The Disappearance of John Howard Croasdale, February 1977

John Croasdale was last seen on Sunday, February 13, 1977 in North Highlands, Sacramento County, CA. He left his residence for San Francisco, and has never been seen or heard from since.

CA DMV photo circa 1971. Accessed from NamUs.

John is a white male who was 29 years old, 5'11, and 160 lbs at the time of his disappearance. He has blue eyes and straight brown hair. When he went missing his hair was collar-length, and he had a mustache. He also had a tattoo on his left forearm; a description of it is unavailable.

It is unknown what he was wearing when he disappeared. He is classified as Missing on the Doe Network. Very few details are available in his case.

According to NamUs, John was 29 when he went missing, and his current age as of July 29, 2025 would be 77 years old. From this it can be gleaned that his date of birth was sometime between July 30, 1947 and February 13, 1948, inclusive. 

There is only one rule-out on his exclusion list, Vacaville John Doe 1979. It is unknown if his dentals, fingerprints, or DNA are available for comparison.

Date unknown. Photo from NamUs.

In the Contacts section of his NamUs page under Date Reported is the date March 16, 2022. This is further supported by the fact that the agency case number — which usually starts with the last two digits of the reporting year — begins with "22." From this it can be gleaned that either John was never reported missing until 2022, or that he was previously reported missing, but the original report was lost or destroyed at some point so another one was filed in 2022.

John's NamUs case — #MP89800 — was created on March 17, 2022, the day after the date reported. It was last updated on August 7, 2024. His Doe Network profile was created and last updated on August 8, 2024. 

Anyone with information regarding John and his disappearance is urged to contact Detective Zaheem Buksh of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office at (916) 874-5115 or MissingPersons@sacsheriff.com. The agency case number is 22-076809.

Note: John was last seen the day before Valentines Day. See the Holiday & Events Reference Page for an explanation as to why this is being mentioned. 

Sources 

NamUs

Doe Network

WebSleuths