Search For Missing Yankton Woman Leads To California Mass Grave
Yankton Press & Dakotan 4/12/07
"She just disappeared then," said Elizabeth's daughter, Joyce Tafoya, 62, of Pleasanton, Calif. "I've spent the last 25 years and thousands of dollars trying to find out what happened to her."
But in November 2005 during some excavation work on the old State Hospital grounds, workers uncovered an undocumented mass grave.
"There were about 30 bodies in one grave," Tafoya said in a telephone interview this week. "I want to know if one of those is my mother."
Though officials are skeptical any of the bodies are from the time period when Elizabeth disappeared, Tafoya is in a race against time requesting that DNA testing be done on the remains before their re-interment in a nearby cemetery.
"I've spent years searching for her," she said, adding that her mother couldn't have just "disappeared into thin air."
Elizabeth was born in Yankton in 1924 to Margaret (Devine) and Henry Rathjen. When Margaret entered the Yankton State Hospital around 1938, Elizabeth, then 14, was sent to California to live with her maternal grandmother in Oakland.
Then, in 1953 -- just two years later after Joyce was born -- Elizabeth was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to the Stockton State Mental Hospital, never to be seen again.
Tofoya was adopted out.
"The people from the state keep telling me she probably went back to Yankton," Tafoya said.
She added that Margaret and Henry both died in the Yankton State Hospital in 1937 and 1968, respectively.
Records from the Stockton institution reported Elizabeth "missing" on Feb. 19, 1956.
"There is no record of them ever filing a missing persons report," said Tammy Davidson, Tafoya's private investigator on the case.
Elizabeth's brother, Harold, who kept in contact with his sister, became concerned when he hadn't received any letters from her for several months.
He contacted the hospital and in June -- four months after her disapperance -- he received a letter from institution informing him of his sister's disapperance and apologizing for "neglecting" to contact him sooner.
"She never contacted anyone in the family ever again, and that wasn't like her," said Tafoya. "She was very close to my uncle and they wrote letters back and forth the whole time she was (in Stockton). He paid for a storage unit for her belongings for six years and she never came to claim her belongings.
"Something doesn't match up here," she said.
The Stockton State Mental Hospital first opened in 1853 as the Insane Asylum of California and was the first mental institution in the western U.S. The name of the institution changed several times over the decades, then closed in 1996. The building and grounds now serve as the Stockton Development Center, a satellite location for California State University Stanislaus-Stockton.
The California Memorial Project is coordinating the re-interment of the bodies.
"This is not the first set of remains they've found on these grounds," said Bill Holland, department coordinator for the project.
"At least two other sites were found and the bodies were moved to a cemetery," he said adding that such burials were not unusual in the context of the times.
But Tafoya wants DNA testing done to determine if her mother is among those most recently unearthed.
"I'm trying to find out as much as I can and to stop the re-burial process," she said.
Determining who should pay is the problem.
"I've gotten estimates from two Bay-area forensic companies saying DNA tests will cost $30,000-$49,750," Tafoya said.
Tafoya contends the state should have to pay.
"We keep getting the run-around about who's responsible for paying for the DNA testing," Davidson said.
But Holland said there's no need for any testing to be done.
"We have lots of evidence to show that none of these remains could be her mother," he said. "Any remains from patients after the 1920s were cremated."
Holland added that the skeletons, which are mostly intact, are believed to be from the 1800s, though currently there are no plans to conduct official testing to determine the age of the remains.
"We'll have tests done for gender identification and to determine the ages of the people at the time of death," Holland said. "Our goal is to individually contain each set of remains and place them in a large underground memorial site at the Rural Cemetery with a monument. We don't want to further desecrate these remains unnecessarily."
But Tafoya wants answers.
"I think it's a big cover-up," Davidson said. "They're dancing around trying to get these bodies re-buried before anybody can uncover anything," she said.
Tafoya has been running ads in local newspapers asking for past employees and patient relatives to come forward with any information about the institution during the years her mother was there.
"Several past employees have come forward and spoken of the terrible abuse that went on there," Davidson said.
Tafoya added that records indicated her mother had undergone 66 electric shock treatments while at the facility.
Though recent rains have delayed the re-interment process for the bodies, Holland said they hope to have them all moved as soon as conditions are suitable.
"They were scheduled to be moved May 15," he said. "But with the rains, they've had to delay their plans. The soil must be dry enough for them to do their excavation and sifting," he added.
So Tafoya is praying for more rain.
"I'm running out of time," she said.
While Tafoya's search continues in Calif. with the aid of Calif. state senator Ellen Corbett and local representative Jerry McNeary, Tafoya said she is hoping someone in Yankton will be able to help bring some of the lost pieces together.
"I just want to know what happened to my mother," Tafoya said. "It's been a huge void my whole life."