Davis police seek public help to identify woman

Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying a woman who surfaced in Davis several weeks ago with a severe case of amnesia.

On May 30, a resident of a home in the 3400 block of Seabright Avenue in West Davis called discovered the woman, confused and uncertain as to her identity, wandering in his backyard. She was transported to Sutter Davis Hospital, where doctors diagnosed her amnesia, Deputy Police Chief Paul Doroshov said. “Based on the information that was provided, investigators believe that the female may be a missing person,” Doroshov said. “The female did not have any apparent physical injuries and appeared to be in good physical health, but could not be identified because of memory loss.” The woman, believed to be in her early 30s, wandered in a confused state into a back yard in the 3400 block of Seabright Avenue in West Davis on May 30. She was transported to Sutter Davis Hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with a severe case of amnesia, police said. She remains in medical care. Investigators’ only clues thus far have been several names — “Ruth Pearlman” being one — and birthdates provided by the woman, who believes she may have come from the East Coast, according to Doroshov. So far, however, neither those leads nor fingerprint and missing-person report checks have proved successful. Doroshov said his agency plans to reach out to the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office cold-case unit to determine whether the woman’s DNA leads them to any of her relatives through genealogy databases — a method used by area law-enforcement agencies to crack unsolved crimes in recent years. After fingerprint comparisons and reviews of missing-person reports failed to yield any results, Davis police turned to the public last week with the hope that someone out there would recognize her. Since then, “we’ve gotten a ton of calls, but nothing like, ‘Hey I know her,’ ” Doroshov said Monday. “So we’re still in the same boat.” A Davis Police Department Facebook post about the mystery received widespread attention, with a number of people posting links to potentially related missing-person cases, some of which date back decades. “We’re looking at them, but we just haven’t hit on anything yet,” Doroshov said. Police continue to urge anyone with information regarding the woman’s identity to contact Davis police at 530-747-5400.