A nude woman is found wrapped in carpeting at the old Salt Lake Beach In the autumn of 1978, the quiet landscape near Magna, Utah, held a grim secret. On October 25th, a motorist traveling near the old Salt Lake Beach off of I-80 made a startling discovery: the body of a Caucasian female, who would later be identified as 45-year-old Patricia Ann Barrett. The woman was found nude and wrapped in a piece of carpeting. An investigation into her death began, piecing together the last days of a life that had ended in tragedy.
It was estimated that she had been deceased for approximately one month, with her date of death believed to be around September 25, 1978.
For decades, Patricia Barrett remained a Jane Doe, her identity a mystery to the investigators working her case. The circumstances of her death, however, led them to classify it as a homicide, with strangulation being considered as a possible cause. Patricia, who was known to her loved ones as "Patti," had only been in the Salt Lake City area for a couple of months before she vanished. She had traveled from Texas, where she had family, and had been transient in the year and a half leading up to her death, possibly spending time in Oklahoma and Louisiana as well.
Patricia's life had been marked by challenges, including a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The last known contact anyone had with her was on August 31, 1978, when she spoke with her children. For years, her family searched for her, holding onto hope. It wasn't until June of 2012 that a breakthrough came. Through the persistence of her daughter and the advancement of DNA technology, the unidentified remains found in 1978 were definitively identified as Patricia Ann Barrett. Despite this crucial step in the investigation, her case remains an unsolved homicide. To this day, no arrests have been made, and there are no publicly named suspects in her murder. The investigation is ongoing.
