Seitz had gone to visit that day in 1976. He was killed and dismembered, a Queens prosecutor said, before being buried in the backyard of the home of Martin Motta - one of the owners of the barbershop that Mr. Seitz, a reclusive 81-year-old veteran of World War I, had been known to carry all his money with him - often thousands of dollars.
The motive was robbery, the authorities said. Seitz’s long-buried remains, and they charged another Queens man with his murder. This week, in a case with all the makings of a prime-time television drama, law enforcement officials said that decomposing bones they had found in a Queens backyard two years ago were Mr. Seitz was at the center of a much more modern mystery - one that captivated amateur online detectives and led investigators down high-tech trails seeking clues. His disappearance drew little attention at the time and was all but forgotten in the 45 years that followed.īut decades later, Mr. 10, 1976, George Clarence Seitz left his home in Jamaica, Queens, to get a haircut and never came back.
