Detectives seek tips 45 years after shooting death of Yellow Pages heiress near the Hoover Dam
Arizona detectives are seeking tips from the public more than four decades after a 25-year-old heiress was found shot to death near the Hoover Dam on the border between Nevada and Arizona.
It's been 45 years since the body of Marion Berry Ouma was found on an embankment near the highway, but no arrests have been made.
Ouma inherited $40 million after her grandfather, Yellow Pages founder Loren Berry, died, said the Mohave County Sheriff's Office Special Investigation Unit, the five-year-old agency investigating the cold case. The sheriff's office said Berry was worth $500 million and one of his grandsons pegged the company's value at almost $1 billion when it was sold.
Lori Miller, one of the two part-time investigators in the Special Investigation Unit, told CBS News the details in Ouma's case are distinctive enough to stand out in the 60 unsolved cold cases in Mohave County.
Authorities found Ouma's body on Jan. 3, 1979. They believed she had been dead for less than 12 hours, said the Mohave County Sheriff's Office. An autopsy revealed that the victim had been shot in the head and abdomen with a .38 caliber weapon, but investigators didn't know her identity at the time.
More than two years later detectives were notified by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department that a private investigator from Ohio had possibly identified the victim, the sheriff's office said. The investigator showed a photo to detectives and the similarities were striking.
Detectives contacted Ouma's mother and stepfather, Elizabeth and Robert Gray, who identified the body.
Ouma's mother and step-father have since passed away, said Miller, but Ouma has a brother who has provided some details to investigators. (Gray is Berry's daughter and he sat on the family foundation's board.)
The identity was confirmed later with dental records and fingerprints. Ouma had written letters to her family and they lifted the fingerprints from those letters, Miller said. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told CBS News no missing person report was taken about Ouma when she disappeared.
Her parents told detectives that prior to her death, Ouma had gotten married in Africa, where she lived for a few years working as a physical education teacher. The marriage didn't last long and her husband stayed in Africa and didn't come to the United States, said Miller. She said she believes Ouma lived in Nairobi, Kenya, during her time in Africa.
Detectives traveled to Las Vegas to conduct interviews and spoke with a bank employee who said Ouma had come into the bank on Nov. 28 and Dec. 13 to withdraw money from her savings account in Ohio. They then went to her home at Sierra Vista Apartments in Las Vegas, where the landlord told detectives she rented an apartment in November 1978 after arriving in a taxi with her belongings. A month later she was asked to vacate the apartment due to nonpayment of rent, the sheriff's office said.
"She didn't live a lifestyle that flouted wealth or show that she came from a family with money," Miller told CBS News, saying she doesn't believe Ouma was murdered for her inheritance. She also said that toxicology reports didn't show any drug use and there was no record of previous arrests.
Detectives described Ouma wearing green sweatpants and a dark blue short-sleeve blouse at the time of her death. She was around 5'5" and weighed 106 pounds and often wore her hair in a ponytail. Detectives said they are also looking for leads on a 1976-1977 powder blue Chevrolet Blazer or Ford Bronco seen in the area on the evening of the murder. Miller said the car sighting was unusual, and she hopes someone recognizes the details.
"We want to do justice for these cases," said Miller, and we "hope something or someone out there that knows something."