Curry then decided to leave Texas and move to California, settling in the small community of Waukena, where he soon found employment in a locksmithing company.

He learned that Robinson had received $10,000 as settlement from a 1976 personal injury lawsuit and had done property dealings in Tulare, leading some to speculate that he wanted to steal his money.

[3] On July 17, under as of yet unclear circumstances, Curry encountered 33-year-old Mary Edith Silvani somewhere in Washoe County, Nevada, whereupon he proceeded to sexually assault and then kill her by shooting her in the back of the head.

[3] He then stole $400 from the apartment, raped Sharon, and forced her into his yellow Lincoln Continental, from where he planned to drive to the San Francisco International Airport and put her on a random plane.

While he was being interrogated at the Santa Clara County Jail, authorities obtained a search warrant for Curry's self-storage unit, where they found Lemmon's decomposing body stuffed in the crate.

[3] On January 6, while incarcerated at the Santa Clara County Jail to await further charges, Curry made a makeshift noose from a mattress cover and attempted to hang himself.

On January 7, doctors at the San Jose Hospital decided to disconnect Curry's life support after determining that his vital signs were too faint for any sort of recovery.

[7] While his crimes were quickly forgotten after his suicide, the case of the Sheep's Flat Jane Doe became a primary focus of local and regional law enforcement, who attempted to uncover the victim's identity for decades.

Sometime in the mid-2010s, criminalists from the Washoe County Sheriff's Forensic Science Division attended a lecture on genetic genealogy hosted by Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick, a geneticist known for her work with the DNA Doe Project and Identifinders International.