Identified! CA - San Joaquin Co., WhtFem 320UFCA, 29-41, Gorilla hiking boots, Mar'95 - Amanda Lynn Schumann Deza

[CCart]

Greek Orthodox and some Roman Catholics wear their wedding rings on their right hands. Could be a cultural/religious thing rather than an estrangement.

 

[alllads]

Greek Orthodox and some Roman Catholics wear their wedding rings on their right hands. Could be a cultural/religious thing rather than an estrangement.

Very good point. Eastern Orthodox in general wear on the right, so Russian Orthodox etc as well. Then again, it could be not her that was from that background, but the husband. Another explanation, as the right-hand ring was an engagement ring, is that some people start wearing their engagement ring on their right hand once they have a wedding ring. So wedding ring goes on the left hand, engagement ring goes on the right? And wedding ring was lost?

Just brainstorming. The condition of her teeth, jewelery, expensive clothing etc. makes it pretty clear that she wasn't a transient so it's extra strange that she hasn't been matched yet. They really ought to get her on NamUs...

Despite the bitten fingernails, I have to say I also keep coming back to Rachel Jones because of the hair & the ring. But then again, the date range is too close. ALL I can find about her is that she likely wasn't born in California, and that she at some point was living at 15050 Sherman Way #225 (which is a condo I think) in Van Nuys. Also that she had a 1990 arrest/charge for possession of cocaine & cannabis in Florida.

 

[kpdx]

I think Rachel would be a plausible match. My only concern is that she had a scar on her right cheek whereas this Doe did not have any scarring.

I gathered from the info the postmortem interval resulted in skeletonization, excluding any epidermal identification.

 

[kpdx]

https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/12761

Elisha was LKA about 1.5 away in Napa Valley in Feb. 1994. Although the clothing doesn't match, the circumstances and history suggest she could have been vulnerable to an abduction.

The demographics roughly match, clothes don't seem to (although nothing about Elisha's shoes). Nothing about her jewelry, either.

 

[kpdx]

http://www.sjsheriff.org/mostwanted.aspx

Is anyone in contact with the San Joaquin LE that we can suggest they submit to NAMUS? It would be nice to see this UID there, as more and more MSM raises awareness about NAMUS. Maybe someone could email the county coroner, or for those of you who don't mind phoning call the detective directly?

 

[kpdx]

Very good point. Eastern Orthodox in general wear on the right, so Russian Orthodox etc as well. Then again, it could be not her that was from that background, but the husband. Another explanation, as the right-hand ring was an engagement ring, is that some people start wearing their engagement ring on their right hand once they have a wedding ring. So wedding ring goes on the left hand, engagement ring goes on the right? And wedding ring was lost?

Yea, I think the classification of it as a wedding ring was odd. It looks more like an engagement ring to me. If the wedding ring was not a dovetail design, instead a band, I could see someone wearing their solitare on the right hand.

Or maybe the ring had another significance? Anniversary, graduation, birthday...or even an inherited piece.

 

[alllads]

Yea, I think the classification of it as a wedding ring was odd. It looks more like an engagement ring to me. If the wedding ring was not a dovetail design, instead a band, I could see someone wearing their solitare on the right hand.

Or maybe the ring had another significance? Anniversary, graduation, birthday...or even an inherited piece.

I agree, it looks more like an engagement ring to me. And engagement ring on the right hand has SO many possible explanations that it becomes pretty non-informative, unless someone recognizes the actual ring sadly. Or unless there is something about the ring itself.

 

[FiveFelines]

This case reminds me a bit of the Denise Huber case. She went missing from CA and was found several years later in a freezer in AZ. That makes me think that this Doe doesn't necessarily have to be from the Bay Area, or even CA. Her killer just has to be from or familiar with the area.

http://murderpedia.org/male.F/f/famalaro-john.htm

 

[gayeld]

I'd look a lot closer to home for the identity of this victim. I lived in Antioch for a couple of years and I used to drive those backroads between Antioch and Stockton fairly often (I got bored with hwy 4 pretty quickly.)

It's out in the middle of nowhere, farm land and swamps. This isn't an area you stumble across by accident when you're looking to dispose of a refrigerator with a body in it.

In one of the pictures you can see a Sheriff's Deputy standing over the slough the refrigerator was found in. If you look behind him all you see is open farmland, that's what the whole area looks like. Farmland, farms, canals. When I took the backroads I would see one, maybe two cars from Stockton to Discovery Bay.

