For 34 years, she was known only as Jane Doe, a young woman buried in an unmarked grave in Gallup, New Mexico. But to her family, she was Candace Lynn Starr, a sweet and gentle 16-year-old girl with expressive hazel eyes and beautiful, naturally curly auburn hair. Born on April 26, 1959, in the San Fernando Valley, California, Candace was the fourth of six children and was remembered for her love of the Pacific Ocean, seashells, music, and her mother's fried chicken.
In 1975, Candace
began a relationship with a 30-year-old man named Michael Herbert Singh, a U.S. Army veteran born Rupert Sookman in Trinidad and Tobago. The relationship quickly soured due to Singh's violent behavior, and Candace ended it, moving back into her family's home in Granada Hills, California. Her safety at home was short-lived. On September 21, 1975, Singh forced his way into the Starr residence and, at gunpoint, kidnapped Candace in front of her two younger sisters. "He grabbed her around the neck and forcibly drug her out of the house at gunpoint, with the gun at her head," her sister, Pamela Mulligan, later recalled.
For the next few months, Singh held Candace hostage. Their tragic journey ended on December 14, 1975, at a convenience store in Gallup, New Mexico. Following an argument, Candace entered the store, with Singh close behind. In a final, desperate act, she placed a gun on the counter and told Singh she was "...not going to take this anymore." Singh grabbed the weapon, fired a shot at the clerk who managed to duck, then pulled Candace from under the counter by her hair and shot her in the head, killing her instantly. He fled in a green van, and despite witnesses providing a partial description and a sketch of his face, he vanished.
With no identification on the victim and no leads on the killer, the case went cold. The young woman was buried in Hillcrest Cemetery as Jane Doe. For decades, the Starr family searched for Candace, their efforts hampered by what they said was an initial failure by the Los Angeles Police Department to file a missing person's report. Her sister Pamela said that for four decades she knew her sister was dead, but not knowing where she was or what had happened was a constant torment. "It bothered me that she was in the desert for 34 years by herself," Mulligan said.
The break in the case came decades later. Terry Coker, a former Gallup officer working for the Office of the Medical Investigator, revisited the cold case and submitted DNA that had been collected in 1975 into the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). The database returned a match, connecting the Jane Doe to a missing persons profile on the Doe Network, a volunteer organization. In June 2009, investigators exhumed the body for further DNA testing, and on June 4, 2009, the victim was officially identified as Candace Lynn Starr. Her family was finally notified.
By the time Candace was identified, her killer was already dead. Michael Herbert Singh had continued a violent path after murdering her. He moved to Missouri, and in 1977, he was convicted of manslaughter for shooting and killing his new wife, Mary Ann Spain, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. After his release, he beat his second wife, Susan Irving, to death with a shovel in 1982. For this crime, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to the Fulton State Mental Hospital in Missouri. On March 30, 2005, Singh was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate. Four years after his death, DNA evidence definitively confirmed he was the man who had killed Candace Starr.
Though he would never face charges for Candace's murder, her family felt a sense of closure. "Justice was served," Pamela Mulligan said. After 34 long years, Candace Lynn Starr's remains were returned to her family in California. She was laid to rest at Forest Lawn in Glendale, near her parents and a brother who had passed away during the years she was missing. The long wait was over, bringing an end to decades of uncertainty for the Starr family.
