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Nearly 60 years after she went missing in the Nevada desert, the remains of a Calgary woman have been identified, but the circumstances of her death remain unclear.
Anna Sylvia Just was initially reported missing by her sister after she was last seen boarding a bus in Calgary on August 17, 1966.
At that time she was 29 years old.
Two years later, Las Vegas police filed a missing person's report immediately after her belongings were found near Henderson, Nevada, about 26 kilometers from the gambling capital of the world.
But it will be more than half a century before DNA technology allows investigators to link the woman who boarded the bus on the prairie to the victim in the Mojave Desert.
“We understand how difficult it must be for Anna's family to wait decades for these answers,” Calgary Police Service (CPS) Staff Sgt. Sean Gregson said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Calgary police's historical homicide team came across Just's case last year while investigating other unsolved cases of missing women. Investigators found that Just was not listed in any local, national or international database, Gregson said.
“Paper records and retention policies were very different back then,” he said. “So some of this information has been lost over this long period of time.”
Investigators then contacted the Las Vegas Police Department and learned that Just was considered a homicide victim, but her remains were never found.
CPS also began searching for Just's living relatives who could provide a DNA sample. Gregson said they found Just's sister, a 97-year-old Calgary woman, last November and collected her DNA, then sent it, along with Just's missing person profile, to international databases including National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).
Last month, Las Vegas police alerted CPS detectives that a match had been found.
Contact with the leader of the gaming union
According to articles in local newspapers since her disappearance, she had just worked as a stenographer and lived in Richmond, a southwest area of Calgary.
On March 6, 1968, the Calgary Herald reported that several of Just's belongings were found outside Las Vegas. Three tourists noticed the handle of a bag sticking out of the ground. It contained a plane ticket, a passport and some human hair. Other personal items, including clothing and bloody fabric, were found nearby.
Homicide detectives in Las Vegas also found the skeleton of a woman more than 100 kilometers away, but after comparing it with Just's medical records, they concluded it was not her.
“We don’t have any new leads, but we still have a lot of work to do,” Las Vegas police Lt. Glenn Simmons told the Herald at the time.
Police at the time also discovered that Just knew Thomas Hanley, head of the American Federation of Casino and Gaming Officials and a suspected gangster.
It was alleged that Just went to Hanley for money and that he ordered his accomplices to take her to the desert and kill her, but these accusations were never proven.
Hanley died in 1979 while in federal custody for another murder.
Case rremained cold until 1970, when a group of children playing in the desert found human remains in a shallow grave less than two kilometers from where Just's belongings were originally discovered.
However, due to technological limitations, the remains could not be identified.
“We didn't know who she was,” Las Vegas homicide detective Jarrod Grimmett said. “She was listed as Jane No. 2 Doe.”
It wasn't until 2010 that the unidentified remains were able to be submitted for DNA testing, and they remained unclaimed in an online database until CPS uploaded Just's sister's DNA, Grimmett said.
Grimmett said the latest investigation shows there was “definitely a connection” between Just and Hanley, although there is no evidence they had an ongoing personal relationship.
“We believe there was an argument between the two of them and through the investigation we have credible information to suggest that Mr. Hanley and his associates are responsible for Anna's death,” Grimmett told CBC News.
Put to rest
Gregson said that although the investigation took decades, he is proud that they were finally able to give Just's sister some closure.
“When the team goes to talk to her sister, the first thing she says to them is, 'Are you here because of Sylvia?' Gregson said. “There's a picture of her sister right outside the front door, so things like that are what drive our investigators.”
Grimmett echoed that sentiment, adding that Las Vegas police were able to send her a photo of Just's vacation spot.
“All she ever asked was, 'Where is my sister?' Where is she resting now?” he said. “Now we can remove Jane No. 2 Doe from her tombstone and actually give her a name.”
