Sins & Survivors: A Las Vegas True Crime Podcast - California Dreaming - Who Killed Sahara Sue Doe

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

A murder, a mystery, and a 44-year wait for answers. In 1979, a young woman was found stabbed to death in a dirt lot on the Las Vegas Strip. With no ID and few leads, she became known as Sahara Sue Doe. For decades, her identity remained a mystery until forensic genealogy finally revealed her name. The murder rate in Las Vegas from the early 1970s to the late 1980s was 3 to 5 times as high as it is now. Given the technology of the day and the fact that Las Vegas has always been somewhat transient with people constantly moving in and moving out, it was often difficult to identify victims.This week and next week, we’ll cover the cases of two teenagers who were murdered in Las Vegas during this time, reportedly as they were just passing through town on their way to California. It would be over 40 years before their identities would be known… finally providing their families with some closurehttps://sinspod.co/episode39sourcesDomestic Violence Resourceshttp://sinspod.co/resourcesClick here to become a member of our Patreon!https://sinspod.co/patreonVisit and join our Patreon now and access our ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content & schwag!Apple Podcast Subscriptionshttps://sinspod.co/appleWe're now offering premium membership benefits on Apple Podcast Subscriptions! On your mobile deviceLet us know what you think about the episodehttps://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2248640/open_sms Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sins-survivors-a-las-vegas-true-crime-podcast--6173686/support.

To listen ad-free, visit Zinspod.co slash subscribe. Starting at $2.99 a month, you'll also get access to our exclusive bonus content episodes when you join through Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Thanks for supporting the show. The murder rate in Las Vegas from the early 1970s to the late 1980s was three to five times as high as it is now. Given the technology of the day and the fact that Las Vegas has always been somewhat transient with people constantly moving in and moving out,

it was often difficult to identify victims. This week and next week, we'll cover the cases of two teenagers who were murdered in Las Vegas during this time, reportedly as they were passing through town on their way to California. It would be over 40 years before their identities would be known, finally providing their families with some closure. Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence, as well as missing persons and unsolved cases. I'm your host, Sean. And with me, as always, is the one and only John. I am the only John in the room. As we were researching the two cases for these two episodes, we realized just how many murders

there were in the Las Vegas area in the late 70s and early 80s. Not all of them were Jane Doe's though. There were some murders where victims were identified, but their murderer wasn't caught. And somewhere like these two, where neither the victims nor their murderer could be identified. We have covered multiple stories of people coming to Vegas for a better life or job opportunities, but in the history of the United States, many people have also seen California as a place to go for a fresh start as well. What we know about these two young women is that they were both headed to California seeking an escape or answers. We'll start with the case that happened first. Do you want to tell us about

the case of Sahara Sue Doe? Sure. On the night of August 14th, 1979, a pedestrian was walking past the former location of the El Rancho Vegas Hotel and Casino, which was on the southwest corner of Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard. He was heading to work at the Smith's Food King Supermarket, which is just Smith's today. The nearest Smith's today to that corner is about a 35-minute walk to the east now, but it's possible there was another location back in the day that has since closed. Vegas is notoriously hard on businesses, and they are always appearing and disappearing. But anyway, he was walking north on Las Vegas Boulevard, and in the dirt lot across from the Sahara Hotel and Casino, he saw a person lying face down between some bushes and the Strip,

Las Vegas Boulevard. She was partially disrobed, and she'd been beaten and was covered in blood. The Clark County coroner determined her cause of death to be homicide by a multiple stab wounds to the abdomen. So just a quick note about the corner at Sahara and the Strip. The original hotel that was in that location where she was found was the El Rancho Vegas Hotel and Casino, like I said. That was the very first casino on the Strip, and it opened in 1941. It was really small by today's standards, with only 110 rooms. Unfortunately, it caught fire in 1960 in what was undoubtedly huge news at the time.

The building was all wooden and had no fire suppression system at all, as you might expect. So the fire spread quickly from the main building to the surrounding buildings. Much of it, including the entire main building, was a total loss and it was never rebuilt. Although there was another hotel called the El Rancho Hotel across the street that eventually closed in 1992 and has since been replaced by the Fountain Blue. So that's what I mean about Las Vegas being unforgiving to businesses. We're constantly imploding and rebuilding. Across the street to the east was the Sahara, another one of the oldest casinos in Las Vegas. It was built in 1952 but closed in 2011, reopening as the SLS in 2014.

