Geetha Angara, a 43-year-old senior chemist at the Passaic Valley Water Commission in Totowa, New Jersey, vanished on the morning of February 8, 2005, while performing routine water-sample calibrations. Her coworkers discovered an access panel ajar above a water tank, along with broken glass from her beaker, later found along with her radio and clipboard underwater. Her body was recovered on February 9 in icy water. The autopsy revealed she was alive when she entered the tank, with bruises on her neck, waist, and elbows—signs of a possible struggle—leading investigators to classify her death a homicide.

Given the plant’s tightly controlled access and no external intruders, suspicion fell on her coworkers; though three were identified as potential suspects, no charges were ever filed and the case went cold. An alternative theory, advanced by a Scottish pathologist, noted that cold-water drowning can mimic strangulation injuries, and some investigators later proposed that she may have tragically slipped through the panel during an accidental sample-collection procedure—though her family strongly disputes that scenario.

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