EAST BRUNSWICK - On the morning of July 1, 1975, 16-year-old Betty Jean Belt went for a bicycle ride on rural Cranbury Road, where she lived, and never returned home.

Three weeks later on the evening of July 21, the decomposed body of the 5-foot-5-inch tall girl with brown hair and eyes was found in dense undergrowth in the woods by a stream near the Helmetta border.

The East Brunswick High School junior was identified through dental records.

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Her father, Robert Belt, had told police his daughter was last seen wearing blue jeans and a short sleeve pullover blue shirt. He had passed her on her bicycle as he drove home for lunch.

"A pair of blue jeans were around the girl's ankles when the body was retrieved from the ditch and a similar blue shirt was found nearby. The body was clothed in panties and a bra when found," according to a July 23, 1975, Home News report.

Her bicycle, shoes and wallet had been recovered the afternoon she disappeared off Old Stage Road, nearly two miles from where her body was found. Belt is believed to have died of injuries suffered during an assault by an unknown person. She suffered skull and jaw fractures, with at least one skull fracture inflicted before her death, according to a Home News report.

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Nearly 44 years later, no one has been arrested and charged in connection with Belt's death.

“Although this crime took place almost 44 years ago, it is still an active investigation. The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office is working diligently to find closure for this family," said Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey. "We hope someone will come forward to provide information which will lead to the identification and apprehension of the person who took this young life.”

What happened to Betty Jean Belt?

Through the years, there have been several theories about what happened to Belt. One suggests she disappeared after going to a picnic at the Milltown Fire Station and leaving with someone.

There were also rumors she ran away from home. There was speculation her death was related to cult activity. A close friend said Belt went to summer school and was on her way on her blue three-speed Plymouth Touring bicycle to her friend's house, but never made it.

"There is no way Betty would have gotten in a car with a stranger. She wasn't the kind of girl that would hitchhike. She wouldn't do that. She was not the kind of kid that would run away. Someone would have had to forcibly take her," said former East Brunswick resident Diana Lenz, who met Belt through her older sister, Patricia, who she graduated with in 1975.

She said Belt was very straight and narrow.

"There is no way she went with anyone willingly, especially leaving her shoes and her purse, no. Where is a teenage girl going without her shoes and her purse? We knew right then that something was very, very wrong," said Lenz, now of Missouri, who was the only friend to attend Belt's August 1975 funeral in Maryland, where Belt's grandparents lived.

Lenz said Belt was a pretty good student who had hopes and aspirations.

"She was starting to get interested in boys and all the normal stuff," Lenz said. "Betty sort of had it together pretty well. She was a pretty normal kid. She was a big fan of Elvis Presley. Pat was a Tom Jones fan, and I was an Engelbert Humperdinck fan. The three of us would sit around and argue about it," said Lenz, who had hung out with Belt, Belt's best friend and Pat at Mid-State Mall on Route 18 the week before Belt disappeared.

Lenz said she doesn't remember why Belt was in summer school that year. Belt had ridden to summer school that morning, came back home and was heading back out on her bicycle in the direction of the high school when her father passed her on the road.

She was never seen again. Belt's father found the door unlocked and glass of juice on the table when he got home, she said.

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The area of East Brunswick where Belt lived, at 664 Cranbury Road near the fairgrounds and across from what is now the Park Chateau Estate and Garden at 678 Cranbury Road, was a much different community back then, much more rural with woods. While there were few kids who lived in the area, for those that did live nearby it was common to find them in the woods.

Donna Hadland Grover of Jamesburg who was friends with Belt and Belt's high school best friend, said the kids at that time used to walk everywhere and never thought much about it. She said they would usually walk in groups of at least two.

"I don't think Betty was walking through the woods at the time. Riding her bike yeah, but there was nothing down there," Grover said.

Karen Timper of East Brunswick, a classmate with Belt, said the back of the house where Belt lived was near the woods that lead out to Old Stage Road near Helmetta Boulevard.

"There were a lot of back woods people that lived in that area of Helmetta Boulevard on the Helmetta side. I thought maybe someone tried to cover it up that they hit her," she said.

Timper remembers police coming to the homes of all Belt's friends to ask questions and try to determine who was the last to speak with her.

"It's the year before our senior year and we're terrified having a police officer come to the house and asking questions. We were scared, we didn't know if the person was still out there," Timper said.

Barbara Robba Dipierro of Monroe, who grew up in East Brunswick near the fairgrounds, said she learned about Belt's story four years ago through her middle school's Facebook group. She said, ironically, something similar had happened to her the summer of 1975 when she was 8 years old.

"I would go out first thing in the morning and ride my bike up and down the street," she said.

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Dipierro said she was riding her bicycle down the street when a man tried to drive her off the road. He pulled over to talk to her.

