The identity of a pregnant woman who was stabbed to death in the parking of a Southern California high school had remained unknown for nearly five decades – until now, according to authorities.
The woman found fatally stabbed outside Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks on July 18, 1980, has been identified as Maricela Rocha Parga, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office announced in a news release on Monday, February 23.
Thousand Oaks police officers had found Parga’s body “partially clothed” when they arrived at the high school that day, according to authorities.
“Despite extensive investigative efforts, she remained unidentified for decades and became known as ‘Jane Doe Ventura County,’” the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post on the now-solved cold case.
Law enforcement would later identify Parga’s alleged killer years before identifying her body, according to authorities.
In 2011, detectives with the sheriff’s office’s Cold Case Unit revisited the case and reviewed evidence to locate traces of DNA, the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators developed a potential suspect’s DNA profile, which was submitted to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), according to authorities.
As a result, the DNA profile was linked to a man who had been serving a life prison sentence after he was found guilty of a robbery, kidnapping and rape that allegedly happened two months after Parga’s body was found, according to the sheriff’s office.
In 2015, the man, Wilson Chouest, was arrested “for the murder of Jane Doe Ventura County,” who authorities now know is Parga, the sheriff’s office said.
A few years later, in 2018, Chouest was found guilty in connection with the murder of Parga and the killing of another woman who was murdered in Kern County in 1980, according to a 2018 report from the Ventura County Star.
The newspaper reported that Chouest, who was 66 at time of his conviction, was found not guilty of murder in relation to the death of Parga’s unborn baby boy, a 20-week-old fetus.
During Chouest’s trial, he was represented by public defender Andre Nintcheff, who did not immediately return Luxury Handbag Shopping’s request for comment on Tuesday, February 24.
Following Chouest’s conviction, he was “sentenced to another life term without the possibility of parole,” the sheriff’s office said.
“Detectives were not satisfied by merely obtaining a conviction and continued to work to identify the victim in order to bring closure to the family,” the agency said.
As a result of investigative work that involved utilizing advancements in DNA technology and coordinated efforts with the DNA Doe Project, investigators identified “Jane Doe Ventura County” as Parga in January.
DNA samples provided to investigators by Parga’s relatives helped identify her remains, KTLA reported.
“My experience has been totally a journey, because you find out details and things that maybe you don’t want to know, the horrible way she passed,” Parga’s sister told the TV station.
“You keep playing that movie in your head over and over of the last minutes and last seconds of her life,” her sister added to KTLA.
On Facebook, the sheriff’s office said that “This case represents more than a conviction. It represents restoring a name, honoring a life, and bringing long-awaited answers to a family.”
