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Sandra Yi ReportingPolice in upstate New York are investigating whether the death of a jogger is connected to a serial murderer and rapist. The victim, a wife and mother, has Utah ties.
Eulaween Barney, Victim's Mother: "It'll hit me one of these times. Right now, I can't cry, but I wish I could."
Four days after police found Joan Diver's body, her loved ones still can't believe it.
William Barney, Victim's Father: "I would suspect the worst thing a person can go through is to lose a child or a spouse."
Diver's husband reported her missing on Friday when she failed to pick up their four-year old son from school.
Diane Humphreys: "And we knew as a family that she wouldn't leave her little ones."
On Sunday volunteers made the grim discovery. Diver's body lay just 20 feet from a bike path where she had been jogging.
Investigators in Erie County, New York, say Diver was strangled and suffered blunt force trauma. They say Diver tried to fight off her attacker. They're awaiting test results to see if she was sexually assaulted.
Authorities are also investigating whether the crime is connected to a string of unsolved rapes and murders from two decades ago.
Diane Humphreys, Victim's Sister: "It's a terrible feeling that somebody would do that to such a sweet girl."
Diver moved to Buffalo five years ago with her husband, who teaches chemistry at the University there, but Utah was her home, where she was born and raised.
William Barney: "Every summer she and usually her husband would come back and spend two or three weeks here."
Diver received her nursing degree from the University of Utah and was an ICU nurse here at Pioneer Valley Hospital. In New York she was a stay-at-home mom who devoted her life to her four children."
Diane Humphreys: "It's just so senseless, and what's the worst part about it, is her children won't have her now."
Diver's parents now hang on to pictures of their youngest daughter.
William Barney: "We know that's all we'll have left of her."
They're comforted by their faith and the belief they'll see justice. Diver's family is leaving for New York tomorrow morning. Her funeral is planned for Friday.
