Cold Cases of the Golden Coast

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...

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. Sandra 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, Sandra, 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. How long s...

John Thompson, 20, was last seen on Tuesday, February 8, 1977, by a friend with whom he was staying in Mountain View, Santa Clara County, CA. John told his friend that he was going to go to a job interview. The company with which he had an interview is unknown. John was never seen or heard from again. The aforementioned friend was the one to report him missing, though the date the report was filed is not indicated in any sources I could find. Very few details are available in his case. 1973 high school yearbook photo from NamUs. John was wearing an army jacket, a dark shirt, and dark pants when he was last seen. He is a white male with brown hair and brown eyes. At the time of his disappearance he was 20 years old, 5'6, and 135 lbs. He was born on April 12, 1956; if alive today he would be 69 years old. John's dental x-rays are not available for comparison. His DNA seems to be on file, as he has 41 UID exclusions on NamUs. Only one of these, found in 2006, was from CA, while an...

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.  It is unknown if his dentals, fingerprints, or DNA are available for comparison....

At the time of her disappearance, Kimberly Ann Stewart (nee Morgan), 21, was estranged from her husband, Steven Michael "Mike" Stewart, whom she married when she was 15 and he was a freshman in college. They had met while attending Lincoln High School together. Kimberly was last seen on Tuesday, May 24, 1977, in Sheridan, Placer County, CA. She left her home on Rioso Rd in Sheridan and dropped her two young daughters off with their babysitter, a family friend named Monica Wooden. Kimberly told Monica that she would be back to pick up her daughters later that evening. Photo from NamUs. Kim then left in her gray 1975 Chevy Vega hatchback to meet with her estranged husband Steven. The two had arranged to meet at a pizza parlor for dinner to discuss their impending divorce and/or for Steven to give Kimberly some money (sources vary). Witnesses at the pizza parlor in Wheatland, Yuba County, CA stated that the couple argued, then left soon after arriving. According to Kimberly'...

Andrew Mantheiy, 16, was last seen on Thursday, May 19, 1977, walking northbound on Interstate 5 in Redding, Shasta County, CA.  Photo from NamUs. Andrew was originally from Texas. His mother had passed away in July 1976. Very few details are available in his case.  Andrew is a white male with brown hair and blue eyes. At the time of his disappearance he was 16 or 17 years old, 5'9-5'10, and 125 lbs. According to the Charley Project, his date of birth is June 15, 1960. If alive today he would be 64 years old.  Andrew's DNA is available for comparison, while his dentals and fingerprints are not. He has 45 UID rule-outs on NamUs, including one found in 1978 that has since been identified as Kenneth Nevada Williams. The other two CA cases were found in the 21st century, and none of the other Does were found in other western states; the majority were discovered in VA.  Andrew is classified as Endangered Missing on Charley Project and Doe Network. His NamUs case, #MP23609...

Kimberly Cozart was born on July 7, 1962. She was last seen sometime in February 1977, meaning that based off of her DOB she would have been 14 years 7 months old. NamUs lists her age as 14 years old at the time of her disappearance. However, all other sources, including the description of circumstances on NamUs, state that she was 15 years old at the time. Kimberly was last known to be living on Banner Grade Road in Julian, San Diego County, CA. She had at least one sister. Kimberly may use the last name Harper. Photo from NamUs, Kimberly is a white female with long, reddish-brown hair and brown eyes. Her height and weight differ across sources: Charley Project says she was 5'3 and 120 lbs, while Doe Network, CA DOJ, the flier provided on NamUs, and the description of circumstances on NamUs all state that she was 5'0 tall and weighed about 100 lbs. In the demographics section of her NamUs page, she is listed as 5'0-5'3 and 100-120 lbs. Both Kimberly and her mother were...

UPDATE: It was announced on March 18, 2026 that "Emigrant Gap Jane Doe" has been identified as Melinda "Pip" Beardsley. For more details, a full update can be found here .   At about 4pm on Saturday, December 17, 1977, a married couple walking their dog nearly four miles west of the Highway 20-Interstate 80 interchange, east of Emigrant Gap in the eastern part of Placer County, CA, discovered the recognizable remains of an unidentified woman in a snowbank. They spotted the body about 30 ft off a wide section of Highway 20 and/or approximately 30 ft from a roadway turnout, in Bear Valley near the Nevada County border. Finger marks on the victim's neck indicated that she had been manually strangled. She had apparently also sustained a blow or blows to the head, though the official cause of death was strangulation. Jane Doe was nude when found. She had been dead for two to six days at time of discovery, putting her date of death somewhere between Sunday, December ...

