Cold Cases of the Golden Coast

On Wednesday, January 31, 1979, a deceased young man was found lying on the ground at Gompers Park in San Diego, San Diego County, CA. The decedent is unidentified, and is known as John Doe. He had died recently that same year, and his face was recognizable at time of discovery, though a more specific postmortem interval (PMI) has not been released. The cause of death is not stated in any sources. Gompers Park — officially Gompers Neighborhood Park — covers an area of 4.7 acres, and has a capacity of 250 people. It is located at 4926 Hilltop Drive in the Grantville neighborhood of San Diego, and is managed by the city. John Doe was a white male who measured in at 5'10 and 164 lbs. His age group and range on NamUs are listed as "Adult - Pre 30" and 18 to 25 years old, respectively. He had brown hair and hazel eyes. A black-and-white photo of John Doe's face is available on NamUs. John Doe was wearing the following clothing items: a white sock on his left foot; black un...

Patricia Tigard was born in Sacramento, CA on February 15, 1958 to parents Mary Eleanor Bergman (nee Canon) and Beverley Finley Tigard. It was both of the parents' second marriages. Eleanor (who went by her middle name) and Beverley separated by 1961, when Patricia was three years old; that same year Beverley married a woman named Virginia Pirrone/Garcia. He also possibly remarried in 1968, then yet again to a woman named Bertie Frye in 1975. In October 1970 Patricia's mother Eleanor died in a car crash in Medford, Jackson County, OR. After her mother's death, Patricia, 12, moved in with her maternal grandfather, William Canon, in Klamath, Del Norte County, CA. Patricia, who also went by the name Patti, eventually attended Del Norte High School in Crescent City, Del Norte County before reportedly transferring to the American Legion High School in Sacramento in 1975. She seems to have eventually returned to Del Norte County. On May 1, 1976, Patti gave birth to ...

On Tuesday, May 9, 1978, a crew working for a logging company was in the area of Holcomb Peak in Josephine County, OR, near the town of Williams in the same county. There they discovered partial human remains, including a skull and other bones in a wooded area. One or more limbs, as well as one or more hands, were not recovered. The remains were not recognizable, as they were partial skeletal parts only. Because of this, many things such as hair color, height, weight, and eye color could not be determined. Officers from the Josephine County Sheriff's Office, as well as search and rescue teams, scoured the area around the discovery site, "for clues to the identity of the victim and the cause of death." Despite this, no clues were found, and the cause of death is still undetermined.  According to contemporary news reports, there were no signs of foul play. The remains were initially believed to be those of a female between the ages of 15 and 25; because of this, many so...

Ernest Glenn Beight was born on February 10, 1940 in Mahoning County, Ohio. He was living in Arizona by 1965. He married his second wife, Eloise, on July 17, 1968 in Imperial County, California. Together they had one daughter together. Ernest worked for American Linen Co at the time of his death. He and his wife lived at 2206 E 14th Place in Yuma, Yuma County, AZ. Ernest, 28, was in California for an unstated reason on Saturday, December 14, 1968. One of his sisters lived in Napa at the time; it is possible that he had been visiting her.  At about 12:30am on Sunday, December 15, 1968, Ernest asked a service station attendant in Los Angeles, LA County, CA for directions to Yuma, AZ. Police believe he had been hitchhiking at the time. Approximately fifteen minutes later, at 12:45am, Ernest's body was found on the side of the southbound lane of the Harbor Freeway near the Slauson Ave on-ramp in Los Angeles. He had been shot in the abdomen and/or chest, with the bullet passing complete...

Early in the evening of Saturday, February 9, 1980, trappers were "setting lines in the brushy growth" along the banks of the Pajaro River when they discovered a human skeleton on the north bank. The body was found near the confluence of the Pajaro and San Benito Rivers, just west — and/or "2000 yards southwest"  — of the US Highway 101 crossing. The trappers called authorities to report the body. Detectives from San Benito County were the first on the scene, which was along the county line; they soon, however, turned the case over to the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, as it was in their jurisdiction, about four miles south of Gilroy, Santa Clara County, CA. The remains were not recognizable, as they consisted of a complete or near-complete skeleton. They were determined to be that of a female. The body had been in the water and/or riverbed for at least a month, i.e., since at least early January 1980; an updated or more specific PMI is not available. Auth...