"He wanted me to go with him some place. He said he wanted to take naked pictures of me. It scared me," said Dipierro, adding she can still picture the man in her mind as in his late 30s or early 40s with a build smaller than her father's and driving a small car filled with boxes of feminine hygiene pads.

"I did get away from him. It did freak me out," she said, adding the man could have grabbed her.

Dipierro said she has no idea if the man she encountered also was involved in Belt's death..

"That area is desolate. It was very rural, all farmland," she said, adding there were not many homes on the street. She said the encounter has made her cautious her entire life. Now with children and grandchildren, Dipierro said she always told them they can't go anywhere by themselves.

A babysitter and friend

Belt is still remembered by many who knew her as a teen.

For Hali Figueroa of East Brunswick, Belt was a neighbor and babysitter. The Belt family rented the house next to Figueroa's from her father, who bought it from her grandfather. Figueroa was about 10 years old when the Belt family lived next door.

"Where we lived was very rural. It was not common to have neighbors. It was exciting to have someone to walk over to and do something," she said.

Figueroa's father, Leonard Marotta, said the Cape Cod house where the Belt family lived had two bedrooms, a small kitchen, bathroom, living room, full basement and a one-car garage. He said the family was renting the house when he brought it from his father-in-law and he continued to let them stay. He thinks the family had been renting the home for about three or four years.

"They stayed pretty much to themselves," said Marotta, adding he never really saw much of the wife or the children. He said the father worked for H&H gas on Church Lane delivering natural gas.

Marotta said back then the area was pretty much all farmland. He formerly ran the Weigelia Gardens center started by his father-in-law in the late 1940s and named after a flowering shrub. He closed the business about 10 years ago.

He said there was not much newspaper coverage of the Belt case that he recalls.

"It was just something that happened," he said, adding he believes the father at one point was considered a person of interest.

"It was very weird 10 years ago, or there about, a police officer called me," said Marotta, adding he did not recall what department the officer worked for. "They wanted to know if I knew where the family disappeared to because they had some new information about her or they wanted to ask some questions. I told them I didn't know and that's the last I heard about it."

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"They never figured out what happened to her," said Marotta, adding he believes only bones, and not her body, was found in the Helmetta swamp. The Belt's former home was torn down in August 2018 after Marotta sold the property.

"She babysat my brother and I, and we used to ride bikes with her. We'd go around the Cranbury Road block. We used to ride our bikes everywhere," Figueroa said. "We enjoyed her company. She was kind to me."

Figueroa remembers Belt as having wavy auburn hair that fell just below her shoulders.

Ironically the summer Belt disappeared Figueroa had been sent to visit an aunt in upstate New York because her grandfather had a dream that something would happen to her while she was riding her bicycle.

"I still remember the look of shock on my aunt's face, my grandfather had predicted it," she said. "I could have been with her."

When she returned home, Figueroa remembers her parents being questioned about the Belt family who were quiet and paid their rent on time. She said the Belt family moved away a short time later.

Remembered at reunions

Donna Hadland Grover said she use to hang out with Belt and Belt's best friend, a girl named Rhonda. She said it's strange that no one ever found out what happened to Belt, especially since she went missing in the middle of the day.

"Nobody knows, no one has any idea. I don't know how somebody could have grabbed her," said Grover, who has kept some of the newspaper clippings from Belt's disappearance.

She and classmates talked about Belt during the 40th reunion for the East Brunswick High School Class of 1976. It was at the reunion when she also learned Rhonda also had died.

"I wish they would find something out. That would be fabulous to find out whatever happened to her," Grover said.

"The loss of Betty rattled everybody. Nobody who has their life touched by something like that is ever the same. Whether you think you are okay, or not, you're not," said Lenz, adding both she and Belt's sister Pat were pretty quiet about Belt's disappearance and death.

"I think it was just kind of disbelief for all of us. And we were also a little scared because we also had ridden bikes and walked around the same area. So, at first you're sad and horrified and then you think, ‘Oh God, it could have been me,’ and then you feel guilty for thinking that," Lenz said.

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Lenz said the Belt family moved to South River a few years after Betty's death. The parents have since died and Pat relocated to North Carolina. Lenz said she lost touch with Belt's sister over the years.

But Belt's disappearance and death still weighs on her mind.

"I went away to college that September and I was just really glad to be away. I kind of cut all ties with the area and I didn't realize then that the reason I was cutting ties with the area was because of that. It was all kind of buried under the surface. I never rode down Cranbury Road again. To this day when I come back home to visit, I won't go over there. It gives me the creeps," Lenz said.

How you can help

Anyone with information about the case can submit it anonymously by calling 1-800-939-9600 or submit it online at www.middlesextips.com. Tips also may be sent by text messaging 274637 (CRIMES) with the keyword: “midtip” followed by the tip information.

Suzanne Russell covers crime, courts and other forms of mayhem from throughout the Central Jersey area for the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey. Contact her at srussell@gannettnj.com.