California
Headless woman drained of blood ID’d 13 years after being dumped in California vineyard: ‘Just creepy’

The mystery of a woman whose headless body was drained completely of blood and dumped in a California vineyard nearly 13 years ago has finally been solved, police announced last week.
Police named 64-year-old Ada Beth Kaplan as the naked, abused and partially decomposed corpse that was discovered in March 2011 in the city of Arvin, according to the Kern County Sheriff.
Kaplan was completely unrecognizable. Besides decapitating the woman and draining her blood, the killer had even taken the time to chop off her thumbs before laying her down on her back on the first roadway.
“This person took their time to pull into this dirt access road, remove the body, place it on the ground, and pose it in what I would consider a sexual manner and wanted the body found like that,” Homicide Sgt. David Hubbard told KGET.
Although they were unable to identify Kaplan, it was clear to detectives that they were looking at a murder victim.
The DNA they were able to scrap up, however, proved useless — there were no hits in any missing persons, crime scene or convicted persons indexes, the sheriff’s office said.
The case went cold for nine years until the Medical Examiner’s Office reached out to the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit that specializes in identifying John and Jane Does using investigative genetic genealogy.
This time, Kaplan’s DNA turned up multiple hits and connected investigators to multiple distant cousins spanning eight generations.
Researchers connected their Jane Doe to a rich Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry and combed through hordes of Eastern European records to build a family tree.
After comparing her DNA to two potential family members who resided on the East Coast, the team finally had a match.
“Our team worked long and hard for this identification,” Missy Koski, the volunteer group’s team leader, said in a statement.
“Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry is often complicated to unravel. When we brought in an expert in Jewish records and genealogy, that made a huge difference.”
Interviews with Kaplan’s family revealed why she had been so difficult to identify: no one ever filed a missing person report.
The disturbing events leading to her death and the person who killed her, however, remain a mystery.
Kaplan lived nearly 80 miles north of where her body was found, though police do not believe she was murdered at the vineyard.
The deranged murderer or murderers appeared “pretty comfortable committing this crime,” leaving officers baffled and uneasy that they could still be on the loose.
“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” Pruitt previously said.
“I’ve seen some pretty gruesome crime scenes and this was just … it was creepy.”

California
Murder charges filed after second woman killed during conjugal visit in California state prison

The family of a woman who was strangled to death last year during a conjugal visit with her husband at a Northern California prison has called for reforms after a second woman was killed in a similar manner.
Tania Thomas, 47, was killed in July while visiting her husband, Anthony Curry, overnight at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, according to Thomas’ cousin, Jeanine Rojo.
Curry was charged last week with murder in connection with Thomas’ death and is scheduled to be arraigned in April, court records show. Thomas had been strangled to death.
Tania Thomas, 47, was killed in July while visiting her husband, Anthony Curry, overnight at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione.
(Jeanine Rojo)
Thomas’ family hadn’t spoken out about her killing but decided to come forward after they saw Stephanie Brinson, 62, also killed in November while visiting husband David Brinson, 54, at the same prison.
Brinson hasn’t been charged in connection with his wife’s death. The investigation is ongoing.
Rojo called for more safety precautions for visitors during conjugal visits, including checking in on the meetings and better screening of who should be eligible to receive one.
“They definitely need to make urgent changes, because people’s lives are at stake here,” she said. “If they haven’t stopped these conjugal visits, they definitely have to stop that right now. Procedures need to change to make it safer.”
Thomas met Curry in 1999 and got pregnant, Rojo said. Curry disappeared with another woman when he found out Thomas was pregnant.
When Thomas was in labor, she saw Curry on the news because he was accused of shooting another woman, Synada Browning, in the head and dumping her body that same year. Browning survived the shooting but was blinded and left partially paralyzed. Curry, 48, was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for attempted second-degree murder.
But Thomas reunited with Curry while he was behind bars and secretly married him without telling her family in 2023, Rojo said. She added that Curry was denied parole last year but had asked Thomas to “wait for him” before he killed her.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not respond to a request for comment.
Stephanie Brinson was visiting her husband, David Brinson, at the same prison on Nov. 13, according to the CDCR. Around 2 a.m., Brinson told officers that his wife had passed out. Officers attempted lifesaving measures but she was pronounced dead at 2:51 a.m.
Amador County Dist. Atty. Todd Riebe confirmed that Stephanie Brinson was killed during a conjugal visit. He said he hadn’t received the reports from Mule Creek to make a charging decision.
In 1994, Brinson was sentenced to four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole for killing four men during a robbery at a Los Angeles apartment, The Times reported. He is currently incarcerated at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton.
Conjugal visits are intended to foster family connections, according to the corrections department. Inmates convicted of sex crimes, under disciplinary restrictions or on death row aren’t eligible for overnight visits.
Visits occur in apartment-like facilities in private and on prison grounds, according to the department. They last from 30 to 40 hours; inmates have to present themselves for a count four times in a 24-hour period.
California
Housing Legislation Aims to Snip Away at California’s Red Tape | KQED

California
Video shows harrowing moment hiker rescued from California cliffside: ‘Absolutely vertical’

Coast Guard rescues hiker ‘barely holding on’ to cliff after 100-foot fall
The US Coast Guard rescued two hikers in distress along California’s Lost Coast on March 22, one of whom had fallen down a 100-foot cliff.
A hiker who was “barely holding on” after a 100-foot fall from a northern California cliff was rescued in the nick of time, officials say.
Local agencies and a U.S. Coast Guard team in Humboldt County were called to stage the rescue of two hikers near the picturesque and popular Lost Coast Trail, a 25-mile along the California coastline over 200 miles north of San Francisco.
Rescue crews found the hikers along a steep cliff edge in the Big Flat Area, about 10 miles north of an area known as Shelter Cove, according to a news release from U.S. Coast Guard Sector Humboldt Bay.
One of the hikers who took a big fall clung to his hiking poles, about 60 feet above another unstable cliff, for dear life, the Coast Guard said.
“With no winds and limited power, the crew had to make quick decisions regarding fuel and patient delivery,” the agency said. “After jettisoning fuel and coming up with a plan to conduct 160-foot hoist, they were able to successfully extract the injured and bleeding patient from the cliff.”
Hiker’s companion was also rescued
After the dropping the injured hiker for emergency medical services, the Coast Guard returned to extract the hiker’s companion off a game trail.
“Both hoists required intense crew coordination due to the loose cliffside, dead trees, and limited power,” according to the Coast Guard. “The Shelter Cove Fire Ocean Rescue team provided crucial decisions and communication to make the evolution successful.”
Chief Nick Pape of the Shelter Cove Fire Department told SFGate that “below them was absolutely vertical, probably 60 feet to the boulders below.”
He told SFGate that the hikers were far off the designated Lost Coast Trail, popular among backpackers.
“They had no business being where they were,” he said.
The hiker who took the tumble suffered from a dislocated shoulder and unknown injuries that caused bleeding, while their companion was “cliffed out” but otherwise uninjured. Shelter Cove Fire Department did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for a status update on the condition of the injured hiker on Thursday afternoon.
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