BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Many people go past Union Cemetery without knowing it holds the grave of a woman and child whose murders were never solved. I’m Madi Vollmer, and I’m looking into a 100-year-old Bakersfield cold case — and the mystery that still lingers.
Hidden inside Union Cemetery is a grave and a headstone different from many others.
The headstone reads:
"Here sleeps an unknown mother and infant son, mysteriously murdered April 18th, 1923, and sympathetically buried by residents of Kern County."
This headstone caught my attention and made me wonder if we could track down some information on these people and what exactly happened.
“The fact that these two victims were never identified is something that troubles me, even over 100 years later.” Robert Petersen said.
Meet Robert Petersen, host of the Notorious Bakersfield true crime podcast. He says a canal watchman working near the old San Joaquin Light and Power steam plant — along the Mill Ditch, just west of Union Avenue — discovered what he first believed was a doll. Instead, it was the body of an 18-month-old child. “At the time, when nobody stepped forward, the working theory was that the toddler fell into the water and the mother jumped in to try to rescue him. They started looking more in the canal to see if they could find the mother. They cut off the flow of the water and, surprisingly, they did find an adult female.” Petersen said.
Petersen adds that when police found the body of the young woman, they determined she had been beaten and killed before being dumped into the water. Investigators followed multiple leads and eyewitness accounts, but no arrests were ever made.
An autopsy later raised even more questions, revealing the woman had never given birth. “It’s a mystery on a mystery on a mystery. The obvious mystery is who did it, who was responsible for these two deaths. Another mystery is who the victims were, and why didn’t anyone come forward to claim them. Then the coroner determined, from 100 years ago, that the adult female never gave birth.” Petersen said.
Many community members hope that one day, DNA testing could help identify the two victims. But the question remains — is that even possible?
Griselda Hurtado is the chief executive officer at the Historic Union Cemetery. She tells me, “Back then, the type of caskets the deceased were in, we can’t tell if they were wood or just cloth, so we truly don’t know how much of the remains are there to be able to identify them.”
I reached out to the coroner for more information on whether these people could ever be identified, but have not heard back.
Petersen says, “Solving this case — that ship has sailed. They will never be able to solve this case, and whoever did it is probably dead by now. But one of the mysteries that remains is the names of the victims — who they were.”
More than a century later, their names remain unknown — but their story hasn’t been forgotten.
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