 

[wannabeasupersleuth]

I'd look a lot closer to home for the identity of this victim. I lived in Antioch for a couple of years and I used to drive those backroads between Antioch and Stockton fairly often (I got bored with hwy 4 pretty quickly.)

It's out in the middle of nowhere, farm land and swamps. This isn't an area you stumble across by accident when you're looking to dispose of a refrigerator with a body in it.

In one of the pictures you can see a Sheriff's Deputy standing over the slough the refrigerator was found in. If you look behind him all you see is open farmland, that's what the whole area looks like. Farmland, farms, canals. When I took the backroads I would see one, maybe two cars from Stockton to Discovery Bay.

I grew up in Antioch and I'm totally with you about looking closer to home...

 

[kpdx]

I grew up in Antioch and I'm totally with you about looking closer to home...

I agree. I think the milk cartons in the fridge definitely suggest a local connection. This newer article: http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130301/A_NEWS0803/303010335 shows the detective's detailed analysis leading to the suspicion she was a local girl.

I am puzzled about another supposition that her clothing indicated she was attending an outdoor event. Kind of like the wedding ring on the right hand...sort of bizarre guess that makes me wonder if LE has more info than they have released.

The one thing I have been thinking of is why someone would dump a fridge in this area. Like, why the body in the fridge and then the fridge in this area? Why not take the fridge to a transfer station (which is closer to Stockton according to Google).

I get that perp was probably concerned about discovery, but it seems like trying to hide a fridge makes the whole process a lot more difficult and cumbersome. Its not completely out of left field to dispose of someone in a fridge, according to MSM, but still...for locals is this area a common illegal dumping ground? Is there a lot of random trash?

The weight of an average refrigerator is around 250 lbs. Add a 130 lbs and you have a heavy load. I imagine it was probably loaded onto a flat bed and then pushed off, based on the way it was laying as photographed. Yes, it could be accomplished by a lone perp, but why go to all the extra work?

I just can't make heads or tails of the post offense behavior. It could be intimate partner or it could be an stranger abduction. The taped mouth and tied hands suggest that she was terrorized before blunt force trauma took her life...

I feel like there is something really obvious in the evidence that if it was a snake would bite me...but haven't figured out yet what it is.

Has anyone looked in to the boots? Gorilla is a long standing brand, and were apparently at least $100 boots in 1995. That plus the dental work gives us some suggestions about socio-economic.

The fact the ring was left suggests robbery was not a motive.

It seems likely she was not reported missing...

 

[gayeld]

I am puzzled about another supposition that her clothing indicated she was attending an outdoor event. Kind of like the wedding ring on the right hand...sort of bizarre guess that makes me wonder if LE has more info than they have released.

I wonder if they checked to see what kind of events were going on at the fairgrounds during the period of time that she likely went missing. The Contra Costa County Fairgrounds in Antioch held (holds?) two Craft Faires every year, one before Mother's Day and one around Thanksgiving.

Then there's the Fair, which would have been in late July/early August back then (I started working at the fairgrounds about five months after they found the body.)

People can travel pretty far if there's an act they want to see. I talked the fair manager at the time into booking Kurth & Taylor, the lead singer was on General Hospital, and we had people (okay, women,) calling from all over the country asking for directions from the airport.

There's also the fairgrounds in Stockton, which is bigger and attracts larger events.

I get that perp was probably concerned about discovery, but it seems like trying to hide a fridge makes the whole process a lot more difficult and cumbersome. Its not completely out of left field to dispose of someone in a fridge, according to MSM, but still...for locals is this area a common illegal dumping ground? Is there a lot of random trash?

I wouldn't say "a lot" but there's a fair amount of illegal dumping going on out there. Safer to dump it in a canal the middle of the night than to have some worker at the dump open it up while you're driving out the front gate.

 

[Houston Mom]

Strange this case is not on NamUs. I was wondering about Jill Beaty. She went missing in Aug of 1994 from Reno and her body was supposedly dumped in CA or OR. From her photos she looks quite the fashionista!!

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/10572/24/

 

[PricklyPear]

I just ran across this case and was wondering if it had a page here. Glad to see it does. It's unfortunate that San Joaquin County LE only seem to use NamUs for missing persons and not unidentified ones, this seems like a case that should be solvable.

I gathered from the info the postmortem interval resulted in skeletonization, excluding any epidermal identification.

According to this article, she went through a post-mortem process that turns bodies into a waxlike substance. The assistant sheriff who worked on the case said she was like a mannequin.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130301/A_NEWS0803/303010335&template=printart

 

[WyomingSkyAngel]

How come no one has done a facial restoration bust with her skull?

