Cold Cases of the Golden Coast

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 October 13, 1982, maintenance workers were clearing a roadside drainage ditch at Mt Baldy Rd mile marker 5.34 in LA County when they discovered the skeletal remains of a human underneath some bushes. The exact location is very close to the border with San Bernardino County, and is  just  inside the Angeles National Forest. The sex of the decedent is undetermined. Because of this, I will be using the singular  they  to refer them. Furthermore, instead of the usual "John/Jane Doe," I have chosen to occasionally refer to them as  Jean Doe , as Jean is a unisex name, and I do not want to simply refer to them as "Doe" or "Unknown Doe," as I find that to be dehumanizing.  Google Street View of what I believe is the drainage ditch in which LA County Doe 1982 was found, via Google Earth. The body was unrecognizable due to consisting of partial remains with soft tissues. One or more limbs, as well as one or both hands, were not recovered. According to Nam...

Note: While this write-up was originally published on August 16, 2025, I regularly revisit cases, fix any typos or formatting errors, check for updates, hyperlink new posts, 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 November 4, 2025.  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. Map of the locations of all three sets of remains. Created by me using Google Maps, viewed ...

Kenneth Byram, 24, was last seen in Los Angeles, LA County, CA in 1979, possibly in November. Because the exact date of his disappearance is unknown, November 1, 1979 is used as a placeholder by all sources. Very little information is available in his case. Kenneth is a white male with green eyes and blond/strawberry hair. At the time of his disappearance he was 24 years old, 6'2, and 150 lbs. When I first published this post in Sept. 2025, NamUs listed his current age as 70 years old; by late May 2026, his current age had been updated to 71. Based on the aforementioned ages and dates, Kenneth's date of birth may have been between May 29, 1955 and September 11, 1955, inclusive.  There are very, very few details available regarding Kenneth's disappearance. The only source really is NamUs; all other references to him online cite NamUs as the source of all of its information. Based on the agency case number, it is likely/possible that Kenneth wasn't reported missing until ...

At 1:00pm on Saturday, January 26, 1980, a hiker found the remains of two decedents in a riverbed/wash south of the Valencia Sewage Treatment Plant, north of Magic Mountain Parkway and west of the Old Road in the Valencia neighborhood of Santa Clarita, LA County, CA. One of the decedents, who I will be calling Younger Doe, was estimated to be 17 to 24 years old, while the other, who I will be calling Older Doe, was estimated to be 17 to 35 years old; while these two decedents may have been the same or similar ages, I am giving these nicknames in order to easily distinguish between the two of them. Reconstruction of Younger Doe, from NamUs. Younger Doe was determined to have died by homicide by gunshot wound. While not explicitly stated by sources, it is implied that this is also how Older Doe died as well; Older Doe's case is also being investigated as a homicide. Younger Doe's estimated PMI is months prior, though less than two years, and both of the Does' estimated DODs a...

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. 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, though this is just speculation on my part. 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...

Mona Jean Gallegos was likely born in 1952 or 1953. She went by the nickname "Tuni" among family, and she had five siblings, two sisters and three brothers. Having previously lived in Colorado, the Gallegos family moved to southern CA in 1968; Mona attended Wilson High School in LA. In 1971 the family returned to CO, which is where Mona graduated from high school that same year. The Gallegos family eventually moved back to southern CA, where they lived at 4944 Vincent Ave in Covina, LA County, CA. Mona briefly attended Mt San Antonio College, then decided to go to work full time; she was a seamstress for awhile, then got a job as a waitress. For the last six months before her disappearance, Mona had been a waitress at Coffee Dan's in West Covina. She had reportedly planned to enroll again at Mt SAC in the fall, "probably to prepare for a career in social work." At the time of her disappearance Mona, 22, lived at 4944 Vincent Ave with her mother, Alice Gallegos, ...

On Saturday, January 7, 1978, human remains of a female were found by a hiker in a rugged area of the Antelope Valley in LA County, 0.5mi from the nearest road. According to previous postings of database entries to WebSleuths from 2016, Jane Doe may have been found in a canyon wash "at Rock Formations 150th Street East & Avenue P-8" in Palmdale, LA County, CA.  The website of the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office (LACME) states that Jane Doe had been dead for less than one year. According to NamUs, her estimated year of death is 1978; considering the fact that she was found on January 7th of that year, this could be incorrect, or she had been killed only a few days before she was found. Jane Doe's remains were decomposed, and were unrecognizable at the time of discovery. The body's condition was partial remains with soft tissues. One or both limbs, as well as one or both hands, were not recovered. Jane Doe's COD is unknown, though her death is b...

At about 4:45pm on Wednesday, September 19, 1979, the body of a teenager or  young man  was discovered in the Los Angeles Riverbed, north of the Patata St overpass/trestle in Bell, LA County, CA. He had been deceased for only some hours prior, and his face was recognizable; a postmortem photo is available through a link on the Doe Network. The cause and manner of death have not been released. Artist rendering from NCMEC. John Doe was 15 to 25 years old, 5'8, and 129 lbs. The estimated age group listed by NamUs is "Adult - Pre 30." He was white and had brown eyes and short, thin, light brown hair. A reconstruction of him created by NCMEC is available. When found, he was wearing blue slacks, a Hawaiian print shirt from K-Mart, a brown leather belt, underwear, and white socks with a red stripe at the top. John Doe's dentals, DNA, and fingerprints are all available for comparison. He has six MP exclusions on NamUs, as well as one repeat: John Doe is not Donald Rexroth (wh...

On Sunday, August 24, 1980, a teenager discovered the remains of a girl in the Montecito Hills Regional Park at Griffin and Montecito in East Los Angeles. The teenager did not report the body to the police until six days later. At 10:00am on Saturday, August 30, 1980, the LA County Sheriff's Department (LASD) located the mummified remains where the teenager had indicated, on the ground at the base of a ravine in a remote, fairly inaccessible wooded area of steep hills and dense foliage 0.25mi east of the 110 Freeway. According to the Doe Network, it was determined that Jane Doe had been murdered, and that she was killed at the location where she was found. All parts were recovered. The decedent's face was not recognizable due to mummification, and there are no reconstructions available of her. It is believed that Jane Doe had died the same year that she was found. Her unidentified wiki page states that the PMI was weeks to months. The information provided by the website of the ...