REOPENED: Missing and Murdered

Summary

Cold Case Files – REOPENED: Missing and Murdered
Aired: May 28, 2026 | Host: Marisa Pinson (A&E/PodcastOne)

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode traces the decades-long search to solve the 1980 murder of Shirley Souzay—a member of the Samson Cree Nation who vanished after leaving her reserve in Alberta, Canada. The investigation explores not only Shirley's disappearance, but also the plight of missing and murdered Indigenous women, the challenges of identifying “Jane Does”, and the breakthroughs—both forensic and familial—that finally gave Shirley her name back and brought some peace to her family. Listeners get a detailed look at how detective work, DNA genealogy, and Indigenous resilience converged to crack a nearly 40-year-old cold case.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Shirley Souzay: Background and Disappearance

• [01:39] Violet Souzay (Shirley’s niece): Describes Shirley's strong Cree roots and family life in Samson Cree Nation. Shirley helped with ranch work and was closely bonded with her mother.

• Economic hardship strikes after Shirley's father dies in 1959. As a teen, Shirley leaves the reserve in search of opportunities ([04:09]).

  • Quote: “Shirley did as much as she could to help out but there was no steady employment on the reservations here and she left the reserve.” —Violet Souzay [04:43]

• In her 20s, Shirley moves to Vancouver, has two sons, but loses custody amid cultural bias against Indigenous mothers ([05:00], [05:20]). Addiction follows.

• Family and friends notice dramatic changes in Shirley’s demeanor ([05:39]-[06:11]), and Shirley indicates reluctance to return home due to grief and alienation.

The Jane Doe Cases: Kern and Ventura Counties

• [07:11] July 15, 1980: The body of a woman—later revealed to be Shirley—is discovered in an almond orchard in Kern County, California. No ID, but two tattoos ("Shirley" and "Seattle") hint at her identity.

  • Bill Hacker (Kern County Deputy): “I had never seen a victim that was stabbed that many times. This was not an accident. The suspect meant to kill our victim.” [08:10]

• Three days later, a second woman is found murdered in Ventura County under similar circumstances ([11:03]). Both cases go cold as neither victim is identified and forensics are limited by the era.

• Investigators chase leads on tattoos, DNA, and local tips, but run out of options ([09:28], [12:34]).

Family Search Continues

• [15:02-17:38] Shirley’s family repeatedly searches Vancouver, refusing to give up hope. Personal resources and tenacity are all they have; photos lost in a fire worsen their efforts.

• Quote: “Every year Violet and aunt Belle make the trip from Alberta to Vancouver in search of Shirley... It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.” —Narrator & Violet Souzay [16:01-16:18]

Breakthrough in the Investigation

• [18:05] 2003: Kern County's cold case unit returns to the case, investigating previously unexplored Seattle connections, but still no results.

• [19:10-20:21] DNA from Ventura Jane Doe’s rape kit is finally entered into CODIS, matching serial rapist and felon Wilson Chouest, who had been released on parole just before the murders.

  • Steve Rhodes (Investigator): “That DNA match was to a convicted felon named Wilson Chouest.” [19:41]

• Chouest denies involvement, but further investigation reveals he stayed with Carolyn Bell’s family in July 1980—near the crime scenes ([21:10-24:26]).

  • Carolyn Bell recounts: Chouest asked her sons to clean blood from his car, claiming he hit a deer ([24:36]).
  • Her son Scott later says Chouest admitted killing a woman near Bakersfield ([24:59]), leading to the breakthrough connecting Chouest to at least one murder.

• [25:32] Chouest is tried and convicted in 2018 for both Jane Doe murders, receiving two consecutive life sentences.

Genealogy & The Power of Promise: Giving Jane Doe Back Her Name

• [26:50] Investigator Rhodes, unable to ID the victims, reaches out to the DNA Doe Project. Trish Herchebys, Indigenous genealogist, works the case with deep personal resonance due to her own family history with the Sixties Scoop ([27:26-29:11]).

• [29:14] A new sketch of Kern County Jane Doe circulates on Facebook. Violet Souzay recognizes Shirley from the tattoos—and through DNA confirmation, Shirley is finally named in July 2021, 41 years after her murder.

