A Calgary woman missing for more than five decades has been identified as the individual whose remains were uncovered in a shallow grave on the outskirts of Henderson, Nevada, in 1970.
Genetic genealogy was used to identify the remains as those of Anna Sylvia Just, an Alberta woman whose whereabouts have been a mystery for more than half a century.
A missing persons report was filed in Nevada for Just in 1968 after her belongings were discovered in the desert near Henderson, according to a Nov. 7 press release from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Henderson is located 26 kilometres southeast of downtown Las Vegas.
During the course of the missing persons investigation, various accounts suggested Just was an associate of Thomas Hanley, a notorious union mob boss, Las Vegas police said.
It was alleged during the course of the investigation that Hanley had his associates take Just out to the desert to kill her, police said. An “extensive search” of the area where her belongings were discovered was conducted but Just’s remains were not found.
Hanley was never charged in connection with Just’s disappearance but he was convicted of the 1977 murder of labour union leader Al Bramlet and died in federal custody in 1979.
Just’s body was eventually found buried in a shallow grave in 1970 by children who were playing in the desert. Police said the remains “were unidentifiable” at the time but the coroner’s office determined the death was a homicide “due to a depressed fracture to the skull.”
According to the Doe Network, the state of the remains were “skeletal” and were found wearing underwear, jeans, and a knit sweater.
The case was cold for 54 years until Calgary Police Service investigators contacted their colleagues in Nevada last October after discovering Just had been seen in Las Vegas in the 1960s.
Las Vegas investigators provided Calgary authorities with the name of the relative who had collected the belongings found by police in 1968.
“Calgary detectives were able to locate the individual, who was Anna’s biological sister, still alive and collected a DNA sample from her,” police said. “Through genetic genealogy it was confirmed that the remains located in 1970 were those of Anna Sylvia Just.”
Just was reportedly 29 and working as a stenographer in Henderson at the time of her 1968 disappearance.
She was reported as missing in Canada two years earlier when her family notified authorities of her disappearance on Aug. 17, 1966, from her residence in Calgary.
