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DNA helps investigators ID murder victim in 1989 Western Mass. cold case
Constance Holminski Bassignani was last seen alive on Memorial Day weekend in 1989, authorities said.
Nearly 35 years after she was last seen alive, authorities have identified Constance Holminski Bassignani as the woman whose dismembered remains were found along a rural highway in Western Massachusetts in 1989.
For decades, Bassignani’s identity eluded authorities in the small town of Warwick, who had the victim’s limbs but not her name.
Bassignani was last seen on Memorial Day weekend in 1989; a passing motorist discovered her remains in a lightly wooded area near Route 78 a few weeks later, Northwestern District Attorney David E. Sullivan’s office announced Thursday.
“Upon examining the remains, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that the victim had been dismembered, and the case was investigated as a homicide,” Sullivan said during a press conference.
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Investigators combed through missing persons reports and explored several avenues in an effort to identify the victim, he said. According to Sullivan, a thumbprint didn’t yield a match, nor did a DNA profile uploaded to NamUs, a national database of missing and unidentified people.
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“In any homicide investigation, the identity of the victim is square one,” First Assistant District Attorney Steven E. Gagne said. “In this case, investigators were hampered from the start in their efforts to solve this homicide without an identification of the victim. Ultimately, advances in forensic science — and in particular forensic genetic genealogy — provided a new source of hope for identifying the victim in this case.”
In September 2023, Massachusetts State Police detectives collaborated with the State Police crime lab to submit the victim’s DNA to Othram, a forensic lab in Texas. According to Gagne, Othram was able to provide a limited family tree and potential identification earlier this year, and investigators spoke with several living relatives to confirm Bassignani’s identity.
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Born in Hawaii in 1924, Bassignani was living with her second husband in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, when she went missing. Her husband, William Bassignani, told family and friends that Constance had decided to move back to Hawaii “and that they would not be seeing or hearing from her again,” Gagne said.
But investigators found no evidence she ever moved back to Hawaii, he noted.
“Other than her husband’s cryptic and apparently untrue statement that she had moved to Hawaii, investigators at this time do not currently have sufficient evidence to officially name anyone as a suspect in Constance’s murder, although it’s fair to say that her deceased husband William — who died in 1993 — is a person of interest,” Gagne said.
The case remains under investigation; authorities are still unsure where Constance Bassignani was killed, or why her remains turned up in Warwick. Another mystery: The whereabouts of her skull and the rest of her remains, which were not found with her arms and legs.
The DA’s office hopes the discovery of Bassignani’s identity will bring renewed attention to the once-cold case.
“This investigation is now more active and ongoing than it’s been in decades,” Gagne said.
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Anyone with information about the case is asked to call State Police detectives at 413-512-5361 or submit information through the Northwestern District Attorney’s website at northwesternda.org.
“It’s like we’re trying to put together an ancient puzzle here, but any small piece would certainly help,” Gagne said.
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