Missing girl Marcia Thomas from Reno is linked to murdered Jane Doe
Reno teenager Marcia Shirree Thomas was a beloved daughter and sister who was on the muster roll and talked about going to college someday.
The colorful Care Bear stuffed animals on Marcia Shirree Thomas’ rainbow bedsheets didn’t move on the night of June 9, 2009. The dinner she had left in the microwave to heat up when she got home was untouched.
And the girl from Reno who loved styling her hair in front of the mirror was not in the bathroom.
The night 14-year-old Marcia visited a friend was the last time her family saw the girl who was on the muster roll and dreamed of going to college.
She loved climbing trees, playing volleyball, and designing clothes for her dolls. At 6’1″ tall, when she walked into a room, she captivated even adults with her ability to make everyone laugh.
“She went through life as if she wasn’t doing her job if she didn’t make you laugh,” said her big sister Kuranda Randolph, 32. She was 17 when Marcia disappeared.
Disappeared
Marcia was the baby of the family, the youngest of Nneka Randolph’s five children.
“She was just my special baby,” Nneka said. “She was just such a child.”
Kuranda, three years older, was closest to Marcia.
“I thought of her as my baby,” Kuranda said of dressing her sister in cute outfits and putting bows on her hair. “I still think of her as my baby.”
The two shared a room the summer after Marcia graduated from middle school. Kuranda remembers that on the last night she would see her, Marcia talked about visiting a friend.
When Kuranda woke up and didn’t see her sister in bed, she wasn’t worried. She imagined Marcia eating cereal on the couch.
It wasn’t until she saw the dinner she had left untouched in the microwave for Marcia that she knew something was wrong.
They called the police. Since Marcia had run away in the past, the case was again classified as a runaway.
But Nneka Randolph said she doesn’t believe her daughter set out alone.
“She didn’t just leave,” she said.
Search for Marcia on the street
In the days and weeks after her sister disappeared, Kuranda remembers driving up and down the streets of Reno looking for her. Her mother printed fliers.
The case never made local news. Police often release information about children with a medical problem or when they are in immediate danger, but a repeat runaway is less of a priority for many agencies.
“We looked and couldn’t find her,” said Nneka. “Nobody helped us.”
About two months after Marcia’s disappearance, a family friend said he thought he had seen the girl in the Bay Area.
The family still has no idea why or how the girl ended up in Irvine, California. Kuranda believes she was kidnapped against her will.
“I know if I had gone with her to her friend’s house, she wouldn’t have disappeared,” Kuranda said.
But after months of searching in Nevada, Nneka, her daughter Kuranda and her son moved from Reno to Richmond, California, where they began their search because there was only one clue as to where the teenager might be.
The family still lives in Richmond today.
They handed out flyers like they had in Reno. They drove the streets for hours looking for Marcia.
When a friend said she might have been seen in Bakersfield, California, they drove nearly five hours and returned home with no information.
Days turned into months and months turned into years of driving up and down random roads.
“My mother was always a superwoman who never gave up,” Kuranda said. “I had to convince her that we couldn’t keep driving to look for her.”
“But we never gave up hope that Marcia would come back.”
Kuranda said she stared intently at the face of anyone who resembled her sister. A few years ago, she approached a stranger.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
When Kuranda didn’t get the answer she desperately hoped to hear, she told the woman her sister’s story.
“The woman hugged me.”
Disappeared without a trace
For Reno Police Detective Tamara Lamoureaux, this unsolved case was a little different.
New to the field of missing persons, Lamoureaux has worked nearly two dozen runaway and missing juvenile cases, as well as 14 missing adult cases, most of them suspected homicide.
The cases ranged from labor and sex trafficking to children removed from their homes but returned to their parents, Lamoureaux said.
“They run back to their parents and the parents hide them. … If it’s not a crime, I can knock on Mom or Dad’s door until I’m blue in the face and they don’t have to open the door.”
It was late last year when Lamoureaux opened Marcia’s file. It stood out because there was no current information about this girl, who would now be 29 years old.
