The Disappearance of Angela Mae Jeff, Summer 1979

Angela Mae Jeff was born on June 24, 1959. She is an enrolled member of the California Valley Miwok Tribe. Her parents are David Arlen Jeff and Adeline Peninnah "Nina" Jeff (nee French), who have both since passed away. Angela had at least one sister.

Angela Jeff. Photo from NamUs.

Angela was last seen sometime in the summer of 1979 in Oakland, Alameda County, CA. The exact date of her disappearance is unknown; the date provided by all sources — June 24, 1979 — is Angela's 20th birthday and is used by said sources as a sort of placeholder.

Angela had a boyfriend at the time of her disappearance. After her family reported her missing, her boyfriend suddenly moved to Mexico. Said boyfriend had at some point broken Angela's jaw. Accredited sources do not indicate when this incident occurred or the nature of it, or whether Angela's jaw was still broken at the time she disappeared or if it instead had already healed. None of the sources provide the boyfriend's name or any further details about him.

Few details are available in Angela's disappearance, but foul play is suspected. She is classified as Endangered Missing on the Charley Project and Doe Network.

Angela is an Indigenous female with brown eyes who was 20 years old and approximately 5'0-5'6 and 95-120 lbs at the time of her disappearance. While most sources state that she had straight black hair that went to about mid-back, CA DOJ instead lists her hair color as brown.

Angela's jaw had previously been broken by her boyfriend. Her right foot noticeably rotated inwards when she walked, aka pigeon-toed. She also has the following marks, though which side they are on is unknown: a vaccine scar on one of her arms; a tear drop tattoo beside one eye; and a small homemade tattoo of a heart on the webbing between her thumb and index finger on one of her hands. She does not have the tear drop tattoo in either of the photos available of her.

1976 Calaveras High School yearbook photo.

It is unknown what Angela was wearing when she went missing, as the exact date is unknown. She was reportedly known to always wear "choker-style" necklaces.

Angela is not missing from tribal land. NamUs states that it is unknown if her primary residence was on tribal land. It should be noted that the California Valley Miwok Tribe is located in San Joaquin and Calaveras Counties, and is more than an hour away from Sacramento or Oakland. Angela had previously attended Calaveras High School in San Andreas, Calaveras County, CA.

Angela's dental x-rays and records are not available for comparison. At the time of original posting on June 30, 2025, according to the Doe Network, the availability of her fingerprints and DNA is unknown; further developments are described below in the "Possible Match" section. She has zero exclusions on NamUs.

Anyone with information regarding Angela should contact the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office at (916) 874-5115. The agency case number is 20-226056. Any little piece of information counts.

Discrepancies

As previously stated, sources differ on where Angela was last seen. CA DOJ lists Angela's last known location as the Sacramento area. However, NamUs, as well as user-contributed sites that use NamUs as a source, indicate that she instead went missing from Oakland, Alameda County.

Despite this discrepancy, both CA DOJ and even NamUs state that Angela's disappearance is being investigated by the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office.

The To’ Kee Skuy’ Soo Ney-Wo-Chek’ Project compiles data regarding cases of MMIP in the state of California, and has created a database for Northern California, "which is available to tribes, Indigenous service providers, and other relevant stakeholders upon request." The project, which is currently based within the Yurok Tribal Court, has published annual reports on their findings.

The Year 1 Report for the To’ Kee Skuy’ Soo Ney-Wo-Chek’ Project, published in July 2020, has this to say about Angela Jeff's case:

"Even more troubling, some jurisdictions informed us that they did not have records of missing Native women in their jurisdiction, despite those cases being listed as under their jurisdiction in NamUs. For example, Miwok MMIW Angela Mae Jeff was reported missing from Oakland, CA in 1980, yet Oakland Police Department responded to a FOIA request indicating they had no record of any missing Native female."

Furthermore, from the above quote it seems that Angela may have been reported missing in 1980. If that is the case, then the length of time between last contact and when she was reported missing would explain why the exact date of disappearance is uncertain.

However, I could not find information from other sources regarding when exactly Angela was reported missing, though it is known that that was done so by her family. Angela's NamUs profile was created on July 11, 2020 and last updated on March 18, 2024. On the Contacts section of her NamUs profile, July 14, 2020 is listed under "Date Reported"; this seems to be an error.

