Article content

Authorities in Alabama were stumped by skeletal remains they could not identify.

In New Orleans, just two hours west down Interstate 10, law enforcement had an unsolved missing person’s case.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Husband-wife serial killers may be link between two 40-year-old mysteries, police say Back to video

Although only 120 or so miles separated the two investigations, it would take more than 40 years for the right links fall into place, likely looping together the bones in Alabama and vanished New Orleans housewife Mary Ann Perez.

Due to persistence and a few lucky breaks, investigators now believe they can tie the March 1976 disappearance of Perez to a husband-and-wife serial killing couple who stalked women across the south in the 1970s, News 5 reported.

“It was actually a miracle,” Mobile County Sheriff’s Office Detective J.T. Thornton recently told the station.

On March 26, 1976, Perez went out with friends at a local bar outside of New Orleans. According to an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries,” the housewife left her teenage daughter Donna at home to watch her younger children.