There are new developments in a cold case out of Wayne County involving the disappearance of an Albany County native decades ago.

In 2020, human remains were discovered by hunters in Huron. A year later, authorities identified the remains as Judith Geurin, a mother of five last heard from in 1991.

“We felt as though something probably bad had happened,” said Amy Kusaywa, Geruin’s oldest child.

Kusaywa says her mother suffered dearly from the loss of their father in 1988.

“She met a different person, went down a quick relationship and moved out to Sodus,” Kusaywa said. “[She] made some bad decisions and there was some domestic violence in the relationship, and in that final phone call, she had realized it was a bad relationship and she was considering coming home to the Albany area. And that was the last time I ever spoke to my mother.”

Fifteen years would pass before law enforcement deemed Geurin’s disappearance a missing persons case.

“The daughter took a very active position though in trying to investigate it, in trying to locate her mother and has been a great advocate for her mother throughout this case and investigation,” said Wayne County Acting District Attorney Christine Callanan. “So it is because she kept up with it, it is because of her due diligence that the sheriff's [office] opened the missing persons case in 2006.”

“I never stopped trying to get somebody to look into the case,” said Kusaywa.

Now, with the introduction of new forensic evidence, authorities have reclassified the case as a homicide investigation.

The acting DA and sheriff’s office say Geurin was murdered, but will not say how.

The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office is now turning to the public, asking for the community’s help in solving this decades-old cold case.

“The tip line with the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, the number to call would be 315-946-5800. We’re hoping that with any information the community can provide that we can proceed not only with a successful homicide investigation but with prosecution of any potential suspect,” said Callanan.

For Kusaywa, any information helps — but she is seeking the full truth.

“Closure is having answers, so the fact that we were able to lay my mother to rest with my father, that’s a form of closure for myself,” said Kusaywa. “But as far as I’m concerned, the final piece of closure will be the prosecution of the parties responsible for her death.”