Decapitated Body Found in California Vineyard Identified: Ada Beth Kaplan

Editor’s Note: Details in this story may be distressing; reader discretion is advised. Video above is from a 2018 update on the investigation.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — In a shocking revelation, the identity of a decapitated body found almost 13 years ago in a vineyard outside Arvin, California, has finally been established.

In March 2011, the lifeless body of a woman, devoid of her head, was discovered in a Kern County vineyard.

“The body was completely naked and lying on its back on the dirt roadway. It seemed as if the body had been deliberately posed by the person responsible for leaving it there,” revealed Ray Pruitt, formerly of the Kern County Sheriff’s Department, in an interview with Nexstar’s KGET in 2018.

While it was not uncommon to come across bodies in the vineyards and orchards throughout the county, former Kern County Sheriff’s Lieutenant David Hubbard described this particular finding as “gruesome” and “highly unusual.”

“Mutilated bodies in homicide cases are quite rare,” Hubbard stated in 2018. “We don’t encounter many of them. The level of decapitation seen in this case is exceptionally uncommon.”

According to Pruitt, it appeared that the blood had been drained from the woman’s body, and “the crime scene itself was meticulously clean.”

“The body wasn’t simply carelessly dumped out of a moving vehicle or discarded from a car that had pulled over on the side of the road,” Pruitt explained. “The perpetrator took their time to drive into this dirt access road, remove the body, place it on the ground, and pose it in what can only be described as a sexually suggestive manner, with the intention of ensuring the body was discovered in such a state.”

The case quickly went cold primarily due to the authorities’ inability to identify the victim. Investigators were unable to discern any distinguishing features on the woman and theorized that her killer purposely made her unidentifiable. Additionally, her thumbs had been removed. The woman had no criminal record, and thumbprints are the only prints collected for documents such as driver’s licenses and passports.

The woman’s head was never recovered either.

However, there has been a significant breakthrough in the case. The remains of the woman have been identified as Ada Beth Kaplan, a 64-year-old resident of Canyon Country, according to coroner’s officials who made the announcement on Thursday.

Kaplan was laid to rest in Union Cemetery after all leads to identify her had been exhausted. However, in 2020, the coroner’s office collaborated with the nonprofit DNA Doe Project, which constructed a family tree based on a DNA profile.

In July, two potential family members were identified, and upon providing DNA samples for comparison, the remains were confirmed to be those of Ada Beth Kaplan.

“Kern County Sheriff detectives pursued the investigation further and interviewed family members, only to discover that no missing person report had been filed for her,” officials stated.

The location where Kaplan was murdered and the identity of her killer remain unknown, according to the coroner’s officials.

As of now, no additional information has been released. The Kern County Sheriff’s Office has not yet responded to Nexstar’s request for comment.