Cold Cases of the Golden Coast

On Wednesday, April 19, 1978, the decomposed body of an unidentified man was found floating in the Pacific Ocean "off the northern side and western end of the Santa Monica Pier" in Santa Monica, LA County, CA. The man has never been identified, and is currently known only as Santa Monica John Doe 1978. John Doe was a white adult man believed to be 25 to 40 years old at the time of his death; alternatively, the LA County Medical Examiner's Office (LACME) lists his approximate age as 30 years old. John Doe's height measured in at 5'7" (1.70m), and his weight was estimated to be 160 lbs. His eye color is unknown due to the condition of his remains. When his body was discovered he was wearing only black cut-off corduroy pants and a belt. John Doe had wavy brown hair, as well as a mustache and beard. On NamUs, his head hair is specifically described as "Wavy medium brown hair." The user-based Unidentified wiki interprets this description as meaning that...

On Monday, March 23, 1981, a homeowner was digging a post hole on his property at 5229 Palmer Canyon Rd in Claremont, LA County, CA when he discovered partial skeletal remains with some soft tissue remaining. According to NamUs, the remains consisted of a skull and mandible.   I could not find any newspaper articles mentioning the discovery, and overall there is very little information available in this case. Due to the condition of the remains, the decedent's race/ethnicity, eye color, hair color, height, and weight could not be determined. Their sex was also undetermined until sometime between 2017 and 2020, based on information from NamUs posted to WebSleuths. The skull and mandible are believed to have belonged to a man aged 18 to 34 years old. His year of death is estimated at 1971 to 1981. His cause of death, if determined, has not been released to the public. There were no clothing items or pieces of jewelry found with the decedent.  John Doe's NamUs case, #UP4346,...

Yesterday, July 28, 2026, it was announced that  Arvin Jane Doe 1978  has been identified as Michelle Louise Collier, a 15-year-old girl from Fresno who had been missing since February 1978. Her remains were found three months after her disappearance, and she was unidentified for nearly 48 years.  This is the fourth formerly-unidentified decedent featured on this blog to be identified since I first posted about them. Michelle Collier. Photo released by KCSO. Accessed from Bakersfield Now . With Kern County law enforcement (LE) unable to make an identification, the girl found in the grape vineyard on June 21, 1978 was buried in Arvin Cemetery in November 1978 as a Jane Doe. The investigation was reopened and Arvin Jane Doe's remains were exhumed in August 2007, and samples of her DNA were obtained at that time. Those bone samples were sent to the California Department of Justice (CA DOJ) in April 2008; the CA DOJ then submitted them to Othram by March 2025. Using Forensic ...

  Very little information is available online about Sean Kenneth Phelan. He was born on February 2, 1960, possibly in a state other than California, as I could not locate him in the CA Birth Index.  For his freshman (1974-1975) and junior years (1976-1977), Sean attended Newport Christian High School in Newport Beach, Orange County, CA. The 1975 yearbook misspelled his first name as "Sian." The 1975-1976 yearbook is not available on Ancestry, but it seems likely that Sean attended the same school his sophomore year. He is not present among seniors in the school's 1977-1978 yearbook; from this it seems that he likely either transferred to another school for that year, or dropped out entirely. According to Ancestry, at an unknown time Sean lived at 22 Lewis in Irvine, Orange County, CA. Other sources also indicate that Sean was recently divorced at the time of his disappearance. I could not find any further information related to his marriage or divorce.  One of the photos ...

Yesterday, April 3, 2026, it was announced that Palm Desert Jane Doe 1980 has been identified as Victoria Jean Hargrove. This development makes me so happy, as Jane Doe's case was one that stuck out quite prominently in my mind. This is also the third formerly unidentified decedent to be identified since I first posted about them, and all three identifications were announced just this past month!  Victoria Hargrove was 29 years old when she went missing from her home in Opelika, Alabama, on January 28, 1980. She was reported missing to LE soon after she was last seen. Her remains were found less than three weeks later in Palm Desert, Riverside County, CA on February 16, 1980. The distance between her last known location and the site where she was found is more than 2,100 miles. Victoria's identity was confirmed through a DNA match in March 2026. She is believed to be the victim of a homicide. Why/how she ended up in California, as well as the identity of her killer, are sti...

The NamUs profile of Josephine County John Doe 1978 was removed on March 6, 2026, indicating that he had been identified. On  March 24, 2026 it was announced that  John Doe has officially been identified as Mark Smith , who had been missing since 1974. Close-up of Mark Smith from a photo taken at his sister's wedding in September 1973. Image from the Unidentified wiki and other sources. Mark was born on October 4, 1954. Sometime before his birthday in 1974, when he was 19 years old, Mark left his home in the city of Billings, Yellowstone County, Montana, having told his family that he intended to travel. He was never seen or heard from again.  It seems that he had never been reported missing. DNA research began on Josephine County John Doe 1978 in 2020, with investigative genetic genealogy being used starting in 2023. In 2025, researchers were able to identify a specific family line in John Doe's tree, for which one of the siblings, "appeared to have disappeared from rec...

