She Was Stabbed Over 150 Times And It Took 46 Years To Identify Her; Could She Have Been A Manson Murder Victim?
Los Angeles, California. On November 16th, 1969, a 15-year-old birdwatcher came across something far more sinister than he bargained for.
The boy was on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles, which is famous for having some of the most expensive homes and views of the Hollywood Sign.
And it was also 6 miles away from where Sharon Tate was brutally murdered that same year, just three months earlier on August 9th.
In the heavy brush just off the road, there was a woman sitting upright, dressed in a Candian-made jeans jacket and bell-bottom style jeans.
She was 5 foot 9. 112 pounds. She had dark hair and green eyes. She was 19-years-old. She had been stabbed more than 150 times.
She had no ID on her. She was covered in blood from head to toe, but there was not a lot of blood pooled around her.
At the scene, there were blood marks on the road near where she was found, leading investigators to think that she had been murdered somewhere else, probably driven to the location where she was found, dragged out of the car, and pushed off the side of the road.
An autopsy was performed, and it was revealed that she had passed away a day or so before being found.
Family photo; pictured above is the victim
If true crime defines your free time, this is for you: join Chip Chick’s True Crime Tribe.
She had exactly 157 stab wounds to her chest, neck, and torso that had been made by a penknife. She had put up a fight against her attacker; the defensive wounds on her hands attested to that.
She had eaten two hours before she passed. There was no evidence that she had drugs or alcohol in her system.
She was deemed “Jane Doe 59,” since she was the 59th unidentified woman found that year, and informally called “Sherry Doe.”
Authorities tried to piece together who she was in the days that followed her discovery. Those days turned into months. Those months turned into years. Those years piled up into decades.
It ended up taking 46 years to identify her. Could she have been a Manson murder victim, especially since she was so close to where Sharon Tate had her life cut short by Charles Manson’s followers?
Here’s who she is and who could have been responsible for her death.
Family photo; pictured above Jane Doe 59 smiles in a black and white photo
As soon as Jane Doe 59 was found, the police had a strong suspicion that her death was somehow connected to Charles Manson and his followers.
She had been found on Mulholland Drive, which is between where Sharon Tate, her unborn baby boy, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent were murdered at 10050 Cielo Drive, and where Leno and Rosemary LaBianca had been murdered at 3301 Waverly Place.
Another young woman, 17-year-old Marina Habe, had been found murdered on Mulholland Drive on New Year’s Day of 1969.
Just like Jane Doe 59, she was young, beautiful, and had dark hair. She had also been found with all of her clothes on and she had been stabbed to death.
Police thought perhaps she had been a victim of Charles Manson and his followers, but there’s also the possibility that’s not the case, and Marina and Jane Doe 59’s killer were the same person.
Family photo; pictured above is Jane Doe 59 as a teenager
The police went straight to Charles Manson (who was behind bars) to ask if Jane Doe 59 had been one of his victims or one of the women at the ranch, and at the time he wouldn’t give a straight answer.
Later on, Manson did boast to a cellmate of his that he had murdered up to 35 people, and his followers did go around saying there were more victims as well. Did some or one of his family members murder her and he didn’t own up to it?
Vincent Bugliosi, the former prosecutor of Charles Manson, said in his book called Helter Skelter that he truly thought Jane Doe 59 had been stabbed after witnessing the murder of John Phillip Haught.
John had lived with the Manson family, although police determined his death on November 5th, 1969, had been a suicide after playing a game of Russian Roulette.
When Jane Doe 59’s true identity came to light 46 years later, another possibility of who her murderer was did too.
Family photo; pictured above Jane Doe 59, identified as Reet Jurvetson, poses with her hands on her hips
It was June of 2015. Friend’s of Anne Jurvetson’s long-lost sister Reet reached out to her saying they had come across a post-mortem photograph on several different websites that looked just like Reet.
Anne spoke with authorities and submitted a sample of her DNA to be tested against a DNA sample that had been taken from the blood-soaked bra of Jane Doe 59.
It was a match.
Jane Doe 59 was Reet Jurvetson. Reet had hopped on a bus and moved to Los Angeles from Montreal, Canada in the later months of the summer of 1969.
Her sister Anne described her as, “a lovely, free-spirited and happy girl. She was very artistic, drew well, and liked to sew her own clothes.”
Family photo; Reet smiles in the photo above
Reet made the move to LA after saving up all of her money so she could see a man she had met in Toronto while working at the post office.
His name was John or Jean, and a witness who knew Reet and had met this mysterious man told the Los Angeles Police Department he was a good-looking man with a bit of a French accent and a resemblance to Jim Morrison.
“On July 7, 2016, detectives interviewed a witness in Montreal, Canada regarding the person of interest named “John” or “Jean (possibly French Canadian).” The witness remembers meeting Reet Jurvetson and “John/ Jean” at Café Image in Montreal, Canada, and provided a sketch of “John/Jean” as he appeared in 1969,” the LAPD said in a news release.
“An additional sketch of an associate was provided, which may help any potential witnesses recall seeing them together. The second male, who was shorter in stature and sported a short “Beatles” type hairstyle. The associate has not been positively identified, but could be named “Jean” as well.”
Some people have speculated that this John man might very well have been John Phillip Haught, but he didn’t look like the composite sketch that was released. Another interesting theory is that this John is the same John that Marina Habe had been dating before she died.
Los Angeles Police Department; pictured above is the man Reet moved to LA to see, along with what authorities suspect is the man’s roommate
Around 16 days before Reet was murdered, she sent her family a postcard on October 31st, 1969. It was written in Estonian, her family’s native language and the return address Reet had written in was 5311 Melrose Avenue, Apt 306, Hollywood, California 90038.
Her postcard said:
Dear Mother and Father,
The weather is nice and the people are kind.
I have a nice little apartment.
I go frequently to the beach.
Please write to me.
Hugs, Reet
Los Angeles Police Department; pictured above is the postcard Reet sent to her parents
Police are trying to see if anyone that lived there while Reet did can provide them with any further information, but given the time that has elapsed, it’s proving difficult.
In 2015, the LAPD went to visit Charles Manson again behind bars to show him photos of Reet after she was identified as Jane Doe 59. They asked him a second time if Reet was someone that he had known.
Manson basically told the police he wouldn’t have let them know if he did know her anyway, so that was quite literally a dead end.
Anne has said in a rare interview with La Presse that she wishes she could have brought Reet home to Montreal. “It is impossible. She was incinerated, and her ashes are buried in a mass grave, somewhere in Los Angeles.”
If you have any information about Reet’s murder, please contact Detectives Luis Rivera and Veronica Conrado at 213-486-6818. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (800-222-8477).
Family photo; pictured above is Reet, her sister, and their parents
More About:True Crime
Read This Next
