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Decapitated Woman Found in California Vineyard Finally Identified After a Decade

A horrifying crime scene that puzzled investigators for over a decade has finally been solved. Authorities have confirmed the identity of a woman found decapitated in a California vineyard in 2011 through DNA testing.

Ada Beth Kaplan, a 64-year-old resident of Canyon Country, California, has been identified as the victim discovered at a grape vineyard in Arvin on March 29, 2011, according to the Kern County Sheriff’s Office. The DNA Doe Project, which assisted in the identification process, revealed that Kaplan’s head and thumbs had been severed, and her body had been drained of blood.

The case, which has haunted investigators for years, was described as “creepy” by former sheriff’s spokesman Ray Pruitt, who worked on the investigation in 2011. The crime scene appeared meticulously clean, leading Pruitt to compare it to a mannequin with its head removed and posed on the dirt road.

The sheriff’s office conducted a postmortem examination, determining the woman’s cause of death as homicide. Despite extensive efforts to identify her through missing persons records and fingerprints, the coroner’s office initially faced unsuccessful results.

Multiple out-of-county missing persons cases were considered, but DNA analysis ruled them out. The coroner then submitted specimens to the Department of Justice, which generated a DNA profile. However, the profile did not match any entries in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a database containing DNA profiles of convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence, and missing persons.

After exhausting all leads, the woman was eventually buried in Union Cemetery in Bakersfield.

In July 2020, the coroner’s office partnered with the DNA Doe Project to employ genetic genealogy techniques in constructing a family tree for the victim. The breakthrough came in July 2023 when the project identified two potential family members residing on the East Coast. These family members willingly provided DNA samples for comparison, leading to the positive identification of the victim as Ada Beth Kaplan.

The DNA matches to Kaplan’s genetic profile were distant cousins with common surnames. Given that three of Kaplan’s grandparents were immigrants, researchers had to meticulously search Eastern European records to establish the connection, as revealed by the DNA Doe Project.

“Our team invested significant time and effort into this identification,” stated Missy Koski, the team leader of the DNA Doe Project. “Unraveling Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry can often be complex, but with the assistance of an expert in Jewish records and genealogy, we were able to make a breakthrough.”

During the investigation, Kern County Sheriff detectives interviewed family members and discovered that no missing person report had ever been filed for Kaplan. The identity of the suspect involved in her death remains unknown.

Conclusion

After more than a decade of mystery, the decapitated woman found in a California vineyard in 2011 has been identified as Ada Beth Kaplan. The use of DNA testing and genetic genealogy techniques by the DNA Doe Project finally brought closure to this haunting case. As investigators continue their search for the culprit, the community hopes for justice to be served in this gruesome crime.

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