On Saturday, January 15, 1977, three 17-year-old boys — Steven Lawton, of Canoga Park, and Bill Power and Nicholas Schmeets, both of Reseda — were, "coming home from the beach when their car overheated, [so] they stopped to let the engine cool down" near Seminole Hot Springs in either Agoura or Malibu, LA County, CA (sources vary). While waiting for the engine to cool, the three teens hiked around the area where they had stopped, 0.5mi south of Triunfo Canyon Rd and 2mi west of the Ventura Freeway. While hiking they discovered the body of a young man "in some bushes on a hillside" about 50 yds off of Kanan Rd. Lawton, Power, and Schmeets promptly notified authorities, and LA County sheriff's deputies responded to the scene.  At the time of discovery, the remains  were partially skeletonized, with some soft tissues remaining: A preliminary report from the coroner's office noted that the body  was "'not so much decomposed as eaten,'" and ...

On Saturday, September 17, 1977, two employees of the Pickwick Hotel in San Diego, San Diego County, CA noticed a peculiar smell after parking in the hotel's basement parking lot. They reported it to hotel officials, who stated that the foul odor was coming from a vent in the garage. After noticing the foul odor again the following day — Sunday, September 18, 1977 — the two employees — a bellman and his brother — decided to investigate it themselves. They pinpointed the smell as coming from the area of a van that was parked in a remote spot of the basement garage. Upon looking into the van shortly after noon, the two brothers discovered a decomposing body partially covered by bedding in the back of the vehicle. They promptly notified the night manager, who then reported the discovery to the police. [Note: the Sept. 19, 1977 edition of the  San Diego Union specifically states that Jane Doe was discovered by the brothers "shortly after noon" on the 18th. That same clipping ...

At 12:30pm on Friday, February 25, 1977,  a rock collector discovered a badly decomposed body near the Cactus City water pumping station/rest stop, and promptly called authorities. While contemporary newspaper articles state that the area of discovery was located about 20 mi east of Indio, Riverside County, CA, modern sources differ: NamUs states that the body was, "found on a dirt frontage road 19 miles east of Indio." Meanwhile, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Office (RCSO)'s website, the body was found in, "open desert north of [the] I-10 freeway and east of the Cactus City rest stop area, concealed under brush that had been set [on] fire. This area is about 25 miles east of Indio, CA." Investigators were initially unable to determine the sex of the decedent due to the advanced decomposition, though by February 28th — three days after discovery — it was determined that the body was that of a female. All sources differ on the PMI. According to ...

At about 3pm on Saturday, December 3, 1977, two hikers who were searching for antique bottles discovered a body just south (or west) of Canyon, Contra Costa County, CA. The body was found either about 150 ft, approximately 180 ft, or nearly 100 yds down an embankment that drops away from Pinehurst Road, 0.2 to 0.4 miles west of Canyon Road. A contemporary newspaper clipping stated that the embankment was, "near the Pinehurst and Canyon Road intersection just west of Oakland." The hikers called East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) rangers, as the body was found on EBMUD land. By 3:30pm that day EBMUD rangers verified the report and called sheriff’s deputies. Homicide investigators arrived to inspect the area after night had fallen, so a reserve officer from the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office was stationed on the road overnight to guard the remains. At the time, the body was thought to be that of a white woman. The body’s legs had been tied 10 inches above the ankle with ...

Scott Howard Allison grew up in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, before he and his family moved to Bakersfield, Kern County, CA for his senior year of high school. He was a varsity wrestler at West High, and finished third in the league. His former coach stated that Scott was "extremely strong, wrestling at 154 pounds." He graduated from high school in 1974. Scott Allison. Photo from FindAGrave By September 1977, Scott, 21, was an active-duty Army soldier stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. At the time of his death he was on 30-day leave before departing for his new post in Ft Richardson, Alaska. On Thursday, September 1, 1977, Scott set out on a cross-country trip to visit his family at their residence at 1805 Esther Drive in Bakersfield. Scott's family heard from him for the last time on the afternoon of  Sunday, September 4, 1977 , when he called his mother from Prescott, Yavapai County, AZ and told her that he would be home in about 10 hours. According to Google Maps, the dr...