  • Quote: “When I found out that it was Shirley... we traveled down to California and did a little ceremony for her.” —Violet Souzay [29:59]

• Jane Doe Ventura remains unidentified, though investigators believe they are close.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Violet Souzay on her promise “[In Cree culture] when you make a promise, you have to follow through.” [01:39]
• On systemic negligence: “Being told that ‘oh, she’s probably just another dead Indian’…” —Violet Souzay [01:58]
• On Indigenous women’s struggles: “Indigenous women were not seen and respected enough to keep their own children.” —Violet Souzay [05:20]
• The search's emotional toll: “I didn’t think I would get old looking for Shirley.” —Violet [15:31]
• Closure and ceremony: “We need to honor her with our traditional ceremonies and to send her back to mother earth... bringing her home... then I’ll feel my promise is complete.” —Violet Souzay [32:18-32:58]

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:39] Introduction of Shirley’s family and the cultural context of the Fire Keeper promise
• [07:11] Discovery of Jane Doe (Shirley) in Kern County
• [11:03] Discovery of second Jane Doe in Ventura County
• [15:02-17:38] Family's continual search and emotional toll
• [19:10-21:24] DNA breakthrough and identification of Wilson Chouest as suspect
• [24:53-25:16] Chouest’s confession to Carolyn Bell’s sons
• [25:32] Charges, trial, and conviction of Wilson Chouest
• [26:50-29:11] DNA Doe Project and the breakthrough in naming Shirley
• [29:59-30:59] Violet’s reaction to identifying Shirley and emotional family ceremony
• [32:18-32:58] The cultural importance of bringing Shirley home and completing the promise

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Closing Thoughts

This episode intertwines a tragic personal story with the broader, urgent ongoing issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women across North America. It lays bare the impacts of systemic neglect, the transformative power of new forensic technology, and the undying love of a niece who refused, for decades, to let her aunt be forgotten. The last words belong to Violet and her family, whose promise and persistence ultimately brought Shirley home.

If you have any information about the Ventura County Jane Doe, contact: 805-654-2500.

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For more Cold Case Files:
Visit AETV.com/coldcasefiles

Transcript

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[Narrator/Investigator]

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[Narrator]

this episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault listener discretion is advised

[Violet Souzay]

my name is violet souzay my korean name is bisomok squill and i need to talk about my auntie shirley when shirley left the reserve shirley would write letters home in nineteen eighty the letters stopped over the years we stopped relying on the police being told that oh she's probably just another dead indian shirley's mother said promise me you'll find her and bring her home the cree name for women is esquel which means the fire keeper we are the keepers of the culture when you make a promise in our culture you have to follow through

[Narrator]

there are one hundred twenty thousand unsolved murders in america each one is a cold case only one percent are ever solved this is one of those rare stories

[Violet Souzay]

samson cree nation is in the center of alberta between edmonton and calgary we are a population of about twenty thousand the values of our people are very strong and they carry on through generation to generation shirley sousay was

[Narrator]

born on the sampson cree reserve in alberta canada in nineteen forty five she was one of eight children her niece violet recalls her close relationship with shirley

[Violet Souzay]

shirley spent a lot of time with me in my early childhood she always made it fun and i have memories of her always smiling and laughing shirley and her mother were close her mother was a beader she would make regalia in beadwork for members of our tribe shirley's dad had ranched along the battle river shirley helped not only in the household but outdoors with the cattle and horses

[Narrator]

shirley's father dies following a short and sudden illness in nineteen fifty nine and life for fourteen year old shirley becomes very difficult maintaining the farm and ranch is tough without the head of the family and soon the farm is losing a lot of income shirley met her childhood friend flora cardinal northwest when she was thirteen years old shirley came

[Family Member/Community Member]

from a very strong traditional family she honored her mom she really worked hard

[Narrator]

shirley has ambitions to move to the city and find a job shirley did

[Violet Souzay]

as much as she could to help out but there was no steady employment on the reservations here and she left the reserve

[Narrator]

in the mid seventies shirley sousay moves to vancouver she's in her twenties at the time it wasn't long