That didn't last very long, and now it's back to being the Sahara as of 2019. The man who found her called Las Vegas Metro Police, who pronounced her dead at the scene. She had no identification on her, and she had only been dead a short time, only three or four hours. Since this was the 70s, the police did what you'd expect, taking her fingerprints, taking photos of the scene, and trying to document things the best they could. This was way before DNA analysis was possible or practical, so no samples were taken for that type of analysis. The coroner determined she was between 17 and 21 years old, was about 5 foot 2 inches tall, with sandy blonde hair, and weighed around 100 pounds. You'd think those last two would be

easy to determine and document, but we found articles that said she was as tall as 5 foot 6 and anywhere from 95 to 103 pounds. It's really not clear to us how there was any question at all about those. It's the type of to us how there was any question at all about those. It's the type of frustrating thing that could really prevent an identification. Someone is looking for their 95-pound daughter who is 5'2". They might pass right over someone taller and a few pounds heavier. She was wearing Levi's hip hugger jeans that had been partially removed and a light blue-green button-down linen shirt with a tie at the bottom. Her shirt had some floral embroidery and sequins and a label that said Florida, leading the police to believe she

might have been from Florida. She also had on some jewelry, including a plain silver ring on her right index finger, and two white gold chains, one with a pendant with a turquoise stone, and another with a clear plastic heart with a rose painted on it. The police described her as well-groomed, with her fingernails and toenails all painted red. She also had no teeth, which is rare for someone her age. She had full upper and lower dentures, but the lower set was missing. She was also missing her shoes, and the coroner mentioned in his report that he thought she must have walked around barefoot a lot, given the state of the soles of her feet. The fact that she was missing her shoes is also a little strange in Las Vegas, particularly in August,

but it was late at night, so it's possible. But during the day, there's no way she could have. The pavement can reach 215 degrees and causes burns regularly to people who fall down in the hottest weather here. Her toxicology report also revealed that she had a blood alcohol level of 0.238. That's a very high blood alcohol level, meaning she was probably experiencing severe impairment of her motor skills at the time she died and was definitely at risk for alcohol poisoning. She was initially called Las Vegas Jane Doe 1979, or more commonly, Sahara Sue Doe. The police asked around and found that this young woman was seen at the Strip Liquors liquor store, which is also now closed. An employee at the liquor store told Metro officers that she was with a man who was thin and about 6 feet tall, about 165 pounds and around 28 years old.

The witness also said that he had a mustache that was a different color than his hair and that he was soft-spoken. The witness, who is now deceased, unrelated, at the time was able to describe the man she was with and a sketch was produced. Despite that lead, according to news reports at the time, the case seemed to grow cold quickly. No match was found by the FBI or locally using her fingerprints, And there are relatively few articles that we could find from local papers beyond the immediate reports of the murder. Sahara Sue's case went cold and stayed cold. We'll take a quick break here to hear from Jamie Beebe from Strictly Stalking, who is going to tell us about her new podcast,

The Last Trip. As soon as you're done here, you should definitely go give them a listen, subscribe, and follow on all the socials. others who took the same vacations but never made it home. The Last Trip is a true crime podcast covering missing and murdered people that were living their best lives on vacation. I'm your host, Jamie Beebe, and each week I'll bring you on the last trip, taking a deep dive into vacation culture and travel spots, tips on staying alive while traveling, and ultimately recreating someone's last days in paradise. What led to their last trip? What are the hard facts? What is the final outcome? And could you be next?

David Sneddon was a 24-year-old college student from Utah attending Mandarin classes in Beijing when he mysteriously disappeared while hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge. Chinese authorities said he drowned in the gorge and US authorities agreed, although his body was never found and his parents didn't believe that. Seven years later, out of the blue, they got a phone call from a former US official who had evidence David is still alive. This case sounds like a Hollywood movie, but evidence doesn't lie. So where is David Sneddon? Famous rugby player and celebrity X Factor contestant Levi Davis went missing in Barcelona last year while on a backpacking trip through Europe. Just days before he vanished, he posted

a 15-minute video to his Instagram account saying his life was in danger and people were after him. After he disappeared, several theories emerged. But what really happened to Levi Davis? Thanks, Jamie. The fact that the case was growing cold doesn't mean that there was no investigation being done. Nine years later, in 1988, Las Vegas Metro Police hired a well-known forensic artist named Linda Gallanier to recreate a new rendering of what Sahara Sue might have looked like when she was alive to keep the case in the public's consciousness. Gallanier consulted regularly with anthropologists, cosmetologists, and doctors in her expert forensic art renderings.

