Remains of murdered California millionaire, killed by con man, identified

The remains of a long-missing millionaire, who vanished from her California home amid a cloud of suspicious circumstances, have finally been identified. 

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Thelma Jeanette Gaston had lived through the worst kind of heartbreak. In 1957, she lost her husband to a heart attack; a few months later, her 32-year-old son died on a training flight when a military jet taking off from Van Nuys Airport crashed into a nearby home. Although her family had been wiped out in a single year, Gaston managed to carry on. She focused on her business — buying repossessed properties and selling them — and accumulated a vast fortune that was estimated to be over $20 million by 1980.

On June 28, 1981, someone found a note on the door of her home near Century City. It said she was out looking for her cat. But days turned to weeks, and Gaston, who was then 80 years old, failed to return.

As detectives looked into the case, they soon discovered a strange man had recently entered her orbit. Lawrence Remsen, then 39, was a former carpet salesman and burglary alarm company employee. He’d somehow wormed his way into Gaston’s life, and her friends told investigators she viewed him as a romantic companion. They’d even discussed marriage, but Gaston wondered aloud to friends about the motives of the much younger man. 

West LA police found documents and letters supposedly signed by Gaston, some giving over power of attorney to Remsen. Another letter, allegedly written by Gaston, said she had run away “to have some fun in life and nobody is going to stop me.” The woman’s loved ones insisted the sharp businesswoman would never do something so irresponsible. And sure enough, police soon found the letters were certified with a stolen notary stamp; her signatures were allegedly forged. Remsen was found to have tried to sell some of Gaston’s properties and extract over $100,000 from her bank accounts. 

As the investigation barreled ahead, Remsen too disappeared. But a few months later, he was found by U.S. border agents when he tried to cross back into the country from Mexico. He was taken into custody and charged with Gaston’s murder despite the fact the woman’s body hadn’t been found. At trial, Remsen claimed he’d found Gaston dead of natural causes in her home and, scheming to take her fortune, disposed of her body in the ocean and pretended she was still alive. A judge disagreed, ruling he had killed her “intentionally and with malice.” At Remsen’s sentencing for second-degree murder, the judge called him an “incompetent scoundrel.” 

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But still, Gaston remained missing. Unbeknownst to detectives in LA, in late November 1981, someone collecting firewood off Highway 74 near Pinyon Pines stumbled onto a shallow grave. Skeletal remains were poking out of the ground. Riverside County Sheriff’s deputies collected the remains, but they were in such an advanced state of decomposition that no identification could be made. The case went cold.

In 2024, the Riverside County coroner’s bureau decided to take another look at the case. The bones were exhumed, and a DNA profile was extracted. The samples were sent to Othram, a private forensic genealogy lab in Texas. Investigators there found leads that pointed to the Gaston family, and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office recently confirmed the bones belonged to Thelma Gaston. 

Remsen is still in prison, serving his life sentence at the California Institution for Men in Chino. He’s now 83 years old. His next parole suitability hearing is scheduled for July 2028.