Cold Cases of the Golden Coast

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 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...

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...

Elizabeth seems to have been born Elizabeth Mary Underwood on March 21, 1942. At some point she married a man named Rodney B Winn; the pair divorced in November 1970 in Ventura County, CA. Elizabeth then remarried to a 25-year-old man named Robert N Byron in the same county on March 10, 1973; they had applied for/been granted their marriage license in late December of the previous year. Photo from NamUs. Some records on Ancestry give her first name as Mary and her middle name as Elizabeth rather than vice versa. At the time of her disappearance, Elizabeth's surname was Byron, though she may also use the surnames Winn or Underwood. Elizabeth was 36 years old when she was last seen at her home in Oxnard, Ventura County sometime in May 1978. The exact date of her disappearance is unknown. Very few details are available in her case. Based on the lack of information, including the uncertainty of the date of disappearance, it seems possible to me that Elizabeth was not reported missing u...

Jacqueline Gasperian, 34, often went by "Lin" or "Lynn" and sometimes used her maiden name, Brandon. She was staying with a friend, Laurie Daniels, in LA on Overland Ave at the time she disappeared. She was last seen in Redondo Beach, LA County, CA in July 1970 and/or sometime in the summer or early autumn months of 1970 (though the majority of sources state July). Photo from NamUs. Jacqueline was reportedly driving Laurie's vehicle when it was then found abandoned on the Santa Monica Freeway. All of Lin's possessions were inside the abandoned car. She has never been seen or heard from since. Lin was born on July 1, 1936. She grew up in foster care, and as an adult she married and had two sons. She and her husband divorced in 1962, when she was 25-6 years old. In January 1970, while she was living in Phoenix, AZ, Lin sent her sons to live with their father in Los Angeles, as she was having trouble finding/maintaining a job. She has ties to Wisconsin, Arizona...

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According to both the Doe Network and Charley Project, as well as CA DOJ, Joyce Elizabeth Harper was born on December 9, 1945; based off of this birth date, she would have been about 29-30 years old when she disappeared. However, her age at time of disappearance across both of those sources, plus NamUs is inconsistent: she is described as having been 29 (Charley Project), 31 (DN), or 32 (NamUs). Her date of disappearance, January 1, 1975, is approximated; she was last seen sometime in 1975. She lived in Potrero, San Diego County, CA at the time.  Photo from NamUs. Very few details are available in Joyce's case. She is considered missing under suspicious circumstances, and is listed as Endangered Missing according to Doe Network and Charley Project. Joyce is a white female. She was 5'3 and 120 lbs at the time of her disappearance. She has brown eyes as well as brown hair that was shorter than collar length at the time. Joyce may use the last name Gann, and/or the alias Vivian An...

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 ...

At about 3:30pm on Monday, December 28, 1970, a hiker named Helmeth Mehden of Yucca Valley discovered a nearly complete skeleton in a mining area 22.5 to 22.7 mi east of the desert city of Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County, CA. The hiker reported the find to the local substation, and police recovered a skull, backbone, and leg bones of an unidentified person. The remains were sent to Wiefel's Mortuary. Authorities returned to the scene the following day once the sun had risen to make a more complete search of the area. The bones were found about 2.0 to 2.5 mi south of 29 Palms Highway/Highway 52, along Old Ironage Rd. This area is near Old Dale, a ghost town/former mining area. Officials determined that the skeleton had likely been dragged by animals to the spot where it was found from its original burial place about 30 ft away.  Location of Jane Doe's body off of Old Ironage Rd in relation to the original burial place about 30 ft away. Created by me using Google Maps...

At about noon on Sunday, March 31, 1974, Kenneth Knock, a man from La Verne, CA, was driving in his four-wheel-drive vehicle through a remote desert area 12 mi southeast of Baker, San Bernardino County, CA, when he discovered a badly decomposed body. At 3:25pm that same day, Knock called police to report finding the body in the area of a mine off of, or two miles west of, Kelbaker Rd. The location of the body, which was found lying face-down, has been variously described as a "remote desert rock formation"; "hidden among rocks"; and "in a cove area of a large rock formation." The body was found completely nude, and no possessions could be found near it. The case has been handled by homicide investigators from the onset. The remains were determined to be those of a 20 to 39 year old white man, who was estimated to be 5'5 to 5'7 and 140 to 150 lbs. He had long red-brown hair and a red-brown mustache and beard. His eye color could not be determined du...

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 ...

On Sunday, August 13, 1978, the decomposed and/or mummified body of a white woman was found by hikers under a large bush on a ridge, 0.5mi south of Forest Lawn Drive and 1.0mi east of Barham Blvd in LA. Her head was resting on a brown tote bag. Inside the bag was a packet of birth control pills with fifteen pills left. Her cause of death is unknown, though it is estimated that she had died in 1978, the same year she was found. Jane Doe was a 30-45 year old white woman. At the time that she was found, she measured in at 5'2 and 85 lbs. She had brown hair, as well as a possible scar "on the lower abdominal and right quadrant." Jane Doe was wearing a multicolored sweater, a beige sweater, tan pants, a white bra, and brown shoes. Also on the body was her brown shoulder strap tote bag containing the birth control pills; a brown coin purse; and a Shriek Alarm brand anti-rape defense device. Jane Doe has zero MP exclusions on NamUs. Her fingerprints and dental records are not av...

Christine Moore. Photo from CA DOJ. Christine was born Christine Betty Lowe on February 20, 1936 in Kern County, CA. Her parents are William M Lowe and Beulah Alice Lowe (nee Holland), who was part Cherokee. She has three older siblings — LaVada Williams, James, and Mildred Lilly — and three younger siblings, Doyle Ray (b1938), Thomas Eugene (b1940), and Loretta Faye Wagoner (b1943). Christine's father William passed away on November 19, 1969 in McFarland, Kern County, CA at age 70. Christine married James H Moore (b. 1911) in 1964 when she was 28 years old, and he was 53. They divorced in October 1970, however in the 1971 city directory, Christine was listed as living with James at 718 Oxford St in Delano, Kern County, CA. James had been living at that address since at least 1967. He was remarried, this time to a woman named Joyce, by 1979. Christine was 35 years old at the time of her disappearance. She was last seen by family when she visited her mother in McFarland, Kern County...

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 ...