Identified! VA - Annandale, WhtFem ~60, 245UFVA, 'NO CODE, DNR, No Penicillin', Dec'96 #2 - Joyce Meyer Sommers

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Our detectives compared her physical description to numerous missing persons cases in the National Capital Region but were unable to find a match. Through Othram’s testing, it was later determined Meyer was 69-years-old when she was found deceased. Family members believe Meyer may have moved to the Virginia area sometime after the mid-1980s. At the time of her death, Meyer was not reported missing and did not have family in the immediate area.

“After decades of wondering what happened to their loved one, Joyce’s family is finally at peace thanks to the dedicated work of several generations of FCPD detectives, anonymous donors and Othram. Our detectives never stopped working for Joyce and her family. Advances in technology will continue to help close cases and provide answers to victim’s families.” – Major Ed O’Carroll, Bureau Commander, Major Crimes, Cyber & Forensics.
fcpdnews.wordpress.com

Cold Case Detectives Solve 25-Year Mystery

Detectives from our Cold Case Squad have solved a mystery more than 25 years in the making by identifying a woman who took her own life in Fairfax County. Detectives have been tracking down clues f…
fcpdnews.wordpress.com fcpdnews.wordpress.com
The identification was made possible through advanced DNA testing and forensic-grade genome sequencing provided by Othram Inc. Funding for this testing was provided entirely by anonymous donors through DNASolves.

Othram utilized advanced Forensic Genetic Genealogy technology to identify a possible family member of Meyer. Detectives connected with the family member, which led to additional family connections across the country. A DNA sample confirmed a match, which was corroborated by conversations with long-lost siblings.
wjla.com

'The Christmas Tree Lady': DNA match helps solve 25-year-old Fairfax County cold case

Cold case detectives have solved a decades-old mystery identifying a woman who took her own life in Fairfax County.
wjla.com wjla.com

* You rock! @othram
 
I immediately full body chills when I saw the WTOP news article today with the headline "Christmas Tree Lady Identified...". The efforts made to try to surmise who she was here on Websleuths and to finally definitively identify her by FFX county detectives and Othram are simply amazing, bravo!
 
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Lengthy article, many details..
24ssports.com

Joyce Meyer Sommers identified as the "Christmas Tree Lady". - 24sSports

Many mysteries remain about the woman who was found dead in a Fairfax County Cemetery in 1996, but one thing has just been resolved: her identity.
24ssports.com 24ssports.com
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''In an interview, Clough shared what the family knew about her sister, who essentially disappeared in the 1980s. She said Joyce Marilyn Meyer was born in July 1927, the eldest of three girls and two boys, and raised on a farm outside of Davenport, Iowa. Sommers attended Iowa State University and then moved to Los Angeles, where she got a job at Seventeen magazine and lived with an aunt, Clough said. “She was very creative and very smart. She was artistic,” Clough said.''


''Sommers then left Seventeen to teach second grade at a Catholic school in Los Angeles.
“It was difficult,” Clough said of her sister’s life as a teacher in the 1950s. “She had 60 second graders and had no educational background. She was very meticulous and stayed up into the early hours planning classes.”
It was around this time, Clough said, that Sommers began seeing a psychiatrist. “Psychoanalysis back then was all about blaming the family, blaming the mother. It kind of alienated her from the family.” Clough said her sister was first married around 1959 and later divorced.
Sometime in the 1960s, Clough said, her mother traveled to California for a 24-hour confrontation session with Sommers, during which Sommers accused the mother of being a terrible parent. “It was just awful,” Clough said. “It broke my mother’s heart.”
Clough continued to write letters to her older sister, but Sommers rarely revealed much when she replied. Sommers moved to Seattle and married James E. Sommers, but did not tell her family about the event. Police found a divorce certificate showing that Joyce and James Sommers divorced in 1977 and had no children.
Sommers then moved to Tucson. “She had a trailer at a trailer park,” Clough said. “She wasn’t very happy in that situation.” In the 1980s, her siblings visited Sommers in Tucson, where she asked the family to build her a home, Clough said. The family couldn’t do that and Sommers was unhappy, Clough said.
“After that visit, she vanished from the face of the earth,” Clough said. Her family never heard from her again.
The siblings tried to track her down in the early 1990s, Clough said. Her late brother, Larry Meyer, traveled to the trailer in Tucson, but it had been abandoned, Clough said. In a refrigerator in the trailer, the brother found four copies of a book called The Target Child, which Sommers appears to have written and self-published, about an allegedly traumatic childhood. Clough said she doesn’t believe her parents were abusive or that any of her siblings suffered growing up.''
 
It's heartbreaking that a lack of quality mental health care likely contributed greatly to Joyce's suffering. Psychoanalysis can be a strange process, and an inexperienced or "quack" provider can contribute to continued or worsening psychological suffering. I wonder if, had she seen a behavioral therapist or medical psychiatrist, the trajectory of her life would have changed. The accounts of her siblings contrast starkly with the life that her book alludes to. Plus, she took her own life right around the advent of SSRIs, which were a revolutionary way to treat depression at the time.

What an interesting woman whose story was cut way too short. She had such a variety of experiences. The photo on the book jacket reminds me of a younger Betty White, and we know Joyce had a pretty good sense of humor. Thank you so much, @othram and thanks to everyone else who has contributed to keeping the story of our Annandale Christmas Tree Lady in motion for so many years!
 
annemc2 said:
It's heartbreaking that a lack of quality mental health care likely contributed greatly to Joyce's suffering. Psychoanalysis can be a strange process, and an inexperienced or "quack" provider can contribute to continued or worsening psychological suffering. I wonder if, had she seen a behavioral therapist or medical psychiatrist, the trajectory of her life would have changed. The accounts of her siblings contrast starkly with the life that her book alludes to. Plus, she took her own life right around the advent of SSRIs, which were a revolutionary way to treat depression at the time.

What an interesting woman whose story was cut way too short. She had such a variety of experiences. The photo on the book jacket reminds me of a younger Betty White, and we know Joyce had a pretty good sense of humor. Thank you so much, @othram and thanks to everyone else who has contributed to keeping the story of our Annandale Christmas Tree Lady in motion for so many years!
Click to expand...
So that's why Joyce was listening to comedy albums when she died.
 
Just read the announcement by Othram. Wow....just wow!! I feel sadness because she fell the need to end her own live, but also joy that she is identified and can be "given" back to her family. Thanks to all the people involved giving her her name back, not in the least Othram. You are all amazing and a blessing to so many families, still waiting for "the word".

Although we never met and how silly this might sound; you became a part of my live and as the years passed by, without knowing your name, I grew very fond of you.

Joyce, rest peacefully now. You will be remembered by many.
 
I'm also now wondering if the Christmas tree was a hint at her name. Far fetched to the nth degree- but- she seemed to have a wicked sense of humour, and what is spread around the holidays? Joy. Joyce. Obviously a coincidence and a passing thought but something that made me smile in a sad kind of way
 
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