[Violet Souzay]

after that she met a man and she had two boys

[Narrator]

unfortunately the relationship breaks down after a few years and shirley's ex takes the children shirley ends up on the street and her kids are sent to foster homes indigenous women

[Violet Souzay]

were not seen and respected enough to keep their own children she would not ever get to see her boys again she basically gave up and turned to alcohol and drugs

[Narrator]

flora and violet remember the change in shirley's demeanor on the rare occasions they meet in nineteen seventy

[Family Member/Community Member]

five we used to go to these dances and shirley was there she never moved she never blinked her eyes i said what's wrong with my friend is she sick she has an addiction that was the last time i saw shirley

[Narrator]

shirley's brother passed away two years earlier and shirley made a decision that she would not be coming back to the

[Violet Souzay]

reserve shirley would come home from time to time to visit her mother in nineteen seventy seven she came home for my father's future i noticed that she was different i asked her are you going to stay home now and she says no now that my brother is gone i don't want to come back and i might go visit my friends in seattle shirley's mother used to say in cree you should stay in one place now because nobody will know you i said maybe you can get tattoos you know with the name shirley she said yeah maybe maybe i will it was almost like her mother's premonition that something would happen to shirley

[Narrator]

it's july fifteenth nineteen eighty in kern county california some field workers are laboring in an almond orchard approximately one mile from highway ninety nine when they stumble upon a horrific scene the body of a dead woman is curled up in a fetal position she looks to be around thirty five years of age and she's wearing a pink top blue jeans and almost spotless white sneakers the workers immediately report their finding to the sheriff's office in kern county

[Bill Hacker (Kern County Deputy)]

my name is bill hacker i was a senior deputy for the kern county sheriff's department for thirty years when the homicide detectives arrived on scene and they examined the young lady they noticed that some of the facial features led them to believe that she may be native american

[Narrator]

the victim has no jewelry purse or identification and the front of her top is completely saturated in

[Bill Hacker (Kern County Deputy)]

blood i had never seen a victim that was stabbed that many times this was not an accident the suspect meant to kill our victim in examining the scene the detectives saw that there were tire tracks but there was no other footprints so the investigators theorized that the young lady was killed elsewhere it's commonly referred to as a body dump

[Narrator]

without the victim's name or a means of identifying her the investigators have no idea where to begin looking for witnesses

[Family Member/Community Member]

the

[Narrator]

woman's body is taken to the coroner's office and it's determined that she had been raped swabs of the semen are collected as evidence the jane doe has two tattoos one is a rose with the word mother above it and the words i love you were inked below it the other is a heart with the name shirley across it above the heart it said i love you and below it it said seattle ventura county cold case investigator steve rhodes describes the difficulty detectives have while investigating the unidentified victim's murder when we get a jane

[Narrator/Investigator]

doe case you have to start at square one who was she where did she come from who is her family who can tell us about her and in this particular case we had none of that

[Narrator]

the police speak with workers at local farms and show them a photograph of the victim but no one

[Bill Hacker (Kern County Deputy)]

recognizes her the detectives that were initially investigating this case followed every lead that came in to them they run the

[Narrator]

victim's fingerprints through the fingerprint database but it's nineteen eighty and they didn't have integrated computer systems or the internet so they came to a roadblock in the investigation but media appeals lead to a tip from a woman named pixie she

[Bill Hacker (Kern County Deputy)]

asked if the victim had a tattoo of a heart that said shirley and the word seattle on it our victim did in fact have a tattoo like

[Narrator/Investigator]

that she thought jane doe kern was a waitress in a bar outside of bakersfield or delano and thought her name was becky ochoa however they were never able to link the victim to a becky ochoa there were no other leads

[Bill Hacker (Kern County Deputy)]

that had come in unfortunately they were not able to identify her victim or a suspect

[Narrator]

on july eighteenth nineteen eighty three days after the woman's body was found in kern county another gruesome discovery is made in neighboring ventura county janitors

[Narrator/Investigator]

at westlake high school received a call of a mannequin lying in the parking lot they got closer and realized it was a young woman partially disrobed obvious stab wounds in her upper body her shoes were tossed up on the hillside bloody drag marks were seen in the parking lot she had been brought there in a car and drug up on the hillside where she was found

