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Anita Louise Piteau (March 9, 1942 - March 13, 1968) was a young woman found murdered in 1968. It is believed she may have been murdered after accepting a ride from her killer. She was identified in June 2020. She had died only five days after her 26th birthday.

Disappearance[]

Few details are known about Anita's disappearance, except that she came to Southern California with two friends, having an interest in Hollywood. She desired to learn more about the entertainment industry associated with the location, yet planned to return to Maine.

Her parents received letters describing her experiences often. When they stopped, her family contacted the police department in Whittier, California, where she was last known to be staying, employed at a local restaurant. Officers failed to locate Piteau, and relayed their lack of findings to her relatives. They also hired a private investigator, but their efforts proved unsuccessful.

Discovery[]

Piteau’s body was found hours after she died by children who mistook it for a discarded scarecrow. The woman’s body had been left in a prone position with her clothing appearing “disheveled,” and first responders initially believed the nature of the incident involved someone who was alive, yet injured; it was quickly established the victim was deceased. A large amount of blood was at the scene, coming from a significant wound to her neck.

Investigation[]

The body was removed from the scene and her clothing and personal items were inventoried. Some buttons were absent from her torn blouse, and damage to the brassiere she wore suggested a sexual motive to the attack. Her age range was estimated to be 20-30 years old, and she appeared to be of European and/or Hispanic ancestry. The cause of death appeared to be a slit throat.

Tire tread patterns at the scene indicated the victim appeared to have been dumped out of the passenger side of a vehicle, which had looped back after performing the act. It was surmised that the victim had rejected advances from the driver, who then inflicted the blunt trauma observed on her face, sexually assaulted, and then killed her by slashing her throat.

Along with taking casts of the marks on the ground, investigators also casted what were believed to be indentations left by the offender’s knees and samples of the dirt itself. At least one of the missing buttons from her shirt were located, along with a discarded cigarette. Fingerprints were successfully taken from the then-unidentified Piteau. Her body remained unclaimed for about ten months in the county morgue, being viewed by thousands, but was eventually buried (other decedents found in the county were known to have been cremated), allowing exhumation to be a possibility in the future.

At least one initial forensic sketch was released to the news media, which led to some tips from concerned citizens contacting authorities believing to have possibly seen the woman alive, sometimes in the company of a man. None of these leads proved fruitful. Many interviews were conducted over a significant part of Huntington Beach in hopes to find information relevant to the case. It was concluded the woman was likely from outside the area, without significant local connections. It has also been suggested she may have been hitchhiking or accepted an offer for a ride. One former investigator theorized, based on her outfit, that she may have “been on a date” that soured upon declining the suspect intimacy.

Later investigation and identification[]

Efforts to test the cigarette butt at the scene, potentially belonging to the suspect, and semen recovered from the body were made in 2001. DNA belonging to a male was successfully extracted from the samples, yet it never matched to profiles in the CODIS database. Familial searches were also performed multiple times in the state’s database, but still yielded no matches.

Investigators received a break in 2011 regarding the identity, after a witness reported to authorities that the victim resembled an acquaintance she remembered as "Rosie." The woman in question was from New York (having a thick accent characteristic of the area), with an "Italian" surname, and had a son with the nickname "John-John." The witness elaborated to say that the woman worked at a bar in Long Beach, California.

Decades after the murder went cold, investigators released at least three facial images of the victim’s body, one of which had been taken after embalming took place. The other images were color photographs without any intervention from a mortician. She was exhumed in April 2019 to obtain stronger samples for genetic genealogy research. Such attempts were unsuccessful at first, but a Dutch lab was later recruited to assist with what eventually led to a suitable profile being developed.

Using DNA from Piteau’s clothing, her killer was identified via genealogy first, as Johnny Monroe Chrisco, who died of throat cancer in 2015, at the age of 71. He was in the army and arrested in Orange County in 1971, having a “violent history.” Additionally, one of his ex wives alleged he was responsible for the death of his second son, an infant, in 1962. Research had narrowed the suspect list to Chrisco and his three brothers; only one was alive and excluded first, but determined to be the biological sibling to the victim’s killer; the deceased brothers were excluded by an existing sample and circumstances. Chrisco was confirmed to be the killer via a retained biopsy sample that was supposed to have been destroyed in 2017. Before her identification, it was speculated that her murder was committed by an unspecified or unidentified serial killer.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, formerly of the DNA Doe Project, was asked to help track down the victim's relatives using DNA from a sample also recovered from the victim’s clothing. Within a week, she found a relative in Maine. This relative then located his cousin's 2016 obituary that mentioned an estranged sibling. The cousin turned out to be Piteau’s older sister. The obituary erroneously gave the of last contact as 1970, but mentioned the victim by name. After additional relatives were contacted, another sister confirmed Anita Piteau had disappeared in February 1968 after sending a final letter to her family. Samples from two surviving siblings confirmed the victim’s identity. Her remains were exhumed again to be reburied near relatives in Maine.

Characteristics[]

  • She was described as "well-developed."
  • She had several missing teeth and overall poor dental health.
  • Dark brown hair.
  • Brown eyes.
  • Pierced ears.
  • Blood type O-.

Clothing and accessories[]

  • White floral, long-sleeved shirt.
  • A brown faux fur coat.
  • Purple Capri pants.
  • Brown shoes.
  • An inexpensive silver-colored ring with a square, blue stone on the wedding finger.

Gallery[]

Media[]

  • Bloodline Detectives detailed the case in their fourth season.
  • Cold Case Files covered the case on the sixth episode of their fourth season.

Sources[]

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