Murder of Mary Silvani

In July 2018, the Washoe County Sheriff's Office announced that the victim had been tentatively identified. In September her identity was confirmed, but the police withheld it due to their open homicide investigation. Silvani's identity was further confirmed through a fingerprint kept on file by the Detroit Police Department, who had arrested her in 1974 for loitering (a misdemeanor). Her identity as Mary Edith Silvani was announced on May 7, 2019, along with the name of her killer.

As of May 2019, Silvani's case is considered closed. It is the first known case in which both the victim and perpetrator were identified through the use of investigative genetic genealogy.

In February 2018, a Washoe County forensic investigator went to a lecture on forensic genealogy by Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick. With the thought that this could aid in solving cold cases, the county contacted Dr. Fitzpatrick, eventually turning to both DNA Doe Project and Identifinders International to employ this new method of identifying victims and perpetrators to help solve Jane Doe's case.

Her last meal was a salad. She was originally believed to be from Europe, due to the nature of an inoculation scar on her arm and her dental work. An independent dental examination in 2010 discredited this original assumption.

Curry was arrested January 6, 1983 as a suspect in another murder. He confessed to two more murders to police. He committed suicide in the Santa Clara County, California jail a day after his arrest. He is a suspect in a fourth murder.

The body of a woman aged between 25 and 35 was found by hikers on July 17, 1982, in Sheep's Flat, a popular hiking area in Washoe County, Nevada, near Lake Tahoe. The woman had been sexually assaulted and shot in the back of the head as she was bending over, possibly to tie her shoes. The bullet hole on her head had been covered with men's underwear.

Silvani moved to California sometime between 1974 and 1982, but investigators have been unable to locate anyone who knew her.

The 1966 Mackenzie High School yearbook has a photo of her, but the school has no record of her graduating, and she did not have a senior photo taken. After her father died when she was 16, she became homeless. Her mother had left her when she was a child and spent much of her life in mental institutions; relatives say she died in 1980. Silvani's closest living relative is believed to be her nephew, Robert Silvani Jr., who never met her. She had a child who she gave up for adoption about 1972.

Mary Edith Silvani (September 29, 1948 – July 17, 1982), known as "Sheep's Flat Jane Doe" and "Washoe County Jane Doe" while unidentified, was an American woman found shot to death near Lake Tahoe in Washoe County, Nevada in July 1982. She was unidentified for 37 years, the investigation becoming a cold case. The Washoe County Sheriff's Office announced her identity on May 7, 2019. Silvani was identified through DNA analysis and genetic genealogy with assistance from the DNA Doe Project and utilizing the public genealogy database GEDmatch.

Mary Edith Silvani was born in Pontiac, Michigan on September 29, 1948, and grew up in Detroit. She had two brothers, Bob and Charles, both of whom are deceased. Nancy Cumming, a friend from her high school days has published several photos of her when she was 19 and her bridesmaid. Another classmate Paula Headley, said Silvani had an affinity for art and reading, visited the Detroit Institute of Arts frequently, was quiet and kind-hearted, and never talked about her family.