One was a faded color portrait of the pretty 1970s teenager, her long brown hair parted in the middle. The other was a small black-and-white picture of newborn baby Donna blissfully asleep in her crib. 

Mrs. Dustin, 74, would relax with her oxygen tank in an easy chair facing the end table on which these pictures were displayed so she could always see them and remember Donna as she was.

But she was never to know the identity of the people who killed her "baby" in 1973. She died suddenly last week, days after Donna's class held its 35th high school reunion in Bowie. The event was attended by an investigator from the Anne Arundel County State's Attorney's Office who asked her former classmates for help in solving the still-open case.

Mrs. Dustin, who was diagnosed with lung cancer four years ago, became sick Aug. 9, the night of the reunion, complaining of flu-like symptoms, said her son, Allen Dustin, 48. That week, she and her husband, Joe Dustin, 73, had done newspaper and television interviews about Donna, the unsolved case and the reunion.

She was taken to the Bowie Health Center Aug. 11, where it was determined she had an irregular heartbeat. Then she was sent to Anne Arundel Medical Center where doctors determined she'd suffered a minor heart attack. She died Thursday at 8 a.m. and she was buried yesterday, at Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Brentwood next to Donna.

David Cordle, the Anne Arundel investigator, said he got "a couple" of fresh leads at the reunion, attended by more than 100 members of Bowie High School's Class of 1973, including former close friends of Donna's.

Mr. Cordle said he is reluctant to discuss details of the case other than Donna was found beaten to death Nov. 17, 1973, around 10 a.m. in a wooded area near Bowie Racetrack on the Anne Arundel side of the county line. That weekend, her parents and brother were away in Florida and she stayed at home.

The last person to see her alive was a young man she'd gone out on a date with. For years, there's been speculation that after dropping him off at his Bowie home in her new car at 1:30 a.m., she attended a wild party at another Bowie residence. If she went to that party, she couldn't have driven there herself because her car was still sitting in her driveway the next day.

Over the years, more than 300 interviews have been done, with some people being questioned 10 to 15 times, Mr. Cordle said. Nearly 20 people have given DNA samples, sometimes under court order, which have been compared with evidence taken from the crime scene, he said.

Grand juries have heard evidence but never indicted anybody, he said.

Mrs. Dustin was 21 years old when she gave birth to Donna. The Dustins were one of Bowie's original families, having moved into the city, incorporated in 1962, early on.

She is survived by her son, Allen, and his four children, one of whom has a baby, which made her a great-grandmother.

"She's my baby," Mrs. Dustin said tearfully of Donna in a TV interview Aug. 8. "I know she was so scared that night."