Headless woman drained of blood and dumped in California vineyard in 2011 is identified

ARVIN, Calif. (TCD) — Investigators recently identified a female homicide victim whose headless and thumbless body was found in a vineyard nearly 13 years ago.

On March 29, 2011, the Kern County Sheriff’s Office located a dead woman at Grape Vineyard on Sebastian Road, but attempts to identify the victim through missing persons records and fingerprints were unsuccessful. Her cause of death was undetermined, but the medical examiner ruled her death a homicide. She was later buried as a Jane Doe at Union Cemetery.

According to the DNA Doe Project, the woman’s head and thumbs were missing, and her body had been drained of blood. Her remains were partially decomposed as well.

Sheriff’s spokesman Ray Pruitt told KGET-TV, “I’ve seen some pretty gruesome crime scenes and this was just… it was creepy.”

Officials reportedly found the body in a position that appeared to have been posed. Pruitt also said it “looked like somebody had taken a mannequin, removed the head of the mannequin, and posed it on the dirt road.”

In 2020, the Kern County Medical Examiner’s Office contacted the DNA Doe Project to assist with the case, and they used genetic genealogy to help identify the woman. Investigators found DNA matches connecting Jane Doe to distant cousins, and the DNA Doe Project built a family tree.

According to the sheriff’s office, the DNA Doe Project identified two potential family members on the East Coast in July 2023, and they provided DNA samples for comparison. As a result, investigators positively identified Jane Doe as 64-year-old Ada Beth Kaplan.

As part of a follow-up investigation, sheriff’s office detectives learned family members didn’t file a missing person report for Kaplan. Officials have not yet named any suspects, and the location of her death remains unknown.

MORE: