On the 30th anniversary of her mysterious death, police have revealed that two Princeton students are suspected of killing Emily 'Cissy' Stuart and locking her body in the cellar of her home.

The 74-year-old was found dead on April 2, 1989, face down and clutching her eyeglasses behind a padlocked basement door, having suffered five stab wounds to her back.

Living down the road from the Ivy League university, Stuart was considered to be a well-known figure among the local community, co-founding the local Town Topics Newspaper with her husband Don, where her son, Jeb, worked as the editor.

Police say she had been attending to her garden on that fateful afternoon, and believed she was attacked in the doorway of the cellar, having likely gone in to fetch more tools or fertilizer.

No traces of DNA or fingerprints were left behind at the scene, and no items were taken from the home.

But contrary to popular belief, authorities have revealed the case has never actually been cold.

Emily 'Cissy' Stuart, 74, was found dead on April 2, 1989, face down and clutching her eyeglasses behind a padlocked basement door, having suffered five stab wounds to her back

Cissy's body was discovered by her sister at the Stuart family home on Mercer Street

Princeton Police Chief Nick Sutter (pictured center) has revealed that two former Princeton students are long-suspect of carrying out the killing

For years, investigators have long-suspected two men of carrying out Stuart’s murder. Both of the men, who were teenagers at the time, were students at Princeton University.

One thing that’s continued to baffle police for three-decades though is a motive for the crime, according to NJ.com.

Princeton Police haven’t yet responded to a DailyMail.com request to identify the suspects.

But momentum behind the investigation is thought to be picking up again, as Princeton Police Chief Nick Sutter has recently assigned Detective Bill Kieffer to oversee the case.

Sutter said he hopes Kieffer, who was just a child at the time of the murder, will help to bring new perspective to the thirty-year-old investigation.

‘This case has never been cold,’ Sutter told NJ.com. ‘And it’s brought us to a point where we have a lot of confidence to our hypothesis as to what occurred,’ he said, declining to elaborate further.

Writing the story of his mother’s death in the paper, Jeb Stuart theorized a number of possible profiles of her killer, writing: ‘Was it someone she knew? Was it a drug addict looking for quick money? Was it a psychopath, killing for the thrill of it or with some imaginary score to settle?’

The lack of concrete evidence at the scene has subjected Princeton PD’s probe to several different investigative phases.

Shortly after Stuart’s sister discovered her lifeless, bloody body, police identified 22-year-old Haitian immigrant Gerald Geffrard, who had just been charged with a similar stabbing in an adjacent town, as a possible culprit.

The working-class Geffrard family were said to be embroiled in a long-running fued with the wealthy Stuarts, however no charges were brought against Gerald and he later died in prison, in 2004.

In 2006, Police said the state of the crime scene implied the murder wasn’t random and the killer appeared to have a detailed knowledge of the property – and therefore likely had regular access to it.

The basement where Stuart was found was padlocked, and the door at the top of the basement stairs was locked from the kitchen side with an old skeleton key.

No weapons were found at the scene either, and Stuart’s gardening tools were all found nearly aligned, proving that they hadn’t been used to stab her.

Living down the road from Ivy League university, Princeton (above), Stuart was considered to be a well-known figure among the local community

‘This case has never been cold,’ said Chief Sutter (center), and momentum behind the investigation appears to be picking up again

For years, the Stuart family offered large rewards for any information that would help capture Cissy’s killer, which rose to $50,000 before the money was returned by the police department in the 1990s.

Soon after their mother’s death, Jeb and his brother Charles, were revealed to be beneficiaries to the family’s $600,000 home, as well as an undisclosed amount of money.

Cissy's son Charles (pictured) released a documentary title 'My Mother's Killer' in 1992. He dismissed local speculation that he and his brother killer their mother to inherit her fortunes as 'idle town gossip'

Locals accused the brothers of the killing, which Charles later dismissed as ‘idle town gossip’, before releasing a documentary about his mother’s death in 2002.

‘It is horrible, but I understand the motivation. So I accept it even though I may not like it. It drove me crazy that the press was feeding off this and the town was gossiping and there was a possibility that at the end no one really cared,’ the award winning filmmaker said in an interview.

In 2003, Anthony Federico, who was the first officer on the scene in 1989, was assigned as the case’s lead investigator, who was said to be determined the capture the culprit himself.

However, after his sudden death in 2009, the case was assigned to Sutton, who says he share’s Federico’s enthusiasm to bring justice to Stuart, insisting it remains a priority for his police department.

The sentiment was echoed by Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri, who said his office is also prioritizing the case’s resolution.

‘I believe that someone is out there with the lead or piece of information law enforcement needs to advance the case to a successful conclusion,’ he said.