In the bustling world of 1960s Los Angeles, Margaret Lya “Margie” Schuit was a young woman with a promising future. Born in the Netherlands on March 31, 1947, the 22-year-old was the daughter of Holocaust survivors who had immigrated to the United States. Having built a new life, her family watched with pride as Margie embraced the opportunities before her. She was not only pursuing higher education but had also secured a position at the famed Columbia Pictures. Her charisma and presence had even earned her the title of Miss San Fernando Valley.
The holiday season of 1969 took a dark and tragic turn on Sunday, December 21. On that day, Margie’s life was violently cut short. The specific details of her final hours remain unclear, but the aftermath points to a brutal end. After she was reported missing, her car was discovered in the parking lot of a Thrifty drug store in Los Angeles. Tragically, her body was later found in the nearby city of Burbank. An autopsy revealed that the cause of death was strangulation.
The investigation into Margie Schuit’s homicide was handled by the Los Angeles Police Department. For years, the case yielded few answers, leaving her family with unending questions and grief. The trail went cold, and her murder became one of the many unresolved cases filed away in the city’s archives. For decades, it seemed as though her killer would never be identified and justice would remain out of reach.
A significant development emerged nearly half a century later, casting a new light on Margie's case. Investigators working on the 1968 cold case murder of another 22-year-old woman, Wendy Jo Halison, found a chilling connection. Halison had disappeared from the very same Thrifty drug store as Margie, just a year earlier. In 2016, through advancements in forensic science, DNA evidence identified a deceased serial killer named Edwin Dean Richardson as Halison’s murderer.
The striking similarities between the two homicides led detectives to name Richardson as a strong suspect in Margie’s murder as well. Both women were the same age, disappeared from the same location, and were ultimately strangled. The connection seemed too strong to be a coincidence. However, detectives were met with a devastating roadblock: the physical evidence from Margie Schuit's case file, including any potential DNA, had been lost over the years.
Without the ability to conduct a direct DNA comparison, authorities could never formally charge Richardson with Margie’s murder. Richardson died in an Ohio prison in 2013 while serving time for other crimes, taking any potential confession with him. While police strongly suspect he was responsible, the loss of evidence means her case remains officially unsolved.
Margaret Schuit was laid to rest at Eden Memorial Park in Mission Hills, California. Her death remains a painful chapter for those who knew her and a frustrating puzzle for law enforcement. As of August 2017, the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division acknowledged the likely connection to a convicted killer, but the case is considered cold due to the lack of physical evidence to confirm the suspicion.
