DNA test leads to break in '96 Chico missing woman case

OROVILLE A recent DNA test has connected a body found in 1996 in the Sacramento River near Sacramento to a Chico woman missing since January of that year.

The body was recovered in Yolo County near Crawdad's Restaurant on May 25, 1996 less than six months after Victorene "Vicki" Lee Pyrskalla, then 42, was reported missing from west Chico.

However, there was no information to connect the two for nearly 17 years until a recent review of older cases by Butte County Sheriff's Office investigators, according to Sgt. Jason Hail.

"It's just a shock to the entire family," 37-year-old Summer Reeser said.

Reeser was 20 when her mother went missing and she has not been able to feel some sense of closure until the recent development, she said.

District Attorney Mike Ramsey said Wednesday that advances in DNA testing prompted investigators to contact Pyrskalla's parents this January. Both parents agreed to provide swabs, which were sent to the state Department of Justice to be entered into the missing person database.

Last Friday, the Sheriff's Office was notified that the DNA provided by the parents was a familial match to the recovered body. Hail said investigators subsequently contacted Pyrskalla's mother, who then contacted the victim's father.

"My grandmother kept asking him (the investigator) to repeat himself," Reeser said.

That's the same reaction Reeser and her sister also had, Reeser said.

However, now that her mother's body has been

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DNA test leads to break in '96 Chico missing woman case