The mystery of a woman whose headless body was completely drained of blood and dumped in a California vineyard nearly 13 years ago has finally been solved, police announced last week.
Police have named 64-year-old Ada Beth Kaplan as the naked, abused and partially decomposed body found in March 2011 in the town of Arvin, according to the Kern County Sheriff.
Kaplan is completely unrecognizable. In addition to beheading the woman and draining her blood, the killer also took the time to cut off her thumb before laying her on the first road.
“These people took their time to come into this driveway, remove the body, put it on the ground, and pose it in what I consider to be a sexual manner and want the body to be found that way,” Homicide Sgt. David Hubbard told KGET.
Although they were unable to identify Kaplan, it was clear to the detectives that they were looking at a homicide victim.
Ada Beth Kaplan, in an old photo, was identified as the headless body found in a California vineyard in 2011. DOE DNA PROJECT
The DNA they were able to remove, however, proved useless — there were no traces on any missing person, crime scene or convicted person index, the sheriff’s office said.
The case went cold for nine years until the Medical Examiner’s Office contacted the Doe DNA Project, a nonprofit organization that specializes in identifying John and Jane Does using investigative genetic genealogy.
This time, Kaplan’s DNA produced multiple hits and linked investigators to several distant cousins spanning eight generations.
Researchers linked their Jane Doe to wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry and combed through hordes of Eastern European records to build a family tree.
Kaplan was never reported missing, making it difficult for police to identify the body. KGET
After comparing his DNA to two potential family members living on the East Coast, the team finally had a match.
“Our team worked long and hard for this introduction,” Missy Koski, the volunteer group’s team leader, said in a statement.
“Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry is often complicated to unravel. When we brought in an expert in Jewish records and genealogy, that made a big difference.”
An interview with Kaplan’s family reveals why he was so difficult to identify: no one had ever filed a missing person’s report.
Police said Kaplan’s body was laid on the ground in a “sexual manner.” KGET
However, the disturbing events that led to his death and the person who killed him, remain a mystery.
Kaplan lived nearly 80 miles north of where her body was found, though police do not believe she was killed on the vineyard.
Murderers or insane killers seem “quite comfortable committing these crimes,” leaving officers baffled and unhappy that they can still go free.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” Pruitt said earlier.
“I’ve seen some pretty gruesome crime scenes and this is just … it’s creepy.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