I am happy to say that Emigrant Gap Jane Doe 1977 has been officially identified through DNA as Melinda "Pip" Beardsley. I have been in contact with a member of Pip's family who had reached out to me, her niece Janet, throughout part of this process, but had been waiting for confirmation from law enforcement before following up on this here on my blog.  Melinda was born in Michigan in 1946, the youngest of six siblings. She was a 31-year-old mother of two at the time of her death; one of her children was adopted out of the family at birth, while the other was in the care of relatives when Melinda disappeared. Melinda was reported missing to the Reno Police Department in November 2025 by two of her nieces and a half-nephew after the latest confirmation of life that they could find was notification of a DUI charge in Reno in December 1976. She was last known to be living in Carson City, NV.  A fingerprint match was made between Melinda and the then-unidentified decedent so...

Note: While this write-up was originally published on July 29, 2025, I regularly revisit cases, check for updates, ensure that I have exhausted all sources, etc., and then make note of when I last did so, no matter how minor. When updates are extensive or significant, I re-post the write-up entirely. This post was last edited on February 4, 2026.   On Sunday, October 21, 1979, a motorist named Tony Trudnich became stranded in a rural area of Clark County, NV, somewhat near Las Vegas. He noticed a foul odor and began looking around for the source. There he discovered human remains "wrapped and bound in a sheet," lying partially in a culvert pipe on I-15 near mile marker 61, and/or north of mile marker 60 (according to her 2016 NamUs page), near Apex (a neighborhood of North Las Vegas). The victim's legs were extending outside of the pipe.  The decedent's torso, as well as one or more limbs and one or more hands were not recovered. The remains were not recognizable...

On Sunday, September 3, 1978, a jogger discovered human remains while running in the Santa Monica Mountains in Calabasas Highlands in Calabasas, LA County, CA. The body was found down a hillside and covered with plastic trash bags. The remains were found within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which was established two months after the discovery of the body. The unidentified person, who was determined to be a woman, was originally listed as being found in Thousand Oaks by NamUs, and is therefore often called Thousand Oaks Jane Doe 1978 online. However, Thousand Oaks is located in Ventura County, CA, but it has been known since the beginning that Jane Doe was actually found in Los Angeles County. In about 2019 her NamUs page was updated, with the location of her remains now being the community of Calabasas Highlands in Calabasas, LA County, CA. Her case is being investigated by the LA County Medical Examiner's Office (LACME). All parts of the remains were recover...

On Saturday, September 20, 1980, a dog discovered a human leg bone in the area of Littlerock, LA County, CA. Investigators were notified, and they soon found a shallow grave on or near Pearblossom Highway.  The Doe Network describes the location of the grave as "on Pearblossom Highway, ½ mile East of Avenue V" in Littlerock. This description, however, is confusing for a few reasons: a) there is no roadway specifically named just "Avenue V" in Littlerock, b) there  is  E Ave V (i.e., East Avenue V), as well as E Ave V-8, E Ave V-9, etc. up to E Ave V-14, and c) all of the E Ave V's run east-to-west, parallel to Pearblossom Highway, so there are no locations where the highway is east  of  any of the avenues. Because of this, I believe the intended meaning of "East of Avenue V" could instead be simply "E Ave V," however which one is intended — as well as its relation to the gravesite — is uncertain on my part. Regarding the shallow grave, the ar...

On Sunday, August 3, 1980, a hiker named John Bryant Collins found human remains in unincorporated San Mateo County, CA. Collins found a skull off of Little Butano Creek Trail, which is a 1.5-mile (one way) trail in Butano State Park. Collins turned the skull over to State Park Ranger Thomas Lindsey, who notified the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office. Investigators from the sheriff's and coroner's offices responded to the scene and recovered the remains, and conducted multiple searches over the following weeks for further bones or evidence.  Twenty to twenty-five additional bones were found by LE after Collins's initial discovery, including teeth, several vertebrae, and "what appear to be arm bones." The remains were not recognizable as a result of consisting of partial skeletal parts only. The unidentified person's torso, as well as one or more limbs and one or both hands, were not recovered. Also listed among the inventory of remains on NamUs is "he...

Note: While this write-up was originally published on August 5, 2025, I regularly revisit cases, check for updates, ensure that I have exhausted all sources, etc., and then make note of when I last did so, no matter how minor. When edits are extensive, I re-post the write-up entirely. This post was last updated on February 18, 2026.    From the Sept. 14, 1977 edition of the  Fremont Argus. Background   Kurt Theodore Kaikinger was born on November 18, 1948 in San Francisco, CA to parents Theodore Joseph Kaikinger and Elaine Barbara Botzer, who had married in April of that year. Theodore's parents were originally from France. Kurt was the oldest of three boys, with his younger brothers Karl and Christian being born in 1950 and 1956, respectively. By 1950 the family was living in Oakland, Alameda County, CA before moving to San Leandro in the same county. Kurt graduated from Pacific High School in San Leandro in 1966.  According to classmates of his, who posted on ...

Lynn Ruth Connes, 20, was from North Carolina. At some point seemingly after high school she left her mother and younger brother, Lee, to move to California, where she could foster her artistry. According to Lee, he always looked up to his older sister, who he described as loving, passionate, and naturally talented. At the time of her disappearance Lynn lived in an apartment at 2817 Regent St in Berkeley, Alameda County, CA and worked part-time as a telephone solicitor in Marin County. Lynn had recently advertised for employment as a photographer's model in the newspaper The Berkeley Barb , and a man who identified himself as "Jeff" called her, answering her ad. They agreed to meet at the Bateau Ivre Restaurant at 2629 Telegraph Ave, four blocks from Lynn's home. Photo from NamUs. On Thursday, May 20, 1976, Lynn was last seen at her residence, which she then left to meet with "Jeff." This is considered the last definitive sighting of Lynn. An unidentified wa...