A criminal homicide charge against Luis Sierra in the 1976 murder of Evelyn Colon and her unborn daughter has been dismissed due to potential jurisdictional issues, according to Carbon County District Attorney Michael Greek.

“During the course of the investigation, it was determined the alleged crime most likely took place in Jersey City, New Jersey,” Greek said. “Because of that, the charges are being dismissed here.”

Sierra, 67, of Ozone Park, New York, was charged with the crime in March 2021.

On Dec. 20, 1976, the Pennsylvania State Police were contacted to investigate human remains found on the riverbank of the Lehigh River in East Side Borough, Carbon County.

Parts of the victim’s body and her fetus were packed into several suitcases and tossed from an Interstate 80 bridge. They landed 300 feet below at the edge of the river, where some broke open.

Her body was discovered at about 4:30 p.m. on a cold, rainy December day.

A Weatherly High School freshman Kenneth Jumper Jr., who was 14 at the time, was walking along the river where he used to do some trapping when he saw a human head next to a piece of luggage.

The coroner at the time, the late Robert G. Deibert, had the body transported to the Gnaden Huetten Memorial Hospital in Lehighton, where an autopsy was performed.

Their bodies were preserved in Philadelphia’s city morgue.

On Aug. 18, 1983, nearly seven years after being found, Beth Doe’s body and fetus were buried next to each other in Carbon County Potter’s Field, off Laurytown Road near Weatherly. The Rev. John A. Naegele of Lansford conducted the ceremony.

After 44 years Beth Doe’s remains were identified as Evelyn Colon, 15, of Jersey City, New Jersey. A big break in the case came when a relative of Colon’s participated in an ancestry DNA test.

The relative’s DNA profile matched the unidentified victim’s, which had recently been cross-referenced with the ancestry DNA database.

Once police identified her as Colon, family members pointed them to her then-boyfriend, Sierra.

Family members said they had received a letter from Colon following her disappearance, which said she had given birth to her baby and named it Luis Sierra Jr.

Pennsylvania State Police initially charged Sierra after they interviewed him at his home. He had been working as a bus driver. He has been out on bail since 2022.