Last unidentified Happy Face Killer victim identified more than 30 years after body was found
More than three decades after a young woman was found dead along a California highway, authorities have finally identified her as the last previously unidentified victim of serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson, known as the “Happy Face Killer.”
The woman’s body was discovered Aug. 30, 1992, about seven miles north of Blythe in southeastern California along Highway 95. Investigators initially could not determine her identity and estimated she was between 20 and 30 years old.
Jesperson later confessed to killing the woman, whom he called “Claudia,” saying he met her while working as a long-haul truck driver. He pleaded guilty to the Riverside County murder in 2010 and received a sentence of 25 years to life.
Investigators continued working for years to identify Jesperson’s victims. Patricia Skiple, another previously unidentified victim, was identified in 2022 after her body was found near Gilroy, California, in 1993.
In 2024, Riverside County’s cold case investigators publicly sought information that could help identify “Claudia.” DNA testing and genetic genealogy allowed investigators to trace her paternal family, but they still needed to establish a connection through her mother’s side.
A subsequent lead eventually led investigators to a direct maternal relative. A DNA sample obtained this week confirmed the woman’s identity as Lydia Jane Wade McWhorter.
McWhorter’s sisters had spent decades without knowing what happened to her after she disappeared from Texas in the early 1990s. Victim services officials are now working with the family as they determine how they want to honor McWhorter and arrange her final resting place.
Investigators said the identification demonstrates how public tips and advances in DNA technology can help resolve cases that have remained unsolved for decades.
Jesperson has been linked to eight killings across six states beginning in 1990. He was first arrested in March 1995 in connection with a murder in Clark County. Now 71, he is serving four life sentences without the possibility of parole in Oregon, with his earliest listed release date in 2063.
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