A missing California millionaire’s remains have been identified 45 years after the 80-year-old woman disappeared without a trace.
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Thelma Jeanette Gaston went missing on June 28, 1981, and although a man was sent to prison for her murder, her body had never been found. That is, until the Riverside County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Bureau received a grant to re-examine long-standing cases with new forensic technology.
A set of remains found the same year that Gaston went missing were re-examined using genetic genealogy, dental records and “advanced forensic DNA testing” with the help of a private laboratory.
“DNA recovered from the remains was analyzed using investigative genetic genealogy, ultimately leading to the restoration of Ms. Gaston’s identity,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
The only clue left at Gaston’s home at the time of her disappearance was a note to say that the widow went looking for her cat, the Los Angeles Police Department said at the time.
But police found subsequent letters that were purportedly written by Gaston that said she was off to enjoy “some fun in life” and left her estate to a 39-year-old carpet salesman named Lawrence Remsen, The Los Angeles Times reported in August 1981.
It’s unclear how much Gaston was worth at the time. The Los Angeles Times reported her fortune as an estimated $20 million, while the Chicago Tribune reported her assets as close to $100 million.
Gaston’s family and business associates were unconvinced and Remsen, described as her “companion,” went missing not long after her disappearance. He was arrested crossing the border from Mexico into Texas in September 1981, according to a news clipping from the Chicago Tribune.
Investigators believed he murdered Gaston in addition to forging documents to siphon off her accounts, the Tribune reported. Police had evidence that Remsen forged Gaston’s name on documents giving him power of attorney and used that to transfer $20,000 to an account in the Cayman Islands. He also tried to negotiate the sale of several parcels of land she owned, according to the Tribune.
Her nephew, John Mittrick, said at the time that there was a will that gave a large portion of her estate to his daughters. There were no witnesses who saw Gaston sign that will and Mittrick alleged that the document had been stolen from his briefcase.
Two others were shown to the court by the county administrator. One that was dated in 1962 left Gaston’s estate to her sister, Ella Wilcox. The other was dated in 1979 and included both her sister and Mittrick’s daughters. It also named Mittrick, an attorney, as the executor, according to the Tribune’s 1981 report.
Both Wilcox and Mittrick are now deceased. NBC News was unable to reach a woman listed in public records as Mittrick’s daughter Monday.
Remsen was eventually convicted of Gaston’s murder in a nonjury trial in 1983, though Gaston’s body was never found. He testified at trial that he found Gaston dead of natural causes and that he decided to take advantage of her death.
He testified that he attached weights to her body before disposing of it at sea, according to a Los Angeles Times report.
But this doesn’t appear to be the truth based on where the remains identified this year were originally discovered. Those remains were found in a shallow grave near Sugar Loaf Mountain in November 1981, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said.
Superior Court Judge Gordon Ringer didn’t believe the story, calling Remsen an “incompetent scoundrel.”
Remsen was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for Gaston’s murder and another six years in connection with the forgery charges. He remains in prison at the California Institution for Men.
Now 83 years old, Remsen has been denied parole four times since 2016, and legal filings show he has also been denied appeals regarding his continued incarceration.
He does not have an attorney and his daughter, who is listed in his appeal documents, did not immediately return a request for comment from NBC News on Monday.