[Narrator]

the second victim has been murdered in the same way as the jane doe in kern county but the ventura county investigators are unaware of the similar case the kern county detectives are also oblivious to

[Narrator/Investigator]

the discovery when homicide investigators arrived at the westlake high school parking lot they discovered the victim was a latina female between twenty five and thirty years of age she had on a light colored top that was soaked in blood

[Narrator]

it's obvious that the victim had to put up a fight her arms and hands were covered in defensive weapons but the coroner determines that she was raped before she was killed the coroner also discovers that the woman had been stabbed approximately twenty nine times but without any form of identification found with the victim she will be known as jane doe ventura the investigators have no leads to follow so the case quickly goes cold

[Trish Herchebys (DNA Doe Project)]

back

[Narrator]

in kern county the detectives are still trying to identify their jane doe victim

[Bill Hacker (Kern County Deputy)]

detectives went to a tattoo shop here in bakersfield and showed a picture of the tattoos the tattoo artist stated that those tattoos probably came from a skid row area down in los angeles that also had a large native american population living in that area

[Narrator]

it's now january nineteen eighty one and the investigators head to los angeles to speak to tattoo artists but none of the people interviewed believed that the tattoos had been done in la by the end of the year the detectives have followed every lead but the case inevitably goes cold

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[Narrator]

in vancouver shirley sousay's family has stopped receiving letters leading them to worry about shirley's

[Violet Souzay]

welfare it was a very difficult time for shirley's mom she knew something was wrong something bad had happened shirley's mother

[Narrator]

fears the worst and after a year and a half of silence she asks her youngest daughter belle and her granddaughter violet to promise her that they will find shirley and bring her home as

[Violet Souzay]

women you know firekeepers you have to follow it through i was about twenty at that age i thought it would be easy i didn't think i would get old looking for shirley the first trip driving those twelve hours to vancouver i thought we'll find her we would save money for gas and lodgings and meals and then we would go

[Narrator]

every year violet and aunt belle make the trip from alberta to vancouver in search of shirley shirley is an adult who chose to leave her family farm the police have more pressing cases to focus on so her family investigate on their

[Violet Souzay]

own it's like finding a needle in a haystack where do you look we covered hostels we covered hospitals but we didn't find her at one point i hired a couple of former beat cops that used to work on vancouver east side they didn't find her i think the realization came that she was no longer with us we have very few photos of shirley shirley's mother's house burned down everything was destroyed so we relied on the one photo of shirley where she's wearing an asian outfit that was the only one that we used when

[Narrator]

we showed her picture after ten long years of fruitless searching violet feels in her heart that shirley is probably dead so she begins looking for her aunt in graveyards in vancouver and victoria british

[Violet Souzay]

columbia we actually walked rows and rows among the gravestones one day i seen a grave it said shirley ann in the same year she was born we spoke with the caretaker only to find

[Narrator]

it wasn't her in the early nineties shirley's mother's health begins to fail she

[Violet Souzay]

started having alzheimer's it was very very sad her mother passed away in nineteen ninety two but we didn't give up creator watches and listens to everything

[Narrator]

another decade passes and in two thousand three kern county establishes a cold case unit they revisit the kern county case and discover that the original investigation had not gone to seattle despite the victim's tattoo that said seattle on it they are eventually able to determine that the tattoos were likely done in seattle but no other leads turn up they ran new

[Narrator/Investigator]

inquiries on missing persons and new fingerprint inquiries they got no results from any of that

[Narrator]

after almost thirty years of searching for shirley together tragically her sister belle dies in twenty eleven it was

[Violet Souzay]

just on me now i felt the whole world fall on my shoulders

[Narrator]

that same year investigator steve rhodes retires from the sheriff's department and begins working with the ventura county district attorney's cold case unit almost immediately he begins reinvestigating the ventura jane doe case dna evidence that

[Narrator/Investigator]

had been collected in nineteen eighty from the rape kit and from the victim's clothing was submitted to codis for analysis using the newer dna techniques codis is

[Narrator]

a database of dna samples from people who have been convicted of crimes it's a resource that had not been yet established in nineteen eighty but thirty three years later the investigators get a hit on the rape kit from jane doe

