Human remains, found in the desert near Las Vegas 50 years ago, have been identified as a Canadian woman who may have been killed by the mob.
The remains belonged to Anna Sylvia Just, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced Friday, after the identification was made using DNA provided by her sister.
Just, who was living in Henderson, Nevada, and working as stenographer in the late Sixties, was originally from Calgary, Alberta.
She went missing in 1968. At the time, items belonging to Just, including her suitcase and a purse with her ID in it, were discovered in the desert outside of Henderson, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Police learned during their 1968 investigation that she was already the subject of a missing person’s report filed in Calgary, 8 News reports.
At the time, police investigating the young woman’s disappearance learned that she was an acquaintance of Thomas Hanley, who had served as the head of the now-defunct American Federation of Casino and Gaming Employees and the Gaming and Office Employee Union.
Hanley had ties to the Chicago mob, according to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' Special Collections and Archives, and had previously been accused of murder.
According to police, Just had asked Hanley for money.
In 1970, children playing in the desert found human remains in a shallow grave. The Clark County coroner's office determined the individual had died as the result of a homicide as there was a depressed fracture in the recovered skull. But they were unable to identify the remains for the next 50 years.
In 2024, police in Calgary collected DNA evidence from Just's sister, which was used to establish a connection. Las Vegas cold case investigators were subsequently able to determine that the remains belonged to Just.
Before Just’s disappearance, Hanley had been accused of killing Ralph Alsup, a member of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 525, but the charges were subsequently dropped in 1969 with the judge citing an absence of evidence, according to the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement.
A man named Alphonse Bass who had been scheduled to testify against Hanley in the murder trial, suffered severe burns in a house fire that same year, which ultimately led to his death.
Investigators eventually determined that the fire had been set intentionally. Police identified Hanley as a suspect but those charges were also dropped. Bass's killing was never solved.
In 1977, Hanley and his son, Andrew Garamby Hanley, pleaded guilty to the murder of Al Bramlet, head of the Culinary Union in Las Vegas.
Hanley died in police custody in 1979, aged 63.
