60 years later, Nevada homicide victim identified as missing Calgary woman

Nearly 60 years after she went missing in the Nevada desert, a Calgary woman’s remains have been identified, but the circumstances surrounding her death remain murky.

Anna Sylvia Just was initially reported missing by her sister after she was last seen boarding a bus in Calgary on Aug. 17, 1966.

She was 29 years old at the time.

Two years later, Las Vegas police filed a missing person report for Just after her belongings were found near the city of Henderson, Nev., around 26 kilometres outside of the Gambling Capital of the World.

But it would be more than half a century before DNA technology would allow investigators to make the connection between that woman who boarded a bus on the Prairies with the victim in the Mojave Desert.

“We recognize how difficult it must have been for Anna’s family to wait decades for these answers,” Calgary Police Service (CPS) Staff Sgt. Sean Gregson said at a press conference Wednesday.

Last year, the Calgary Police Service’s Historical Homicide Team came across Just’s case while investigating other unsolved files of missing women. Investigators found Just was not listed on any local, national or international databases, Gregson said.

“Hard copy documents and retention policies were very different back then,” he said. “So some of that information over this long time has been lost.”

Investigators then contacted the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and learned Just was believed to be the victim of a homicide, but her remains had never been located.

CPS also began looking for any living relatives of Just who could provide a DNA sample. Gregson said they located Just’s sister, a 97-year-old Calgarian, last November, and collected her DNA before submitting it with Just’s missing person profile to international databases, including the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).

Last month, Las Vegas police alerted CPS detectives that a match had been found.

Just worked as a stenographer and lived in Calgary’s southwest neighbourhood of Richmond, according to local newspaper articles from the time of her disappearance. 

On March 6, 1968, the Calgary Herald reported several of Just’s belongings were found outside of Las Vegas. Three hikers spotted a purse handle sticking out of the ground. It contained a plane ticket, a passport and some human hair. Other personal effects were found close by, including clothing and a bloodstained cloth.

Las Vegas homicide detectives also uncovered the skeleton of a woman more than 100 kilometres outside of the city, but after comparing it to medical files of Just, concluded it was not her.