My guess- she was a Deadhead/transient-type of person who might have not been from Northern CA, but moved in with some guy who IS from the area. Relationship went sour, he killed her, stashed her body in the fridge until he HAD to dispose of her. (During the mid-1990s to early 2000s A LOT of people were cashing in on the real estate market in CA by selling their homes and moving to towns with lower cost of living- the killer might have done this and then dumped her before he moved out of the area or out of state.)

Could she have been dating a correctional officer or police officer? That might explain the milk cartons. Also the ice bag from the liquor store- cops and prison guards drink more often than not.

I've heard of and witnessed some extremely sad and unlikely domestic violence situations in my lifetime- my guess is the killer really didn't want to get caught and stored the remains for a long while until forced to dispose of them. Plus if the victim had a sketchy history (drug use and transient living) the killer might have rationalized the finger would not be pointed right at him (or her) IF the identity & last times of the victim were ever brought to light.

 

[tamora1]

According to this article, she went through a post-mortem process that turns bodies into a waxlike substance. The assistant sheriff who worked on the case said she was like a mannequin.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130301/A_NEWS0803/303010335&template=printart

This article was really interesting. It surprised me that the refrigerator itself was described as "gold," but its serial number was traced to the 1980s. I thought "Harvest Gold" was a 1970s phenomenon, but I found at least one source that says gold appliances persisted into the 1980s: http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?4531

I've been searching for images of a top-freezer Frigidaire in gold from the 1980s, but I haven't found any yet. I wonder if it was really harvest gold or almond? I wonder if it had been removed because it was old, dated, not working, etc.? Refrigerators used to last a lot longer--when the appliance salesperson told my parents they should expect to replace their refrigerator within four years, their heads almost exploded--but this one would have been at least 10 years old at the time and possibly considered unfashionable too.

 

[PricklyPear]

How come no one has done a facial restoration bust with her skull?

My guess- she was a Deadhead/transient-type of person who might have not been from Northern CA, but moved in with some guy who IS from the area. Relationship went sour, he killed her, stashed her body in the fridge until he HAD to dispose of her. (During the mid-1990s to early 2000s A LOT of people were cashing in on the real estate market in CA by selling their homes and moving to towns with lower cost of living- the killer might have done this and then dumped her before he moved out of the area or out of state.)

Could she have been dating a correctional officer or police officer? That might explain the milk cartons. Also the ice bag from the liquor store- cops and prison guards drink more often than not.

I've heard of and witnessed some extremely sad and unlikely domestic violence situations in my lifetime- my guess is the killer really didn't want to get caught and stored the remains for a long while until forced to dispose of them. Plus if the victim had a sketchy history (drug use and transient living) the killer might have rationalized the finger would not be pointed right at him (or her) IF the identity & last times of the victim were ever brought to light.

Given how expensive her clothing and shoes were, I don't know about the transient theory. Back in the early and mid-90s, Jordache jeans were way more popular and pricy than they are now, plus she had jewelry and those $100 hiking boots. (On a side note, there are a bunch of county and regional parks throughout the Delta, as well as rural, woodsy areas. Maybe she was hiking and it was a crime of opportunity? The guy went to dump his fridge, saw her and took his chance?)

The correctional officer idea is an intriguing one to me, though. He may have thought she'd never be found, or if she was that she couldn't be traced back to him. That's a really stressful job where you have a lot of power over other people, I could see that spilling over into your personal life if there was a lot of burnout or drinking. Same with a mental hospital (the Stockton State Hospital closed in 1996 or 1997, if I remember correctly, so it would have still been open, and Stockton is really close to where she was found). They'd have had those milk cartons, too, I think.

 

[Houston Mom]

If someone is willing to contact the ME he has an available email address. It would be wonderful to see this Jane on NamUs:

[email protected]


http://www.co.san-joaquin.ca.us/SHERIFF/invstcor.htm#FAQ

 

[PricklyPear]

Disregard what I said about the Jordache jeans, I must have mixed her up with another case or just misremembered. She was actually wearing Levi shorts.

 

[PricklyPear]

If someone is willing to contact the ME he has an available email address. It would be wonderful to see this Jane on NamUs:

[email protected]


http://www.co.san-joaquin.ca.us/SHERIFF/invstcor.htm#FAQ

I'll go ahead and email the ME about the possibility of getting her on NamUs. I'll ask whether there's a sketch, too.