A mother of three left her Newton home to return some clothes. She was found dead in a vacant lot in Roxbury.

On Friday, Aug. 22, 1975, Ruth B. Pearson left her home in Newton, got into her red Camaro, and headed into the city.

She told her daughter that was going into town to return some clothes, and she’d be back.

A 61-year-old divorced mother of three, Pearson had a lot to look forward to. Her daughter, the youngest of her three children, had graduated from Yale University and was about to enter Harvard Law School, following in the footsteps of her own father.

“My mother’s father was a Harvard Law grad,” her son, Bob Pearson, said in an interview. “It meant a lot to her.”

Pearson looked a lot younger than she was, and after raising three kids and seeing her ex-husband get remarried, she was still getting used to the idea of being an empty-nester. The spacious Colonial home in Waban where she raised her family was no longer filled with the voices of youngsters who needed her attention. So she was getting out more, often venturing into the city to go shopping and eat out at bars and restaurants in the Back Bay.

“She was a 61-year-old single woman,” Bob Pearson said. “She was enjoying her life. She was spreading her wings.”

When she hadn’t returned home by the next morning, her daughter reported her missing to the police.

At about 8:40 a.m., someone walking their dog in a vacant lot in the Madison Park section of Roxbury found Pearson. She had been shot multiple times.

She was not carrying any identification, and police initially had no idea who she was.

A brief story on page 52 of The Boston Globe the next day reported the grim discovery of the woman’s body and that police were trying to identify her. She was wearing an orange print dress and had been shot with a “small caliber handgun,” the article stated.

The following day, the Globe reported that authorities were still trying to determine who she was and described her as being about 50 years old and weighing 130 pounds, with brown eyes and dyed blonde hair. She also wore a ring inscribed, “mutual token, December 1938, R.F.P. to R.R.H.,” police said at the time.

She was one of three people slain in Roxbury during that summer weekend, the Globe reported.

Fifty years later, her murder is still unsolved.

Bob Pearson, 83, ended up taking his sister to her dorm before she started her first year of law school — something their mother surely would have done.

Two weeks after her body was discovered, her red Camaro was found in the Orchard Park housing projects, near the old Dearborn School on Ambrose Street. The wheels were missing — rims, tires gone. The whole car had been stripped for parts.

Her body was identified on Sept. 9, according to Sergeant Detective John Boyle, a spokesperson for the Boston Police Department.

Her disappearance “was a highly traumatic, unexpected event,” Pearson said. “What compounded it, of course, is that she went unidentified for so long.”

Bob Pearson still recalls the moment he learned that his mother had been found dead in Roxbury.

“I thought to myself, ‘What the hell is she doing there?‘” he said.

Pearson said his mother’s murder, and the mystery surrounding it, took an immense toll on the family, especially his younger sister, Gillian.

“It tormented the hell out of her every single day of her life,” he said.

After Harvard Law, his sister became an assistant district attorney in Middlesex County and went on to serve as a staff attorney and executive director for the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct. She died in December 2020, without seeing justice for her mother.

In 2023, detectives from the Boston Police Department’s unsolved homicide unit appealed to the public for help.

“Any piece of information, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, could make a tremendous difference in the course of this decades-longinvestigation,” police said.

Police also released a poster featuring photos of Pearson and her Camaro that they shared on social media.

“The victim was known to frequent bars/restaurants in the Copley Square area and the City of Cambridge,” the poster read. “The victim appeared younger than her years and she often went by her middle name, Bayla or Francesca.”

Police in Boston and the Suffolk district attorney’s office said the investigation remains active.

“In just the past year we have secured convictions in two homicide cases that were decades old, which is an indication that neither we nor police investigators ever give up on a case, no matter how many years have passed,” James Borghesani, a spokesperson for the Suffolk district attorney’s office, said in a statement. “Breaks in unsolved homicides can come in any number of ways and at any time, so our wish is that the family and friends of Ruth Pearson never give up hope despite their years of sadness.”

Pearson holds out hope that justice can be found for his mother.

“She didn’t deserve to be murdered … and you can’t bring her back,” Pearson said. “It’s all about justice. It’s a pursuit of justice for a woman who dedicated her life to the upbringing of her three kids.”

Police have asked anyone with information about Pearson’s whereabouts around the time of her death to contact the unsolved homicide unit at 617-343-4470. Those who wish to remain anonymous can call the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS or 1-800-494-8477, or text the word ‘TIP’ to CRIME (27463).

Jeremiah Manion of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

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Emily Sweeney can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @emilysweeney and on Instagram @emilysweeney22.