47 years later, police learn where Montreal woman stayed in Hollywood before being stabbed to death
CBC's the fifth estate is asking the public to participate in its investigation into the 1969 murder
"Dear Mom and Dad, the weather is nice… I go frequently to the beach," wrote 19-year-old Reet Jurvetson in a postcard to her parents in Montreal, on Oct. 31, 1969.
The Canadian woman, who would have just two weeks to live before being stabbed 157 times, added "the people are kind" to describe the Americans she met in California.
Jurvetson had left Canada days earlier to visit a fellow Montrealer named Jean in Hollywood.
She had a crush on the young man who looked like Jim Morrison, the lead singer of the Doors.
A week after the fifth estate released a sketch of Jean commissioned by the program, the LAPD today released another sketch of him by a different artist.
Critical new detail
The LAPD also revealed that it recently learned the address of where Jurvetson had been living while in Hollywood — 5311 Melrose Ave. — information it had been seeking for months.
In an interview with the fifth estate in May, the Los Angeles Police Department's lead detective on the case, Det. Louis Rivera, said the address where she was staying was "the most important" missing clue. Based on the memories of Jurvetson's sister and best friend, postcards had said only that she was living in a nice apartment.
"From the location where she was staying, we can actually develop other leads, because this was an apartment building. So Jean may not be around, but we're going to go and ask anyone who might have been there during that time period."
With the discovery of Jurvetson's last address, the LAPD says their investigation has renewed momentum.
It turns out the apartment where Jurvetson was staying was a four-storey building called the Paramount Hotel. She stayed in apartment 306.
The LAPD is appealing to anyone who may have stayed in the apartment building to come forward if they have any memory of Jurvetson or the friend she was staying with — Jean, who police now call a "person of interest."
"He's definitely someone who's at the heart of the investigation because she came to visit him," Rivera told the fifth estate's Bob McKeown in an interview in July.
Jurvetson's body was found on Nov. 16, 1969 — dumped in the canyon off Mulholland Drive — two weeks after she mailed postcards to her parents and best friend, Gilda Green.
Green does not remember Jean's surname 47 years later, but he was someone she and Jurvetson knew socially in Montreal.
The LAPD reopened the investigation into Jurvetson's death in June 2015, after one of her friends called to say she recognized Jurvetson's morgue photo online. She was positively identified by DNA results in December.
Jurvetson had been known as Jane Doe 59 for almost half a century because she was found without any identification and her family hadn't reported her missing.
Over the summer, the fifth estate told Jurvetson's story through Instagram and Twitter in a 23-part series, a first for the program.
the fifth estate is still actively searching for clues and is inviting the public to take part in its investigation by joining the Facebook page for the story, Facebook.com/JaneDoe59, and submitting any new clues.
You can also email the fifth estate directly at janedoe59@cbc.ca
The final instalment of the story will be broadcast in a documentary titled Jane Doe 59 that will air on the fifth estate on CBC-TV on Nov. 18 at 9 p.m.