Authorities have tentatively ID'd
Lady in the Light Blue T-Bird
MARYVILLE 11/1/02 - Yuba County authorities think they know the name of the woman whose skeleton was found in a car mired on the bottom of Lake Ellis Oct. 20, but are withholding it pending scientific confirmation of her identity.
Still, some details of the woman's life have emerged in talks with the Yuba County coroner's deputies and Marysville police detectives piecing together how the lady came to languish in a submerged light blue Thunderbird for 21 years.
The lady in the lake was 33 years old and the mother of three children, two boys and one girl, all between 12 and 15 years old. She arrived in Marysville in 1981 after sojourning in various states, including Texas where she obtained a driving license, sheriff's Lieutenant Cindy Eaves said Friday.
It was information on the partial remains of the long-soaked license that ultimately lead detectives to her identity, though positive legal identification must await DNA analysis by the state Department of Justice crime laboratory, Eaves said.
Detectives have contacted two of the children - a man and a woman - who live in North Carolina. They expect to forward their own DNA samples for comparison, which could take two to three months, Eaves said.
While in Marysville, she lived with a boyfriend and her 12-year-old son and worked as the manager of a local motel.
As family members remember it, the woman left home to go to the grocery store, Oct. 10, 1981, but never came back. After waiting and waiting, the boy trudged to the store to see if he could his mother or the T-Bird, but could not. He returned home where he continued to wait until authorities came and took him away.
"What's sad is, imagine going through your whole life thinking your mother abandoned you," Eaves said.
But her children apparently never gave up hope of finding her, Eaves said. They wrote to "America's Most Wanted" and "60 minutes" pleading to have their mother's disappearance featured on national television.
Neither program followed up, but a third show the children approached, "Montel Williams," was scheduled to tell their mother's tale on a forthcoming show about mysterious vanishings, Marysville Police Detective Sergeant Mark Cummings said.
No foul play is suspected in the case of the lady in the lake, said Cummings, who heads the investigation.
The car was found beside another vehicle that had more recently jumped the curb where 10th Street tees into B Street and dead-ends into Lake Ellis. It is a deceptive junction.
"At night in the winter with the leaves off the trees you can see the (10th Street Bridge). If the leaves are wet, with all the reflections and glistening, you'd never know the street ended there. I've been fooled by it myself," Cummings said.
Moreover, there was physical evidence to support a conclusion of simple human error.
The heater was on. The lights were on. The key was in the ignition and in the on position. The electric windows were up and the doors were heavy, Cummings said.
"Once underwater there'd be no way she could get the windows down or the door open," Cummings said.
"Besides, there's no way anyone could plan to have the car land there right next to another car that's jumped the curb and gone into the lake. That's TV," Cummings scoffed.
Lady in the Light Blue T-Bird
MARYVILLE 11/1/02 - Yuba County authorities think they know the name of the woman whose skeleton was found in a car mired on the bottom of Lake Ellis Oct. 20, but are withholding it pending scientific confirmation of her identity.
Still, some details of the woman's life have emerged in talks with the Yuba County coroner's deputies and Marysville police detectives piecing together how the lady came to languish in a submerged light blue Thunderbird for 21 years.
The lady in the lake was 33 years old and the mother of three children, two boys and one girl, all between 12 and 15 years old. She arrived in Marysville in 1981 after sojourning in various states, including Texas where she obtained a driving license, sheriff's Lieutenant Cindy Eaves said Friday.
It was information on the partial remains of the long-soaked license that ultimately lead detectives to her identity, though positive legal identification must await DNA analysis by the state Department of Justice crime laboratory, Eaves said.
Detectives have contacted two of the children - a man and a woman - who live in North Carolina. They expect to forward their own DNA samples for comparison, which could take two to three months, Eaves said.
While in Marysville, she lived with a boyfriend and her 12-year-old son and worked as the manager of a local motel.
As family members remember it, the woman left home to go to the grocery store, Oct. 10, 1981, but never came back. After waiting and waiting, the boy trudged to the store to see if he could his mother or the T-Bird, but could not. He returned home where he continued to wait until authorities came and took him away.
"What's sad is, imagine going through your whole life thinking your mother abandoned you," Eaves said.
But her children apparently never gave up hope of finding her, Eaves said. They wrote to "America's Most Wanted" and "60 minutes" pleading to have their mother's disappearance featured on national television.
Neither program followed up, but a third show the children approached, "Montel Williams," was scheduled to tell their mother's tale on a forthcoming show about mysterious vanishings, Marysville Police Detective Sergeant Mark Cummings said.
No foul play is suspected in the case of the lady in the lake, said Cummings, who heads the investigation.
The car was found beside another vehicle that had more recently jumped the curb where 10th Street tees into B Street and dead-ends into Lake Ellis. It is a deceptive junction.
"At night in the winter with the leaves off the trees you can see the (10th Street Bridge). If the leaves are wet, with all the reflections and glistening, you'd never know the street ended there. I've been fooled by it myself," Cummings said.
Moreover, there was physical evidence to support a conclusion of simple human error.
The heater was on. The lights were on. The key was in the ignition and in the on position. The electric windows were up and the doors were heavy, Cummings said.
"Once underwater there'd be no way she could get the windows down or the door open," Cummings said.
"Besides, there's no way anyone could plan to have the car land there right next to another car that's jumped the curb and gone into the lake. That's TV," Cummings scoffed.
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