Credit: San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office
The badly decomposed body of a woman formerly known as the " lady in the fridge" has been identified 27 years after she was murdered thanks to forensic investigative genetic genealogy. Now, investigators are appealing to the public to fill in the “pieces” of her life as they work to gather more information that could lead to her killer.
Sometime in 1994, mother-of-three Amanda Lynn Schumann Deza was murdered at 29 years old. Her body was then placed inside a refrigerator, which was subsequently thrown into an irrigation canal in Holt, California. By time it was discovered in March 1995, Deza’s remains were in an advanced state of decomposition. Still, there were obvious signs of injury, and her autopsy report lists cause of death as blunt force trauma.
The medical examiner described the victim as Caucasian with strawberry blonde hair, 110 to 130 pounds, with an approximate age of 29 to 41. But with not much else to go on, the case went cold.
In 2022, San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office and the San Joaquin County Medical Examinier’s Office partnered with Othram to see if advanced forensic DNA testing and genetic genealogy could help establish an identity for the woman or a close relative.
Working with the preserved skeletal remains, Othram was able to build a comprehensive DNA profile for the then-unknown female. The lab’s in-house forensic genetic genealogy team then returned investigative leads to San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office investigators.
The investigators contacted the victim’s possible mother and daughter, who provided their own DNA for comparison. This data led to the positive identification of Amanda Lynn Schumann Deza as the former lady in the fridge.
Despite the identification, the case is ongoing as investigators gather evidence they hope will lead to Deza’s murderer.
“We are here to ask the public for help,” said San Joaquin Sheriff Patrick Withrow during a press conference announcing the identification of Deza. “We just need one little piece. Someone out there might know. Someone can reach out to us and give us that final piece we need to solve and bring to justice the person who did this.”
Based on the how the case was presented during the press conference, it seems the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office believes the public could play a key role in solving this case. Withrow and Lt. Linda Jimenez, who heads the Sheriff’s Office cold case unit, urged the public to come forward with information five separate times during the 16-minute press conference.
“There’s many of you out there who know and have information about [Amanda’s] life,” said Jimenez. “The activities she was involved with, the friends she had, as well as any intimate relationships. All of this information would be super helpful to gather, and we encourage you to contact us. We’re missing several pieces to the years prior to her disappearance and her death. We hope you recognize Amanda and remember and reach out to us. This information could help determine who took Amanda’s life.”
While vague on the details, Jimenez said Deza disappeared during a “challenging” time in her life. She was not reported missing. Othram confirmed Deza was separated from her husband and had three young children at the time of her disappearance. She was last seen at an unknown apartment complex in the city of Napa with an unidentified male she met in a rehabilitation facility.
“[We’re looking for] a piece of information anyone can get us about her life. If they knew her, if they had been a neighbor, a friend, if they had gone to parties together—whatever it is. If you can reach out and say, ‘yeah I knew Amanda, I never knew what happened to her but when I knew her, this is what she was like, these were her friends.’ Any information would be great,” said Withrow.
Jimenez said she could not comment if the department has a person of interest at this time, or even if they are closer to naming one now that Deza has been identified.
In 1995, there had been speculation Deza could have been a victim of notorious serial killer Terry Peder Rasmussen. In fact, San Joaquin County Assistant Sheriff John Huber has previously said that he feared the lady in the fridge could be a victim of Rasmussen, but Withrow nor Jimenez made any mention of Rasmussen during Thursday’s press conference.
Stockton CrimeStoppers is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of Deza’s killer.