A Possible Match

On April 13, 2025 I submitted Angela Jeff and Tucson Jane Doe 1979 as a potential match on Doe Network. Mary Bell of DN responded, "Thank you for the suggested match. I don't show any comparison of these having been done so I will have our panel look at it. If [it] is proven to be a positive match, I will contact you further."

On June 13, 2025, I asked Mary Bell about the status of various matches that I had submitted to the Doe Network over the past year. She said that the above match was declined by the DN Panel, i.e. not submitted to law enforcement, for the following reasons:

"Medical does not appear to match - Broken jaw should be evident
-Angele [sic] had tattoos - not mentioned for UP even though scars and marks
are mentioned
-Time gap seems unlikely - foul play and boyfriend fled to Mexico
-Distance with no connection"

Despite the above, on July 2, 2025, I submitted the match directly to the respective investigating agencies. Here is the reasoning that I included in my message to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating Angela's case:

"[...] Tucson Jane Doe is a 17-22 year old female who is believed to be Hispanic and/or Native American. She was 5'6 and 116 lbs. She was found on the side of a road in Tucson, Pima County, Arizona on November 2, 1979. She had been beaten then shot to death up to 24 hours before she was found.

Angela Jeff went missing sometime around the summer of 1979 from either Oakland, Alameda County, CA, or from Sacramento, CA. She was a 20-year-old Native American girl from the California Valley Miwok Tribe. Her boyfriend fled to Mexico after she was reported missing by her family. Foul play is suspected in her case.

I believe the reconstructions of Jane Doe, which were based off of postmortem photographs, strongly resemble the available photos of Angela Jeff. Furthermore, Jane Doe is believed to have been Hispanic and/or Indigenous; Angela is Native American. Jane Doe's height, weight, age, and hair color also match those of Angela.

Furthermore, Jane Doe had scars, including on her neck and left arm. Angela is known to have had a vaccine scar on one of her arms. Her jaw had also previously been broken by her boyfriend; it is my understanding that some treatments or surgeries for a fractured jaw may result in a scar high up on the neck.

The dates also line up. Angela is believed to have gone missing sometime in the summer of 1979. While Jane Doe died November 1st or 2nd, 1979, it is believed that she dyed her hair 10-12 weeks prior, which is around when Angela was last seen alive; it is not unreasonable to think Angela may have dyed her hair and left her family for a few months, and then was killed, possibly by her boyfriend. Jane Doe is believed to have been killed elsewhere before being left on the side of the road in Tucson. Depending on where in Mexico Angela's boyfriend fled to, Tucson would be perfectly along his route from Oakland or Sacramento."

A few hours later, Dr Jennifer Vollner, a forensic anthropologist with the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, responded with the following information:

"Thanks so much for your interest in our unidentified decedent. Unfortunately, this case does not match the missing young lady from California. There were a few discrepancies that you might have been able to see with the tattoo descriptions, but other more scientific discrepancies between the fingerprints and the DNA that you likely can't see as a public user."

Note: I submitted the match regardless of the tattoos because the ones Angela has are tiny stick-n'-pokes that may not be noticed easily: one of them is on her hand between fingers, and therefore would wear down very easily/quickly. The other tattoo was below the corner of one of her eyes, but Jane Doe's face was beaten and cut up, so there's always a chance it could have been missed.

From the above quote it can be ascertained that a) Angela's DNA and fingerprints are available for comparison on NamUs, and b) Angela is not Tucson Jane Doe 1979.

This may not end up being shown on NamUs's exclusion lists — at least not immediately — as LE is generally pretty bad with updating those in a timely or comprehensive manner. Furthermore, Dr Vollner stated in her email to me that, "Since I am an anthropologist and not a DNA or fingerprint specialist - I don't think I can fill out the exclusion...which seems silly."

On July 2, 2025, I posted about this update on the WebSleuths thread dedicated to Angela. Four days later, Angela's Doe Network page was updated to reflect the fact that her DNA and fingerprints are available for comparison, while her dentals are not.

Furthermore, on July 7, 2025 I received a reply to my match submission from the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, which stated the following:

"Angela is entered into NamUs - MP71693 and her family DNA has been collected. We have not received any DNA matches for her."