[Narrator/Investigator]

ventura that dna match was to a convicted felon named wilson chouest

[Narrator]

in twenty thirteen wilson shuest is locked away behind bars in state prison serving a life sentence for a string of sexual assaults ventura county district attorney john barrack recalls something else was discovered through codis and

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

they also learned that there was a previous codis hit for wilson shoest to a jane doe in kern county it

[Narrator]

turns out that wilson chewist is a serial rapist he was arrested in nineteen seventy seven for the kidnapping and rape of a young woman who had been left for dead he was sentenced to two years in state prison for that crime and in june nineteen eighty he was released on parole this piece of information tells the investigators that shuest was in the area right around the time of the jane doe murders and dna evidence proves that he had sexual contact with both victims the detectives know that even with his record of sexual assault the evidence doesn't prove that he killed the women on september seventeenth twenty thirteen shuest is questioned by the investigators he

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

denies knowing them denies ever seeing the victim once they learn that there were two potential victims it makes that person a serial killer and it creates a heightened sense of necessity to solve this

[Narrator]

case investigator rhodes wants more evidence steve

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

rhodes called kern county sheriff's department he gets their case file and he notes that kern county detectives did interview wilson in two thousand eight during his interview wilson mentions that he's living with a family called the bells for approximately one month during the time period when the two victims were found murdered steve realized that kern county detectives had never actually tried to track down the bell family

[Narrator]

rhodes begins scouring for phone numbers on the internet and finds a small town in oklahoma called ardmore detectives from the local police station are assigned to go speak with the bells at the address

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

rhodes provides the detective knocks on the door and says do you remember a subject named wilson shoest it's thirty three years later and her eyes light up and she's like have i got a story for you

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[Narrator]

a woman named carolyn bell is eager to speak with the detectives about wilson shuest she tells them that she met shuest through a prison pen pal program and he came to stay with her and her three sons during the summer of nineteen eighty in the middle of july carolyn had to leave town for a few days and shoest stayed home with her sons

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

when carolyn comes back things aren't working out between him and her she boots him out approximately two weeks later she pulls out the vacuum and her sons say stop don't vacuum

[Narrator/Investigator]

and her oldest son informs her that it's full of blood

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

the children tell her while she was away wilson disappeared for a day or two and when he came back he told the kids hey i hit a deer and i put the deer in the backseat of my car and it bled all over the place and so i need you guys to clean it out

[Narrator]

the detectives speak with carolyn's youngest son scott

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

scott says is it because of that woman he killed in bakersfield scott told us

[Narrator/Investigator]

that tuest had said he had picked up some broad in a bar took her out to the country and killed

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

her chouest told scott that he then dumped her body in the middle of

[Narrator/Investigator]

nowhere it all came together this has to be jane doe kern i came back to california i'm very very confident in this case it's time to take this case to the district attorney for filing

[Narrator]

with the district attorney's approval the detectives head to corcoran state prison to speak with shuest they tell him about the dna evidence and the statements from carolyn bell and her sons shoest denies any involvement but not long after the interrogation he is charged with two counts of murder and he pleads not guilty in july twenty eighteen thirty eight years after the killings shuest is taken to trial and is found guilty of the murders of the ventura and kern county jane does he was sentenced to two

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

consecutive terms of life without the possibility of parole but we still wanted to know the identity of these victims we decided to do something i've never done before since we went to wilson we to see if he would tell us

[Narrator/Investigator]

and he told me that he picked up jane doe kern county at a bar in hanford he didn't know who she was i asked him where he got jane doe ventura county from and he told me he found her hitchhiking in visalia i felt it was important to find out who these women were and i'm sure there's some family out there that are wondering where did she go i want to answer that question

[Narrator]

investigator rhodes begins working on the notorious golden state killer case in twenty sixteen and during the investigation he heard about genetic genealogy and how it could help them identify the jane doe victims he reaches out to the dna doe project and asks them if they would take the case on the dna doe project's work is a mix of dna sequencing genealogical family trees and detective work dna doe researcher trish hurtabes has helped solve cold cases before and the jane does in this case resonate with her my

