A decades-old Southern California mystery has finally been resolved after authorities identified a “severely decomposed” woman found in a shallow grave 45 years ago as an 80-year-old missing multimillionaire who was killed by her far younger lover.
The victim, Thelma Jeanette Gaston, was a wealthy Los Angeles County real estate investor whose fortune was estimated at about $20 million. Investigators say she was murdered by 39-year-old Lawrence Remsen, who later forged paperwork in an apparent bid to gain control of her assets after she vanished in June 1981.
Gaston has now been confirmed as the unidentified “Jane Doe” whose remains were discovered in November 1981 in a shallow grave near Sugar Loaf Mountain, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday.
“After more than four decades, investigators with the Riverside Sheriff’s Coroner’s Bureau and the Riverside Cold Case Homicide Team have positively identified a female homicide victim as Thelma Gaston. Ms. Gaston was the victim of a 1981 homicide that occurred in Los Angeles County,” the sheriff’s office said.
For years, the condition of the remains left detectives with few options, preventing them from putting a name to the victim until major breakthroughs in forensic science created new paths toward identification.
Officials said the long-unsolved cold case was cracked in May through a combination of dental records and genetic genealogy, tools that have increasingly helped law enforcement solve decades-old homicide investigations.
Gaston was last seen on June 28, 1981. According to the Los Angeles Times, her final known communication was a note left at her Rancho Park home saying she had gone out to search for her cat.
Other letters, purportedly written by Gaston, claimed she was handing control of her affairs to Remsen because “everyone is after my money,” and added, “I am going to have some fun in life and nobody is going to stop me.”
The letters left behind did not fit Gaston’s character, her nephew and longtime associate, John Mittrick, told police, describing the woman as a “shrewd businesswoman who made a great deal of money purchasing tax-repossessed real estate,” according to the outlet.
The documents were found to have been certified by a stolen notary stamp with Gaston’s signatures being forged, SFGate reported.
Remsen, a former carpet salesman and burglar alarm company worker, conned his way into Gaston’s life, portraying himself as her lover as the two even discussed marriage before her death.
Police discovered Remsen had attempted to sell Gaston’s possessions and extract over $100,000 from her bank accounts, the outlet reported.
The con-artist went on the lam shortly after Gaston’s disappearance, but police raided his West Los Angeles apartment and found several stolen items belonging to the octogenarian, along with her Mercedes in the garage.
Police didn’t confiscate the car because it wasn’t stolen, but when officers returned to the house a day later it was missing.
Remsen was captured by police in Texas attempting to cross the border into Mexico in September 1981.
He later claimed Gaston died of natural causes inside her home and he buried her body at sea.
A judge convicted Remsen of second-degree murder, saying he killed Gaston “intentionally and with malice” in 1983.
Despite Gaston’s body not being positively identified, Remsen was sentenced to life in prison with the judge calling him an “incompetent scoundrel.”
He was sentenced to life in prison, despite her body not being positively identified.
Remsen, 83, has been denied parole four times since 2016, including on April 12, 2023, and his appeals against further incarceration have also been denied, NBC News reported.
