On a snowy December day 75 years ago, 19-year-old Anthony Rezykowski set out to trap the muskrats he had spotted in Keelersburg Creek in Wyoming County.

But as he carefully walked along a small bridge spanning the creek, he spotted something strange in the icy water. He shouted to a friend, 19-year-old Stanley Shalkoski, and ventured closer, using a stick to poke at the partly-submerged burlap bag clumsily reinforced with thread. Inside was the mutilated, naked body of a young woman. She had been badly beaten, possibly with a rock. Bruises made by someone's fingers ringed her neck.

The woman was soon identified as Margaret Martin, 19, a Kingston resident and graduate of Wilkes-Barre Business College. Her parents had reported her missing on Dec. 17, 1938, after she did not return home from a job interview.

Rezykowski found her four days later. No one was ever charged with her murder.

Doctors who conducted her autopsy said Martin was strangled to death. Her murder took place more than four decades before DNA evidence was ever used in criminal cases. Despite dozens of troopers and other law enforcement officers combing the area near where the body was found, there were few clues to help investigators find the killer. Her clothes and a class ring she was wearing when she left her home were nowhere to be found. Investigators discovered no tire tracks near the site where her body was found. Police were immediately assigned to track down the origin of the burlap bag and the rope in the hope that some slim clues might come to light; it turned out that either could have been purchased anywhere in the country.

Plainclothes police officers even attended her Christmas Eve funeral, in the hope that they would spot someone suspicious among the attendees.

In the days after Martin's body was found, police found burned cloth in the steam boiler of an abandoned sawmill near Forkston. The cloth matched the clothes Miss Martin was wearing when she left home.

Other people came forward, saying they may have seen Martin getting into a man's car. They provided only vague descriptions and no license plate numbers.

Nearly 14 years after Martin's murder, 28-year-old Orban Taylor confessed to the murder. His story fell apart after 20 hours of investigation in September 1952 and he was never charged.

That fake confession appears to be the closest police ever came in making an arrest in the case. And 75 years later, it seems unlikely we will ever know who murdered Martin.

ERIN L. NISSLEY, assistant metro editor at The Times-Tribune, may be reached at localhistory@timesshamrock.com.