[Trish Herchebys (DNA Doe Project)]

name is trish herchebys and i am a volunteer investigative genetic genealogist with the dna doe project it's an organization that works between law enforcement agencies and medical examiner offices my mother was chippewa and that is the culture that i have always associated the most with in the late sixties my mother gave birth to a baby boy and this baby was taken away from her the sixty scoop was an initiative in canada to remove native children from their homes and to place them with non native families finding out i had a half brother out there somewhere it became my mission to find him it took over a decade but the moment i located my half brother i was excited i was happy what i love about genealogy research is like a puzzle or it's like a mystery so i am also a team leader for indigenous cases we take cold case files where the extra step of the genetics could help bring their name back i am currently involved with researching unidentified victims indigenous women have been going missing for decades a mother or a sister would report them missing and law enforcement would try to justify why they went missing they ran away or they're into prostitution we're dealing with remains that have been discovered decades ago and now we have the technology to be able to revisit and say is there dna

[Violet Souzay]

on file

[Narrator]

it's now twenty twenty in princeton british columbia and trish and dna doe project sketch artist carl koppelman get to work on the kern county jane doe case the team creates a sketch of the unidentified victim and shares it on facebook to try to reach as many people as possible violet sousay has never given up hope that she would find her aunt shirley and she had a feeling that a sketch she saw on a news report years earlier was of her aunt but that victim had called themselves becky ochoa at a conference name in twenty twenty violet speaks about the promise she had made to find her aunt shirley and a few days later she gets an email from a woman who had been in attendance she

[Violet Souzay]

said look on facebook and there was that picture that i seen the one that they call becky ochoa and i'm like oh my god and i said i know it's her i know it is her and then when i seen the tattoos i couldn't believe it the person from jane doe project asked me to upload my dna she said it's her i cried i laughed i mean it was just crazy a lot of emotions yeah when i found out that it was shirley my sister her daughter and my daughter we traveled down to california and we met up with the local elders there and we did a little ceremony for her

[Narrator]

in july twenty twenty one forty one years after the murder kern county jane doe was identified as shirley sousay wilson shue's second victim is not yet identified investigator steve rhodes has his own promise he hopes to

[Narrator/Investigator]

keep when i heard that we had identified shirley i felt so good for violet but we're still trying to identify jane doe ventura county with the dna doe project we have traced her family line out of guatemala and into new mexico and it's starting to look like she might have ties to the los angeles area i believe we're very close to finding out who she is to give back her name it just ends a pledge that i had made to all my victims i'm going to do my best to seek justice for you and that's my service to my community

[Narrator]

anyone with information pertaining to the jane doe ventura county case is asked to contact the ventura county district attorney's office at eight zero five six five four two five zero zero shirley's loved ones hope that her remains can be brought to the reservation for a proper native

[Family Member/Community Member]

burial for every nation members in our community wherever they've journeyed home to the spirit world we always bring them home we need to honor her with our traditional ceremonies and to send her back to mother earth and for her to

[Violet Souzay]

rest in peace shirley's mom said find her and bring her home bringing her home when that is complete then i'll feel that my promise is completed

[Narrator/Investigator]

cold

[Narrator]

case files is hosted by paula barros it's produced by the law and crime network and written by eileen mcfarlane and emily g thompson our composer is blake maples for a and e our senior producer is john thrasher and our supervising producer is mckamey lin our executive producers are jesse k katz maite cueva and peter tarshis this podcast is based on a e's emmy winning tv series cold case files for more cold case files visit aetv dot com

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

at first i

[Violet Souzay]

didn't think it was real i woke

[Pluto TV Promoter]

up to this blinding light and i was transported to another place pluto tv

[Steve Rhodes (Investigator)]

then i heard a voice come with me if you want to live there

[Pluto TV Promoter]

were thousands of movies and shows and

[Violet Souzay]

they were all free truth isn't it

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it's just so beautiful on pluto tv free streaming of terminator two fringe arrow

[Narrator]

the one hundred hundred and the x

[Pluto TV Promoter]

files may cause excitement loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials no credit cards or alien encounters necessary pluto tv

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stream now pay never