STOCKTON, Calif. — We now know the identity of a woman killed and left in a refrigerator in San Joaquin County 27 years ago.
Investigators held a press conference Thursday detailing how they identified Amanda Lynn Schumann Deza.
CASE HISTORY
A person recycling in Holt came upon a partially submerged refrigerator in an irrigation canal off Bacon Island Road in March 1995. Inside the refrigerator was a woman’s body.
Investigators believed she had been in the refrigerator for several months prior to being found, and her body had obvious signs of injury.
Information about the case was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, but with no hits, the case went cold.
The sheriff’s office says new science and technology — investigative genealogy — helped them identify her.
Last year the sheriff’s office and medical examiner’s office partnered with Othram and they sent skeletal evidence to the company’s lab for a DNA extract and genome sequencing.
Othram returned a DNA profile and their team identified leads for the victim’s family or relatives, leading investigators to the victim’s mother and daughter.
DNA samples revealed the identity of the victim as Amanda Lynn Schumann Deza.
With her identity, investigators have released more information about her life around the time she was killed.
The sheriff’s office says Deza was separated from her husband and had three children when she disappeared. Her family says she was last seen at an apartment complex in Napa with an unidentified man she met in rehab.
Anyone with information about this case can call the sheriff’s office at 209-468-5087.
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