One Way Trip Into the Desert

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In 1966, Anna Sylvia Just, 29, a stenographer disappeared from Calgary, Canada. She was last seen heading for the bus depot. Without proof of foul play, only a missing person's report was issued for her. Almost 60 years would pass before the truth of Anna's fate became known.

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Desert outside of Las Vegas

NEVADA, 1968

Two years after Anna vanished, a family on a day trip were hiking off a gravel road that led from the desert into the hills. They came across the handle of a purse sticking up from the ground. Inside the purse was a plane ticket, a passport and some human hair.  The area, 4 miles from Henderson, Nevada was known as a popular dumping ground for gangland murder victims. 

Police were notified, and Clark County Sheriff's deputies confirmed the purse belonged to Anna Just. Inside there were several airline tickets, and a letter dated 1964, which indicated Miss Just was planning to marry someone she had been corresponding with, but had never met. 

The desert was scoured by 25 deputies but nothing more was immediately found besides a lady's blouse, an all weather coat, under-clothing and a piece of bloody cloth wrapped in a bedsheet along with human hair. The purse was about 100 yards away.

A week later a suitcase buried 1 foot deep, and 20 feet from the purse was unearthed. Inside were Anna Sylvia's identification, and neatly folded, intact clothing. Investigation revealed she worked for a short time in Los Angeles. From there she went to Denver, and stopped in Las Vegas on her way to San Francisco.

Authorities in Nevada were later informed by Canadian police that Anna Just was an outpatient being treated for mental illness at the Alberta Hospital, Ponoka up until the time she disappeared.

From October 8 to 10, 1966 she stayed at the Alexandria Hotel in Los Angeles, and received treatment at a clinic in the city during this time.

Her picture was on all the Nevada television stations. Calls came in but none that produced a solid lead to indicate what happened to the missing woman.

Two years later in 1970, children playing in the desert south of Las Vegas found human remains buried in a shallow grave. At the time, the bones were unidentifiable. The Clark County coroner’s office ruled the death a homicide due to a depressed fracture in the skull.
 
Almost 60 years later DNA samples matched the remains as definitely belonging to Anna Sylvia Just.

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Thomas Hanley, notorious Las Vegas hitman

Investigation reports dating back to when her belongings were found, indicated she was an acquaintance of Thomas Hanley, the former head of the American Federation of Casino and Gaming Employees, and the Gaming and office Employee Union. He had known ties to organized crime in Las Vegas and the Midwest dating all the way back to the 1940s.

Hanley is believed to have killed James Hartley, a Las Vegas union leader with the aid of Ralph Alsup of Plumbers and Pipefitters, Local 525. Hartley was a business agent for the Sheet Metal Workers Union Local 88 in Las Vegas. His body was found on March 13, 1954 buried in the desert near old the Los Angeles Highway and Paradise Road. He was shot in the head and investigators believed he was killed 2 to 3 weeks before his body was found. Hartley's car was later discovered with holes in the windshield across from the sheet metal workers' union hall. Inside the auto was a handgun and thousands of dollars in government bonds.

It was believed Hanley killed him to prevent him from exposing an extortion ring within Local 88, and missing union funds. The case is recognized as the oldest unsolved homicide in Las Vegas history. 

Ironically a dozen years later, Hanley was accused of killing Ralph Alsup of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 525, his one-time accomplice. A killer waited for Alsup to return home, and opened fire as he was unlatching the gate to his yard.

Three years later charges against Hanley were dropped after his one-time handyman, Alphonse Bass died in a house fire. Bass who was set to testify against Hanley regarding the Alsup murder, was trapped in his home on Lake Mead Boulevard. He died the following day in the hospital.

A neighbor saw the fire and reported seeing a green Ford Mustang fleeing. Investigators determined the fire was a case of arson, and Hanley was a suspect, but the death of Bass was never solved.

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Andrew Gramby Hanley, mugshot

Amidst these murders in the mid-1960s is when Anna Just crossed paths with Hanley. A tip came in during the early 70s that Anna may have gone to Hanley for money, and it's alleged that he had his associates drive her out to the desert where they murdered her.

Hanley and his son Andrew were a team of notorious assassins and enforcers, who carried out contract killings for the mob, casino owners and union bosses. Andrew was also a heroin addict.

​Police files had accumulated information that made Hanley and his son prime suspects in at least 7 murders, but the it was believed the true number was much higher.

The M.O. of killing key witnesses kept Hanley from serving jail time throughout the years.

Wendy Mazaros, Tom's common-law wife overheard many of the plans her husband and his son made. She was 40 years younger than Tom Hanley, and she once took investigators to one of their favorite dump sites out in the desert. They also stashed bodies in old mining shafts.

In 1977, Hanley and his son Andrew "Gramby" Hanley pled guilty to the murder of Culinary Union boss Elmer "Al" Bramlet. He was one of Nevada's most powerful union official, and Hanley and Bramlet were close friends. Police believed Bramlet hired Tom and his son to firebomb Las Vegas restaurants that tried to go non-union.

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Bramlet learned the mafia had put a contract out on him, and hired Hanley as his bodyguard. Unbeknownst to him, Hanley had already accepted the offer to kill his employer and supposed friend. Bramlet ended up in the desert with a bullet in his head.

​Some debate this version, and believe the real reason the Hanleys killed Bramlet was because he failed to pay them for the fire-bombings they had carried out for him.

Police found Hanley hiding out in Arizona two weeks after Bramlet's body was found under a pile of rocks.

Both Thomas and Andrew Hanley were convicted of the crime, with Thomas receiving a life sentence without parole.

Tom and Gramby eventually entered witness protection. They gave testimony to several grand juries about contract killings, and their knowledge of organized crime. 

Hanley died while under guard in a Las Vegas hospital in 1979, at the age of 63, from complications of chronic hepatitis.

Gramby served 43 years in various federal prisons for Bramlet's murder, and died in 2021 or 2022 at the age of 82.

In 2011, Wendy Mazaros co-wrote a book about her time with the father and son.   

In 2024, Calgary Cold Case Missing Person detective reached out to the authorities in Las Vegas, and provided them with the name of Anna's sister who was 97 years old. They took a DNA sample from her for the match.

What's never been clarified is what is the name of the man who lured Anna to leave Canada, and travel to the United States in order to get married? How did a stenographer from Canada become involved with Tom Hanley, a mafia hitman, especially to ask him for a loan? If that was the case, he could just have laughed and said no. 

It's not usual when murder victims are dropped off with everything they own, including a suitcase of clean, unused clothes.

Considering Hanley's predilection for bumping off witnesses, did Anna Sylvia Just see or overhear something she shouldn't have, and in truth she was a victim of being at the wrong place, at the wrong time? 

What is the real reason this woman ended up on a one-way trip into the desert?

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