Accident – Death – Obituary News :

Woman Found Decapitated in California Vineyard Finally Identified After Decade-Long Investigation

A woman who was brutally murdered and found decapitated in a California vineyard in 2011 has been identified through DNA testing, putting an end to a haunting and perplexing cold case. Authorities have confirmed that the victim is Ada Beth Kaplan, a 64-year-old resident of Canyon Country, California. The Kern County Sheriff’s Office made the announcement on Thursday, stating that Kaplan’s head and thumbs were removed, and her body was drained of blood when she was discovered at a grape vineyard in Arvin on March 29, 2011. The DNA Doe Project played a crucial role in identifying her.

Former sheriff’s spokesman Ray Pruitt, who was involved in the investigation in 2011, described the crime scene as “creepy.” He expressed his bewilderment at the meticulousness of the perpetrator, saying, “Why did they take the time to drain the blood from the body? The crime scene itself was very clean. Honestly, it looked like somebody had taken a mannequin, removed the head of the mannequin, and posed it on the dirt road.”

Following the discovery of Kaplan’s remains, a postmortem examination confirmed that her death was a result of homicide. However, efforts to identify her through missing persons records and fingerprints proved unsuccessful. The Kern County Sheriff’s Office investigated two different missing persons cases from outside the county but ruled them out after DNA analysis. The coroner’s office then submitted specimens to the Department of Justice, which generated a DNA profile. Unfortunately, there were no matches in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database, which contains DNA profiles of convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence, and missing persons.

Despite exhaustive efforts, all leads were eventually exhausted, and Kaplan was laid to rest in Union Cemetery in Bakersfield. The case continued to haunt investigators, who were determined to identify the remains but found themselves at a dead end.

In July 2020, a breakthrough finally occurred when the coroner’s office collaborated with the DNA Doe Project. This non-profit organization specializes in using genetic genealogy techniques to build family trees for unidentified victims. After months of meticulous research, the DNA Doe Project identified two potential family members residing on the East Coast in July 2023. These family members willingly provided DNA samples for comparison, leading to the positive identification of “Jane Doe 2011” as Ada Beth Kaplan.

The genetic profile of Kaplan revealed distant cousins with common surnames, and further investigation unveiled that three of her grandparents were immigrants, necessitating a search through Eastern European records to establish the connection. Missy Koski, the team leader of the DNA Doe Project, acknowledged the team’s dedication, stating, “Our team worked long and hard for this identification. Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry is often complicated to unravel. When we brought in an expert in Jewish records and genealogy, that made a huge difference.”

During the investigation, Kern County Sheriff detectives interviewed Kaplan’s family members, only to discover that a missing person report was never filed for her. The suspect behind her gruesome murder remains unknown, leaving a lingering sense of injustice and unresolved questions.

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