In the fall of 1969, a young, unidentified woman was found brutally murdered in Los Angeles. Without a name, she was called Jane Doe #59—the fifty-ninth unknown female homicide victim in a year like no other, when a rash of gruesome, unsolved killings had the City of Angels gripped in fear. The only possible clue to Jane Doe’s identity was a label in her jacket that said “Made in Canada.” However, no one in Canada had reported a woman missing who matched her description. Without knowing who she was, it would be almost impossible to find her killer. The case quickly went cold.
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Three decades later, a detective in Los Angeles working in a newly formed cold case unit decided to use modern scientific testing and the internet in a renewed search for the identity of Jane Doe #59. However, it would take several more years to identify Jane Doe #59. When the detective released a chilling photo of a deceased woman on a national database of unidentified murder victims, someone finally recognized her. A DNA match with a family member ultimately confirmed that she was Reet Silvia Jurvetson, a nineteen-year-old from Montreal. When Reet’s friends were interviewed by police, they said they believed she had followed a young man named Jean to Los Angeles in the weeks before she died.
Reet’s murder was a savage crime that occurred only three months after one of the worst killing sprees in Los Angeles history, when pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six other innocent people were butchered. Was Reet Jurvetson another victim of Charles Manson and his family of drugged-out misfits? This was a long-held theory by some, but the original investigators believed her murder was much more personal. A “crime of passion,” they called it, likely carried out by someone she knew and trusted. The mystery of her identity had been solved, but her killer’s name was lost to time.
Uncovering who Reet was also revealed another lingering mystery. For years, Los Angeles investigators searched through missing-person bulletins and, decades later, online databases, but there was never a match. Someone, somewhere, had to be missing her, they thought. However, they were mistaken. Once Reet was identified, there came the startling realization that no one in her family had ever filed a missing-person report after her unexplained disappearance in 1969.
In the summer of 2021, fifty-two years after Reet’s murder and six years after she was officially identified, I produced a podcast about the story. As a Canadian with a home in Los Angeles, I have written several true crime podcasts about Canadians who pursued their dreams in La La Land, only to face tragic endings. Los Angeles has long been a sun-soaked destination for those chasing fame and fortune. But Reet came to LA for different reasons. She was a young woman seeking independence, adventure, and romance. She was in love, and a special someone was waiting for her in Los Angeles.
But love wasn’t what she found when she arrived, and tragically, she would never go home again. Her all-too-brief life was reduced to a police case file number and a Bankers Box collecting dust in a warehouse among thousands of other cardboard boxes in a city with a soaring murder rate. The overworked homicide detectives still searching for her killer eventually moved on or retired.
I moved on too. There were more stories, murders, and victims—producing a true crime podcast is not for the faint of heart. I rewatched a compelling documentary about Reet’s story, produced by the CBC’s The Fifth Estate in 2017. Something about Reet haunted me: the girl with the deep-set eyes and sweet smile, someone with so much to live for.
It is widely acknowledged among cold case investigators that a killer’s name can often be found in the original murder file. We have all heard stories and seen true crime shows featuring the neighbour who was briefly questioned or the boyfriend who seemed to have an airtight alibi. Yet, cases go cold, and it can take years, even decades, before a file is reopened—if it is reopened at all. When an experienced cold case investigator reviews a historical case, their task is to return to square one, reimagining the crime as if it has just occurred, and then use modern science and technology to reassess the evidence. In many instances, new science and a fresh focus on a cold case file have revealed killers hiding in plain sight.
I was deep in my research when Detective Don Simpson, a retired Montreal police investigator who was helping with the case, texted me: “I think we found Jean.” It was something I had hoped for, even dreamed about. “I have a million questions,” I texted back. “Can you call me?”
I soon learned that Detective Rivera, the LA cold case investigator assigned to Reet’s case, had told Simpson about a friend of Reet’s, whom LA police had interviewed in Montreal in 2016, who had mentioned the names of two local bands. The 1960s were a vibrant period for the Montreal music scene. Heavily influenced by the American music landscape and the British Invasion, garage bands were emerging everywhere. Reet’s friend supplied Rivera with the names of several band members, suggesting they might know who Jean was.
One of the bands mentioned by Reet’s friend was Les Sinners, formed in the summer of 1965 by four teenagers from the Outremont neighbourhood of Montreal. Known as the band of young “bums from good families,” they emerged as one of Quebec’s pioneering, anti-establishment, French-speaking rock groups. Influenced by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, they created French versions of popular English-language hits. Their francophone cover of the Beatles’ song “Penny Lane” gained widespread popularity in Quebec, and their debut studio album, Sinnerisme, was released in 1967. That same year, they performed at Expo 67.
The band cycled through various members over the years, but it was one of the original members who caught Simpson’s eye. With brown feathered hair and high cheekbones, he certainly had the look of a rock star. Simpson pulled up the forensic artist’s sketch of Jean, which was commissioned by the CBC for the Fifth Estate episode on Reet. Simpson thought the resemblance was uncanny. The man’s name wasn’t Jean, but it was eerily close. His name was Jules, though he went by “Jay.”
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what was the value of a sketch and some photographs from over fifty years ago? A lot of guys back then looked like shaggy-haired rock stars. I wasn’t sure what to think, but I couldn’t discount Simpson’s hunch. Experienced cops like him had expert training and intuition when it came to identifying people. Looking at the forensic sketch and a 1960s photo of the man, I had to agree that they were very similar. The eyes, the nose, the lips—every detail seemed to match.
“The guy passed away in 2021,” Simpson told me. My initial joy transformed into disappointment. Unfortunately, this is the reality of many cold cases: long-awaited answers and any chance of justice ending with an obituary. Still, I was eager to learn more.