She spent over 12 hours recreating Sahara Sue in what was very much the state of the art at that time. Unfortunately, though, the new forensic sketch didn't get police any answers and no leads. Then, in 2003, her body was exhumed and DNA samples were taken. These samples were entered into CODIS, the Combined DNA Indexing System, which is a part of ENDIS, the National DNA Indexing System, which we've talked about before. So when people talk

about searching for a national DNA match, ENDIS is the system they're generally referring to. Again, though, unfortunately, there was no match. But all that meant at the time, though, is that there was no match for anyone previously added to the system. So that would include offenders, arrestees, missing people, unidentified remains, and volunteers who put their DNA in there. There was no genealogical comparison being done then, so this was another unsuccessful attempt. Then, in 2007, Sahara Su's profile was entered into NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, which was another step in the right direction. In 2011, her DNA was compared with the DNA of Deborah Rae Meyer, who disappeared in August of 1974 from her home in Rawlins, Wyoming. The link between those two cases is pretty tenuous.

The only thing that jumped out was that both women had full dentures and they were about the same age. There was no match, so Sahara Sue remained unknown, and unfortunately, Debra Ray Meyer remains missing to this day also. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children listed her on their website in an attempt to resurface the case. Then in 2016, there was a little bit of a flurry of activity. The Las Vegas Metro Police got a tip that she might have lived in a nearby trailer park and might have worked at a nearby Holiday Inn or other motel near where she was found on the strip. Metro also announced that she might have gone by the name Shauna. This comes from one of their Facebook posts, and it's unclear where they got this information. The police didn't share that part of it. NCMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, selected her case again for review around that same time, and the case

was assigned to the Las Vegas Metro Homicide Cold Case Division. Also in 2016, they did some interesting work in the field of forensic paleonology, which is the study of pollen and spores and its application to solve homicide cases. In this case, they analyzed Sahara Sue's clothing and found that she might have been in the Napa Valley, or the Central Valley of California before her death based on the samples taken. In 2022, with a grant from the Las Vegas Justice League, which was started by Justin Wu, the Las Vegas Metro Police got in touch with Othram Labs in Woodlands, Texas, the same lab that was able to solve Stephanie Isaacson's case, which we recently covered. They submitted Sahara Sue Doe's DNA for analysis in September of 2022, and just a little

over a year later, on November 15, 2023, they were able to identify her. Sahara Sue Doe was identified as 19-year-old Gwen Marie Buffington Story, born February 23, 1960, in the Coleraine Township outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. She and two male friends left Cincinnati in the summer of 1979, searching for her biological father in California, which is interesting given the fact that the forensic paleonology analysis indicated that she had been in California recently, but of course we can't confirm that. Her two friends returned to Cincinnati in August, the same month she was murdered, and told her family that they had left her in Las Vegas.

Obviously, her family never heard from her again, and had been wondering what had happened to her for 44 years. Police are interested in speaking with the two male friends, although they have not indicated that they are suspects, but they do think they could learn important details about who might have murdered Gwen. Gwen's family released a statement saying, We are looking for some closure on this case. Our family just wants some answers. We would really appreciate the help. And also, our family would

like to thank all of the many detectives who have worked this case through the years at the LVMPD. If it wasn't for you, we would still be wondering where Gwen is. It's also heartbreaking to learn that Gwen's mother came to Las Vegas many times over the 44 years she was missing. She died without knowing her daughter was here, buried in a coroner's cemetery plot in Woodlawn Cemetery. She's still in the Woodlawn Cemetery today here in Las Vegas. Gwen has been identified, but her murder remains unsolved. If you have any information regarding Gwen's case, you are urged to contact the LVMPD's cold case section at 702-828-3521 or at homicide at lvmpd.com. Anonymous tips can be sent through Nevada's Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555 or at crimestoppersofenvy.com.

Her case is still active, and we urge anyone with information about Gwen or especially about her two male travel companions to contact Metro PD. If you have friends or colleagues who may have lived in Vegas around that time, please share this podcast with them. You never know who may have the tip that finally catches her murderer. Next week, we'll cover a strikingly similar case. There really were a shocking number of these types of cases in the 70s and 80s here in Las Vegas. Anything we can do to help identify the people responsible is important for their families. Thank you for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you're listening on. It helps us promote the show and get these

important stories to more people so families can have answers and justice. A reminder that you can support the show by subscribing on our Patreon or on Apple Podcasts, and you'll then have access to all of our bonus episodes. Also, please be sure to follow us on all the socials at Sins and Survivors. Until next week, remember what happens here, happens everywhere. Thanks for listening. Visit SinsPod.co slash subscribe for exclusive bonus content and to listen ad-free. Remember to like and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Threads at Sins and Survivors. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can contact us at questions at sinsandsurvivors.com.

If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence or needs support, please reach out to local resources or the National Domestic Violence Hotline. A list of resources is available on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, is research written and produced by your hosts, Sean and John. The information shared in this podcast is accurate at the time of recording. If you have questions, concerns, or corrections, please email us. Links to source material for this episode can be found on our website, sinsandsurvivors.com. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the podcast creators, hosts, and their guests. All individuals are innocent until proven guilty. This content does Thank you.