Chelsea Hylton is a web producer for CBS Los Angeles. An Inglewood native, Hylton has her master's degree from USC. She covers local breaking news across the Southern California region. Before joining CBS in 2024, she worked at NBC LA, Telemundo 52, The Los Angeles Times and KOMO 4 News in Seattle.
A pregnant woman who became known as "Jane Doe Ventura County" has been identified in a 1980 cold case homicide, the sheriff said on Monday.
Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said the woman has been identified as 22-year-old Maricela Rocha Parga, who was four months pregnant at the time of her death. Parga was born in Mexico but later became a resident of Los Angeles.
Fryhoff said that her identification was a result of years of genealogy research by the DNA Doe Project.
"Having spent over six years working on this case, I was honored to play a part in finally giving Ventura County Jane Doe back her name," said team leader Rebecca Somerhalder. "Our hearts go out to Maricela's family as she is finally returned home to her loved ones, who kept her in their thoughts for all these years."
Parga's family described her as being a very loving person who always looked out for her family. The family added that one of her older sisters has lived in the same house for over 50 years, hoping Parga would return one day.
On July 18, 1980, Parga's body was found in the parking lot of Westlake High School. Investigators said she had been raped and murdered a few hours before and evidence showed that she had been killed somewhere else and her body was moved to the school.
Parga's case went unsolved for several decades until it was linked to another cold case in Kern County. Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said four days before Parga's body was found, another Jane Doe was also found dead and DNA evidence matched a man who was already in the database for known criminal offenders, Nasarenko said.
In 2015, Wilson Chouest was charged with the murder of the two women and was later convicted of both in 2018. At the time of his conviction, Chouest was already serving a life sentence for another case, Nasarenko said. He was sentenced to consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
In 2018, the Ventura County Sheriff's Office presented the Jane Doe Ventura County case to the DNA Doe Project.
"With only distant DNA matches and scant public records to work with, solving this case became the largest and most labour-intensive endeavour in the history of the DNA Doe Project," a statement from the project said.
Over the last seven years, a team of investigators and volunteers worked to compile her family tree and eventually identified a couple from Zacatecas, Mexico, who were likely her great-grandparents.
On Dec. 9, 2025, investigators made contact with one of the couple's great-grandsons, who shared "some critical information - his sister, Maricela Rocha Parga, had been missing since 1980."
DNA Doe Project said that following Parga's disappearance, her siblings spent several years looking for her but were unable to find answers. Investigators also spoke with two of Parga's siblings, who flew to California and provided DNA samples. Those samples were used to confirm Parga's identity.
"This is delayed but nevertheless necessary. This family has waited over 45 years to know what happened to Maricela," Nasarenko said.