Jane Doe of Ventura County: The Woman Who was Unidentified for Four Decades.

By: Carla M. Rivera Medina, Staff Writer

For over forty years, a young woman from California was identified as Jane Doe of Ventura County.

On July 18th, 1980, deputies from the Thousand Oaks police station responded to a call at the Westlake High School playground in which a young woman was found dead. Wilson Chouest was the man convicted of killing Jane Doe, but it was a random killing, she stayed unidentified for many years.

Erik Nazarenko, Ventura County District attorney, said “Not only had the defendant had taken their lives. He had also wiped away their names. Leaving family members longing and waiting for decades for answers about their loved ones.”

At the time, DNA had not been implemented yet which made it harder for investigators to collect evidence in these cases.

Dr. Erika Doctor, Associate Lynn Professor of Forensic Science stated, “Once the original technology and we understood how we can indetify individuals through DNA, the technology developed so that way we could identify individuals through smaller quantities of DNA.”

The investigation continued for years, then in 2017, investigators began working backwards with the help of DNA. They were able to figure out thousands of couples who could be Jane Doe’s grandparents and by chance brought one couple down to investigate.

“On December 9th, 2025, investigators spoke with a great grandson of this couple, and he shared some critical information. His sister, Maricela Rocha Parga had been missing since 1980. Further DNA testing later confirmed that woman formally known as Ventura County Jane Doe was indeed Maricela.” stated Rebecca Summerholder, director of Volunteers and Education.

After 46 years, the announcement was quite emotional for her family ad it brought sadness and relief to her family.

Photo #1: Picture of Maricela Rocha Parga/Ventura County Sheriff’s office/Ventura County Sheriff’s office

Photo #2: Erik Nasarenko at the hearing of the announcement for the identification of Jane Doe/Ventura County Sun

Photo#3: Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff describing the efforts to identify Jane Doe alongside medical examiner Dr. Christopher Young, District Attorney Erik Nasarenko, and Rebecca Summerholder, the director of education, at the Jane Doe project/NBC news