Genetic genealogy links desert remains to Calgary stenographer Anna Sylvia Just and revives claims that a father–son mob crew ordered her death.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Las Vegas police have identified human remains found in 1970 near Henderson as those of Anna Sylvia Just, a 29-year-old Canadian woman reported missing in 1968, a breakthrough that has revived long-circulating allegations that a mob-connected father and son were tied to her killing.
Detectives said the identification was confirmed this month using genetic genealogy from a DNA sample provided by Just’s sister in Canada. The case has lingered for more than five decades, beginning when children uncovered a shallow grave on June 7, 1970, not far from where Just’s belongings were found two years earlier. The new match does not bring charges, but it sharpens the focus on a turbulent period in Las Vegas when organized crime brushed against labor politics and casino money. It also gives Just’s family a name on remains that sat for years as an anonymous homicide in a desert file.
Police records show the sequence began in early March 1968, when a purse holding Just’s identification was discovered in the desert about four miles from Henderson. About a week later, searchers located a suitcase believed to be hers in the same area. Despite the finds, investigators could not locate Just. Two years later, on June 7, 1970, children playing nearby found human remains in a shallow grave roughly a mile from where the belongings had turned up. The coroner ruled the death a homicide, citing a skull fracture. At the time, the victim’s name was unknown, and the case entered the growing stack of unsolved desert killings that marked the era. “We never closed the file,” a Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson said, noting that the victim’s identity remained the central missing piece.
That piece fell into place after Calgary police contacted Las Vegas detectives in October 2024 while reviewing a separate missing person report for Just, who had left Calgary on Aug. 17, 1966. Investigators in Nevada provided the name of a relative who had collected Just’s belongings decades ago, leading Canadian officers to her sister. A fresh DNA sample from the sister was compared with a sample preserved from the 1970 remains. The match confirmed the victim as Just, then a Calgary stenographer with ties to acquaintances in Las Vegas during the late 1960s. Detectives also revisited historical tips naming Thomas “Tom” Hanley, a union figure with organized crime connections, as a person Just knew. Reports from the period said Just sought money from Hanley around the time she vanished. Police have not announced any new suspects or arrests and emphasized that some assertions from the early case files remain unproven.
Hanley, a onetime labor organizer with links to Midwest crime families, loomed over several violent episodes in Las Vegas during that period. In 1978, he was sentenced to life in prison for the 1977 kidnapping and murder of prominent Culinary Union leader Al Bramlet. Hanley died in 1979. His son, Andrew “Gramby” Hanley, also pleaded to the Bramlet killing. In the Just case, archived statements and past articles alleged Hanley had associates drive her into the desert, where she was killed, after she sought money. No one was ever charged in Just’s death, and Hanley publicly denied involvement in other homicides raised by prosecutors at his sentencing, saying, “I never even heard of the woman.” Police said Friday that those historical allegations are part of the record but remain allegations, and the department is not naming suspects in Just’s killing.
The identification underscores a wave of cold-case breakthroughs made possible by genetic genealogy. For years, the 1970 remains were labeled as an unidentified woman with a fatal head injury. The renewed attention started when Calgary detectives, still working the 1966 missing-person file, saw indications that Just had been in Southern Nevada in the late 1960s. That led to the relative and, ultimately, her sister’s DNA. LVMPD’s homicide section compared the sample to profiles maintained from the recovered remains. The positive identification allows coroners to update records and, potentially, to refine the timeline of where Just traveled and with whom she spent time in the Las Vegas valley between 1966 and 1968. Investigators said they are reviewing any surviving evidence, including reports of a fingerprint lifted from a long-ago recovered suitcase, to see whether modern analysis can further narrow the field.
While the name “Hanley” reappears in the file, the broader context is a city then entangled with mob influence and labor strife. The Bramlet case, which ended in convictions for Tom and Gramby Hanley, revealed a network of bomb plots, cash disputes and retaliatory violence. Court records from that era described the elder Hanley as a fixer with reach across union halls and casino back rooms. The allegations that Just crossed paths with him echo claims in other unsolved episodes from the decade, when transient workers, visiting tourists and new arrivals sometimes fell off the map. Las Vegas historians note that Henderson, then sparsely populated and flanked by open desert, saw several clandestine burial sites uncovered in the 1960s and 1970s as growth pushed into empty tracts. Just’s case adds a cross-border layer, linking a Calgary missing-persons report to a nameless grave southwest of the city dump.
Legally, the case stands as an open homicide. With Hanley deceased and other potential witnesses aging or dead, detectives face limits on what can be prosecuted. Evidence checks are underway to confirm what physical items survive and whether any chain-of-custody issues would allow new testing in court. LVMPD said further public updates will come if subsequent lab work or interviews yield actionable leads. No briefing dates have been announced, and there are no court filings tied to Just’s murder. If previously collected prints or trace evidence can be isolated and digitized, investigators could run them through current databases for potential hits. Police said they would also welcome contact from anyone who knew Just in the valley between 1966 and 1968, especially those who can place her movements in the weeks before her belongings surfaced in the desert.
At the scene near Henderson where the children dug into the soil in 1970, the area is now closer to neighborhoods and roadways than it was when the grave was first exposed. Longtime residents recall hearing about purses and suitcases found in the brush and of intermittent searches that came up short. “It was one of those stories people traded over coffee — the bag with ID, the suitcase, then the grave,” said Mike Santos, who grew up in the southeast valley and remembered periodic police activity in the area. A Calgary neighbor of Just’s family said the identification, while painful, closes a part of a decades-long mystery. “She wasn’t a ghost anymore,” the neighbor said. “She had a name again.” Police added that they have informed Just’s next of kin of the identification and that victim services are available.
As of Tuesday, detectives said the file reflects an identified victim, a homicide ruling and historical allegations about people she knew in Las Vegas. No suspect has been named, no arrests have been made, and no court dates are scheduled. Investigators plan to review what remains of the physical evidence and to re-interview any living sources named in the original reports. The next update is expected after those steps are completed and any new lab results are in.
Author note: Last updated November 18, 2025.