Mystery of headless woman drained of blood deepens in California

Some murder cases are horrifying.Others are so disturbing that even veteran homicide detectives say they’ve never seen anything like them.More than 15 years after a mutilated body was discovered abandoned in a Kern County vineyard, investigators are once again asking for the public’s help in solving the killing of 64-year-old Ada Beth Kaplan Moore, a case they say still haunts those who first responded, per KHTS.Moore’s remains were discovered on March 29, 2011 along a dirt road near a grape vineyard east of Wheeler Ridge Road in Arvin, roughly 60 miles north of Santa Clarita, where she had been living.

But for more than a decade, she was known only as “Jane Doe 2011.”According to the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, every traditional effort failed to identify the victim.There was no missing person report, fingerprint comparisons led nowhere, and investigators were left with almost no clues about who she was.Authorities later revealed why identifying her proved so difficult.Investigators say whoever killed Moore went to extraordinary lengths to conceal her identity.

Her body was found without clothing, her head was missing, both of her thumbs had been removed, and detectives believe her blood had been drained before her remains were left in the vineyard.The gruesome crime scene stunned even seasoned investigators.Former Kern County Sheriff’s detective Ray Pruitt told KGET that everyone at the scene struggled to comprehend what they were seeing.“I remember looking at the detectives and the sergeant on scene and the coroner investigator who had arrived on the scene and we were all kind of speechless,” admitted Pruitt.“We were all just looking at each other trying to get our minds around what we were looking at.

It was surreal.”While bodies are occasionally found in remote agricultural areas throughout Kern County, detectives have said this case was unlike anything they had encountered.Pruitt has described it as the type of homicide an investigato...