SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — A man who died in a state prison in Bridgeton has been identified as the suspect behind a 1984 rape and murder case. Attorney General Matthew Platkin says DNA evidence helped them solve the decades-old mystery.
Nathaniel Harvey is the man responsible for the sexual assault and murder of Donna Macho, according to the attorney general, New Jersey State Police and Mercer County prosecutor.
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Macho went missing at age 19 in East Windsor, Mercer County. She was not seen again until her skeletal remains were discovered a decade later.
Early on in the initial East Windsor Township Police Department investigation into Macho’s disappearance, Harvey was identified as a person of interest, but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him at the time. Investigators found semen in Macho’s bedroom, but DNA testing was not precise enough at the time to match it to a specific individual. Investigative leads vanished over time, and Macho’s case went cold.
Her remains were discovered in 1995 in a wooded area in Cranbury, N.J., near a farm where Harvey had worked around the time Macho disappeared. Her abandoned car was also found nearby, within walking distance of where Harvey lived at the time.
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Investigators identified her using dental records, and an autopsy determined that a head injury, possibly a gunshot wound, had caused her death. Yet investigators were no closer to discovering who killed her.
Then, in 2022, the investigation was reopened, and all evidence was resubmitted for examination. Using current technology, investigators were able to match Harvey’s DNA to DNA found in Macho’s bedroom.
Harvey was arrested in 1985 in connection with an unrelated murder and several sexual assaults. He was sentenced to life behind bars and remained incarcerated until his death in South Woods State Prison in Bridgeton in 2020.
“Although this murderer was imprisoned for another killing, and died in custody in 2020, it does not make this conclusion any less meaningful,” State Police Superintendent Patrick Callahan said.
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