“Generally, when you start tracking down a person’s whereabouts, they’ve either had contact with the police or obtained a driver’s license or ID card. They’re registered to vote. They’ve taken out a loan for a car. They’ve filed their tax return. They’ve got social media.
“None of this was planned for her,” Lamoureaux said. “In 15 years, this child hasn’t shown up on the radar.”
Lamoureaux knew she had to turn elsewhere for help. She contacted the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a repository and information center for missing, unidentified and unclaimed persons cases across the United States.
She was able to get a photo of Marcia from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which had contacted the family when the girl first went missing. Marcia’s school photo was still on the center’s website.
Several agencies helped Lamoureaux contact Nneka, who confirmed that she had not seen or heard from Marcia since the night she disappeared.
Lamoureaux searched for anything that might help her get answers and at times struggled to find new information and contact law enforcement agencies in other states.
“If this case happened today, there would be a lot more leads. There would be a lot more protocols in place to make sure someone was pursuing the case. There are certain things we need to do now that weren’t required in 2009,” Lamoureaux said.
“We have come this far in missing persons cases because we have realised that more and more missing persons cases end up as murder.”
Reno detective links case to 2009 murder
When Lamoureaux came across the case of a murdered Jane Doe in Irvine, California, she stared at the black-and-white police sketch of the unknown girl.
According to Irvine police, the girl was picked up by brothers Zenaido Valdivia-Guzman and Gabino Valdiva-Guzman on September 5, 2009 – three months after Marcia disappeared from Reno.
When she panicked, they beat her, police said. She was attacked and strangled, police said.
The two men drove to an industrial area, doused her body with gasoline and set it on fire, police said. The burned body was found early the next morning.
DNA found under Jane Doe’s fingernails was entered into a crime lab’s database. The brothers were linked to the murder several months later after one of them was arrested on domestic violence charges.
Zenaido Valdivia-Guzman, 36, was convicted on November 15, 2022, of joint murder and murder in connection with a kidnapping.
His brother, Gabino Valdivia-Guzman, will go on trial later this year.
Police said information and suspected reasons for the girl’s escape to California will not be released while Gabino Valdivia-Guzman awaits trial for murder.
Lamoureaux placed the Jane Doe sketch next to Marcia’s school photo.
“I could see the resemblance,” she said. “I just had that feeling.”
DNA from sister and mother confirms connection
Lamoureaux called the Irvine police.
“I need you to look at these two pictures for me,” she told them.
“I just want someone else to see how similar I think they look,” she said.
When others agreed that there was a similarity, Lamoureaux turned to the police in Richmond, California for help.
Unlike in current missing persons and runaway cases, in which the police obtain DNA and dental records two months after the person’s disappearance and keep them in their files, in Marcia’s case there were no comparisons with the unknown woman.
Police need DNA from Kuranda and Nneka Randolph.
“Her name was Marcia Shirree Thomas and she was my little sister.”
Kuranda remembers going to the lab to have her DNA taken. It was a simple mouth swab, but the results were anything but.
“I was afraid of the answer,” Kuranda said. “I hoped it wasn’t her and that she was still alive.”
All her life she had wished so desperately that her sister was out there somewhere.
“I wanted her to see me as a mother and meet her nieces and nephews,” Kuranda said. “I wanted to meet the children she would have had.”
When the DNA test confirmed Lamoureaux’s suspicions, Kuranda cried for days, horrified by the details of her sister’s death.
Nneka said she tried not to think about how Marcia died.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said. “I just wanted my daughter back.”
Nneka wants her daughter to receive a service now that there are answers. She is waiting for information about what is left, if any.
Kuranda and Nneka plan to attend the second trial, which is scheduled to take place in November. If Gabino Valdivia-Guzman is convicted, they hope to be able to speak at his sentencing. But that chance was taken away from them when Zenaido Valdivia-Guzman was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
“I want him to look at me and know what he took,” Kuranda said.
And she wants everyone else to say her sister’s name.
“Her name was Marcia Shirree Thomas and she was my little sister.”
