After Thirty-Five Years

The bones lay where they had fallen, off Yankee Jims Road, down the embankment, past the reach of careless eyes. They had been there a long time. A woman without a name and no past that anyone could find.

She was twenty-one when she disappeared. Halloween night, 1989. Wendy Abrams-Nishikai. That was her name. They know that now.

For years, the case sat cold. The Placer County Sheriff’s Office tried, but the tools weren’t there. The years passed. The world moved on.

Then, in 2023, they tried again. New eyes. New hands. New science, DNA, and forensic genealogy. Things they didn’t have back then. The California Department of Justice Laboratory found something—a relative. Someone who had been waiting, even if they didn’t know it.

The Sheriff’s Office made sure. More tests. More comparisons. Then, in January 2025, Jane Doe was gone, and Wendy became rediscovered.

The case isn’t over. Not yet. The law doesn’t know how she died or who left her there.

But her family knows now. They have a name. They have something to hold on to after thirty-five years of not knowing.

The Sheriff’s Office wants answers. If anyone has them, they should speak. PCSOTipLine@placer.ca.gov.