Calgary, Alberta — Nearly 60 years after she went missing in the Nevada desert, a Calgary woman's remains have been identified, but the circumstances surrounding her death remain murky.
Anna Sylvia Just was initially reported missing by her sister after she was last seen boarding a bus in Calgary on August 17, 1966.
She was 29 years old at the time.
Two years later, Las Vegas police filed a missing person report for Just after her belongings were found near the city of Henderson, NV, around 26 kilometres outside of the city.
But it would be more than half a century before DNA technology would allow investigators to make the connection between that woman who boarded a bus on the Prairies with the victim in the Mojave Desert.
"We recognize how difficult it must have been for Anna's family to wait decades for these answers," Calgary Police Service (CPS) Staff Sgt. Sean Gregson said at a press conference.
Last year, the Calgary Police Service's Historical Homicide Team came across Just's case while investigating other unsolved files of missing women.
Investigators then contacted the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and learned Just was believed to be the victim of a homicide, but her remains had never been located.
CPS also began looking for any living relatives of Just who could provide a DNA sample. Gregson said they located Just's sister, a 97-year-old Calgarian, last November, and collected her DNA before submitting it with Just's missing person profile to international databases, including the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).
Last month, Las Vegas police alerted CPS detectives that a match had been found.
Just worked as a stenographer and lived in Calgary's southwest neighbourhood of Richmond, according to local newspaper articles from the time of her disappearance.
On March 6, 1968, the Calgary Herald reported several of Just's belongings were found outside of Las Vegas. Three hikers spotted a purse handle sticking out of the ground. It contained a plane ticket, a passport and some human hair. Other personal effects were found close by, including clothing and a bloodstained cloth.
"We don't have any new leads to go on but still have a lot of legwork to do," Las Vegas police Lt. Glenn Simmons told the Herald at the time.
Police at the time also discovered Just was an acquaintance of Thomas Hanley, head of the American Federation of Casino and Gaming Employees and a suspected mobster.
It was alleged Just had gone to Hanley for money, and that he had his associates drive her to the desert and murder her, but those allegations were never proven.
Hanley died in 1979 while in federal custody for another murder.
The case remained cold until 1970, when a group of kids playing in the desert found human remains in a shallow grave less than two kilometres from where Just's belongings were originally unearthed.
Limitations in technology, however, meant the remains could not be identified.
"We didn't know who she was," said Las Vegas homicide detective Jarrod Grimmett. "She was listed as Jane #2 Doe."
It was not until 2010, Grimmett said, that they were able to submit the unidentified remains for DNA testing, where they sat unclaimed in an online database until the CPS uploaded the DNA of Just's sister.
Gregson said although the investigation took decades to complete, he is proud they were finally able to provide Just’s sister with some closure.
