(NECN: Alysha Palumbo - Milton, MA) - This red jacket found in the woods around this Milton, Massachusetts neighborhood may hold the key to solving a multi-state mystery that has baffled investigators.
Police are trying to determine if it belonged to Delvonte Tisdale - the North Carolina teenager found dead on Brierbrook Street last month.
Milton Police Chief Richard Wells said, "As you know there have been many theories evolving in this case it's been a very active investigation for almost a month now."
Chief Wells says they're now seriously investigating the theory that Tisdale stowed away inside the wheel well of a plane, and then fell thousands of feet as the landing gear opened over this neighborhood on approach to Logan Airport.
So investigators went back to Brierbrook Street Friday to look for proof.
"Investigators planned a search that was about of a mile out from where the body was found in a radius, as you know that was within the flight line of where the planes had flown over," said the chief.
Several hours of searching led police to that red jacket and, according to a neighbor, a pair of sneakers.
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That could be significant in this investigation because Tisdale's body was found badly mangled, without a shirt or shoes on back on November 15th.
Chief Wells said, "The searchers have recovered three articles that are possibly what we might have been looking for. I can't make a definite nexus to Mr. Tisdale, but they fall into the realm of what we would have been looking for today."
Those items are now headed to the state police crime lab for DNA analysis and any evidence that they may have come in contact with an airplane.
"I'm sure forensically they're going to do whatever they can to try to either include it or exclude it," said Chief Wells.
