{"id":224285,"date":"2026-06-21T09:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T09:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/224285\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T09:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T09:24:12","slug":"edward-anthony-nece-cold-case-bensalem-township-police-identify-drowning-victim-after-nearly-20-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/224285\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward Anthony Nece cold case: Bensalem Township police identify drowning victim after nearly 20 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">BENSALEM TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania (WPVI) &#8212; Police in Bucks County announced on Monday that officials made a breakthrough in a 20-year-old cold case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Back in October of 2003, a man&#8217;s body was discovered on the banks of the Delaware River in Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The man had no identification and didn&#8217;t match the description of any missing persons in the area, investigators say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">An autopsy later revealed that the cause of death was drowning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Partial fingerprints were obtained at the scene, but police found no known matches in the national database.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The unidentified man was eventually buried in the Doylestown Cemetary, while attempts to verify him went on for the next 19 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In December 2022, Bensalem police obtained hair samples from the Bucks County Coroner&#8217;s Office that were collected during the initial autopsy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Those hair samples were sent to a private laboratory, where a DNA profile was made, police say.<br class=\" \"\/>That&#8217;s when a nonprofit agency, <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.coldcaseinitiative.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cold Case Initiative<\/a>, got involved in the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Cold Case Initiative helped fund an investigative genetic genealogy search of public DNA databases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">That search led investigators to speak with Edward Nece from Riverside, New Jersey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In October of 2023, Nece told police that his son, Edward Anthony Nece, hadn&#8217;t been heard from in 20 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Nece provided a DNA sample that was compared to the unidentified male, which confirmed the drowning victim was Nece&#8217;s son.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The coroner found no signs of trauma, and the cause of death was ruled a drowning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Police Director McVey and Det. Chris McMullen both say, at the very least, they were able to give the family a little peace of mind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;This is the type of case that we don&#8217;t forget,&#8221; McVey said. &#8220;It&#8217;s someone&#8217;s son and brother. So, we always want to do anything we can to bring that closure to them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">&#8220;We&#8217;ll take a case from anywhere, but obviously, this one was near and dear to me,&#8221; said McMullen.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BENSALEM TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania (WPVI) &#8212; Police in Bucks County announced on Monday that officials made a breakthrough in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[97405,191,193,192,194,25988,97403,13361,97404,97400,97399,97402,97401],"class_list":["post-224285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bensalem","tag-97405","tag-bensalem","tag-bensalem-headlines","tag-bensalem-news","tag-bensalem-township","tag-bensalem-township-police","tag-bucks-county-cold-case","tag-cold-case","tag-cold-cases-solved","tag-drowning-investigation","tag-edward-anthony-nece","tag-unsolved-deaths","tag-unsolved-mysteries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}