At about 11:00am on Monday, February 18, 1980, three tourists from Canada stopped at a mountain viewpoint on Highway 74 about four or six miles south of Palm Desert, Riverside County, CA. As the tourists peered over a guardrail, they spotted a body either at the bottom of a 20-30 ft gully, or about 35 ft down a ravine near a turn-out in the highway. The body was determined to be that a young woman. All parts were recovered, and Jane Doe's face was recognizable. It is believed that she had died only one or two days before discovery, putting her death at about Saturday or Sunday, February 16 or 17, 1980. NamUs erroneously states that Jane Doe was found on Saturday, February 16, 1980. Whoever entered the data seems to have incorrectly interpreted the date listed on the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner's Bureau website, Feb. 16th, as the date of discovery, when it seems to instead be the estimated date of death. All newspaper reports consistently place the discovery of the body as ...

From March to May 1979, three sets of remains belonging to young white men were discovered in a five mile radius of each other in San Bernardino and Los Angeles Counties. All three were reported on together at the time. Some sources — including NCMEC and the Doe Network  —  incorrectly indicate that the two sets of remains found in LA County belonged to the same individual, and other users online have repeated this error. For these reasons I am writing about all three sets of remains in one post. Mount Baldy John Doe March 1979, AKA John Doe #1 On Wednesday, March 28, 1979, two hikers discovered the headless torso of a young male in the Mount Baldy area of LA County. The body was found, "near mile marker 10.74 along Glendora Ridge Road, approximately 425 feet down the ravine" in the Angeles National Forest. Directly south of, and running parallel to, this part of Glendora Ridge Rd is Fire Road 2N07, also known as the Sunset Peak Trail. At the summit of the trail had a fir...

Constance Paris, who also went by the nickname Connie, was an 18-year-old senior at Englewood High School in Englewood, Arapahoe County, CO. She lived with her parents, James and Marylou Paris, and her two younger brothers, Chris, 15, and Jeff, 11. Her father, James, was a postal worker. The Paris family lived at 3965 S Lincoln St. Disappearance  Connie was last seen by her family at about 5:30pm on Tuesday, March 26, 1968 when she left home to work on a research paper for school at the downtown Denver Public Library, as its resources were more abundant than those at the Englewood Public Library. It was reported that Connie went to the DPL's Central Library at W 14th Ave and Broadway. Connie finished working and packed up to leave at about 9:00pm, then rode on her usual 9:30pm bus home. She was seen getting off the bus — operated by Denver Tramway — by both its driver and three other passengers. She got off at her usual stop at the corner of S Broadway and E Girard Ave, about ...

Marie was born Marie Sandra Abbatiello on March 8, 1947 in Nassau County, NY to parents Thomas Martin Abbatiello and Lucy M Caggiano. She often went by her middle name, Sandra. She had a younger sister named Philomena. The family was of Italian descent. Marie moved to Colorado sometime after 1963, possibly by 1966. She married a Black man named Shelton Edward Smith Jr (b. 1952) on October 13, 1976 in Denver, CO. Shelton's name is sometimes misspelled as Sheldon. Sandra took her husband's last name.   [Note:  CBI & Denver Cold Cases got her name wrong: it's Marie not Maria, she  often went by her middle name, Sandra, and she did not hyphenate her surname; instead her legal last name was Smith.]   Photo from the Denver Police Department.   By November 1977, Marie, 30, was working at the Airman's Club on the Lowry Air Force Base. She lived at 215 E 11th Ave with her husband Shelton. Shelton reported his wife missing on Sunday, November 20th, 1977. Marie'...

Jack Kroecker was born on May 1, 1945, and grew up in Parma, OH. His father, Jack James Kroecker Sr, was the vice president of Permold Inc, an aluminum foundry in Medina, OH.  In 1963 Jack graduated from Parma High School, where he was a district wrestling champion. He then completed three years as a mathematics major at the University of Dayton before being drafted into the US Army in May 1968.  He graduated first in his class at Army Finance School at Ft Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, IN and took basic training at Fort Knox, KY. At the time of his death he was working in the finance section of Fort Carson in Colorado.  Photo from FindAGrave. Jack, 23, spent Christmas Eve 1968 celebrating the holiday with a fellow soldier in downtown Colorado Springs, El Paso County, CO. They had driven there from Ft Carson in the friend's car. Jack was wearing civilian clothes.  At about midnight on Wednesday, December 25, 1968, Jack returned to his friend's car and lay down to...