lengthy article.
Joy Lanzendorfer in Sebastopol, California Jul 2024
www.theguardian.com
Shirley Ann Soosay was from the Samson Cree Nation. Photograph: Kern County Sheriff’s Office
"The DDP lists cases of Asian, Hispanic and Indigenous Jane and John Does as the most difficult to solve''.
''So far, the DDP has identified one Indigenous Jane Doe, Shirley Ann Soosay. Her body was discovered in 1980 in an almond orchard near Bakersfield, in California’s Central valley. Soosay was from the Samson Cree Nation in Alberta, Canada.
Her niece, Violet Soosay-Wolf, had been looking for her aunt ever since the family stopped receiving greeting cards from her in 1979. For decades, Soosay-Wolf drove 13 hours from Alberta to Seattle and Vancouver to search morgues, halfway houses, hospitals and cemeteries for her aunt, according to Alta Journal. In 2019, she finally gave up.
Meanwhile, by 2020, the DDP had put thousands of hours into Soosay’s murder but still hadn’t learned who she was. They knew she had grown up in the Canadian community of Maskwacis, so they put a plea on Facebook to the Indigenous people in the area asking for leads. Soosay-Wolf saw the post. She uploaded her DNA to Gedmatch, leading to a positive ID. The killer was Wilson Chouest, who was already serving a life sentence for the rapes of other women. In 2018, while he was in jail, Chouest’s DNA was linked to two Jane Does – now investigators knew one of them was Soosay. The other was an unidentified woman found in Thousand Oaks, California, who was four months pregnant when she died. The DDP is working to learn her name as well.''
Joy Lanzendorfer in Sebastopol, California Jul 2024
A mystery writer planned to retire. Now she’s leading a team of genetic detectives – and giving murder victims back their names
Working from her California bungalow, Margaret Press, 77, leads a pioneering team of volunteers in the field of genetic genealogy. Thus far, they’ve identified the remains of more than 100 Jane and John Does
Shirley Ann Soosay was from the Samson Cree Nation. Photograph: Kern County Sheriff’s Office
"The DDP lists cases of Asian, Hispanic and Indigenous Jane and John Does as the most difficult to solve''.
''So far, the DDP has identified one Indigenous Jane Doe, Shirley Ann Soosay. Her body was discovered in 1980 in an almond orchard near Bakersfield, in California’s Central valley. Soosay was from the Samson Cree Nation in Alberta, Canada.
Her niece, Violet Soosay-Wolf, had been looking for her aunt ever since the family stopped receiving greeting cards from her in 1979. For decades, Soosay-Wolf drove 13 hours from Alberta to Seattle and Vancouver to search morgues, halfway houses, hospitals and cemeteries for her aunt, according to Alta Journal. In 2019, she finally gave up.
Meanwhile, by 2020, the DDP had put thousands of hours into Soosay’s murder but still hadn’t learned who she was. They knew she had grown up in the Canadian community of Maskwacis, so they put a plea on Facebook to the Indigenous people in the area asking for leads. Soosay-Wolf saw the post. She uploaded her DNA to Gedmatch, leading to a positive ID. The killer was Wilson Chouest, who was already serving a life sentence for the rapes of other women. In 2018, while he was in jail, Chouest’s DNA was linked to two Jane Does – now investigators knew one of them was Soosay. The other was an unidentified woman found in Thousand Oaks, California, who was four months pregnant when she died. The DDP is working to learn her name as well.''