginia when he then lived.

Williams died in Salem, Virginia, in 2018. He did not have a criminal record then. Police said if Williams was alive, he would have been charged with Conyers’ murder.

On October 16 after attending her high school homecoming bonfire, Conyers went to the Harundale Mall. She did not return. Officers found her car three days later in a wooded area near Route 100 and Mountain Road. Her body was then found.

The case was unsolved since.

Lt. Jacklyn Davis said that although detectives believe Williams is responsible, they have not ruled out the possibility of additional suspects.

“To the family of Pamela we hope that today’s announcement brings at least some degree of comfort and peace in finally learning who was responsible for her murder,” Anne Arundel County Police Chief Amal E. Awad said.