Cold Cases of the Golden Coast

Yvonne Quilantang was born on July 11, 1957 in San Francisco to parents Terezo Vincent Quilantang and Evelyn Marie Quilantang (nee Leroy). Yvonne and her siblings were biracial, half white, half Asian: their father, Terezo, was an immigrant from the Philippines. Some sources from the 1970s mistakenly list Yvonne as Black. However, thorough research on Ancestry indicates that she was not Black, but instead Filipina. She was baptized Catholic. She was the youngest of six children: her older siblings are Sharon, Vincente, Michael, Linda, and Thomas; the latter was only two years older than her. Yvonne's father was a seaman. Her mother eventually grew unable to care for her, so Yvonne was "taken into a foster home, where she had lived almost since she could remember." She seemed to still be in contact with her birth family. From the June 24, 1973 edition of the  San Francisco Examiner   In early June 1973, Yvonne was 15 years old and attending Opportunity II High School. She ...

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 unk...

Rosa Vasquez was born on August 14, 1952 in Texas. According to one contemporary source, she may have grown up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  By 1973, Rosa, a 20-year-old Latina woman, was living at 834 Bush St in San Francisco, California along with at least one female roommate. She was working as a keypunch operator at the Letterman General Hospital at the Presidio in San Francisco. Rosa was white and Hispanic. According to one source, at the time of her death she was 4'9 and 106 lbs, with brown eyes, medium-length black hair, and pierced ears. It is unknown what she was wearing when she was last seen alive. Rosa was last seen by her roommate, Frances Almazan, when she left their residence on Saturday, May 26, 1973 for the Memorial Day weekend. One source — an SFPD bulletin published in August of that year — indicated that Rosa was last seen alive on May 28th. Photo from the 1975 CA DOJ report. On the morning of Tuesday, May 29, 1973, the nude body of a young woman was found i...

Patricia Tan, who was also known as Pat, was born on November 4, 1943 in Morris, Illinois, where she also grew up. At the time of her death she was described as "Eurasian": her mother was white, and her father was Indonesian. By early spring 1970, Patricia, 26, was a college student and had been living in California for the past two years. She had a strong interest in movies, and purportedly may have been trying to break into the Hollywood movie scene. She was very tall, possibly about 6'. Patricia's 1961 Morris Community High School senior yearbook photo. At 2pm on Sunday, April 19, 1970, Patricia's body was found by a man named Thadeius Koslowski in a wooded canyon in the area of Bootjack Camp on Mt Tamalpais. She was found hanging from a tree limb with both feet on the ground. Two electric cords and a white cotton rope, woven together, were around her neck, which had deep rope marks around it. She had several bandaids on her left hand and right leg. There were ...

Photo of Steven Downes published in the Feb. 6, 1976 edition of the  San Francisco Examiner . Steven William Downes was last seen on the afternoon of Sunday, February 1, 1976, when he was seen swimming at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. According to friends, Steven was only wearing gray shorts when he was last seen. He lived on Greenview Court in San Francisco at the time. Very few details are available in his case. Steven was a 22-year-old white male who was 6'0-6'1 and 160 lbs. He has brown hair, green eyes, and freckles. A photo of him posted in the SF Examiner shortly after he went missing shows him with chin to shoulder length hair, as well as a beard and mustache. His facial hair is curly, and his head hair is wavy in texture. A less recent photo of Steven. From NamUs. Steven's dental x-rays are not available. He has 27 exclusions on NamUs, including Vacaville John Doe 1979 and Malheur County (OR) John Doe 1977. His NamUs page (#MP33012) was last updated on July 15, 2...

On Saturday, January 6, 1973, a hiker named Barbara McAninch discovered partial skeletal remains scattered over a 25-foot area in a gully at the top of Mt Tamalpais in Marin County, CA. It was in a wooded area near the outdoor Mountain Theater. The remains comprised a nearly complete human skeleton, though the skull was missing. McAninch, a college student majoring in anatomy, took the bones home to San Francisco to study them. She decided to call authorities on about January 9th. On Wednesday, January 10, 1973, then-Deputy Coroner Bill Thomas told the press that he expected to receive the skeleton that day. At the time the remains were believed to be that of a male, and Thomas stated that the body could be of a victim of foul play; as he said, "Marin County often serves as a dumping ground for San Francisco's murder victims." A photo of Marin County coroner Dr Donovan Cooke examining the skeleton were published in the Modesto Bee and San Rafael Daily Independent Journal...

William Elroy Meyer was born on June 18, 1953; Charley Project erroneously states that he was born in 1933. He was last seen in San Francisco, CA on Sunday, May 7, 1972, when he was 18 years old. Very few details are available in his case. He is listed as Endangered Missing on the Doe Network, and simply Missing on the Charley Project. William Meyer. Photo from NamUs. William is a white male who was 18 years old, 5'10, and 160 lbs at the time of his disappearance. He has blue eyes and brown hair. The available photo of him has him wearing large, apparently clear-framed glasses, and his hair seems to be wavy and parted on the left. His dental x-rays are not available for comparison, and it is unknown if his fingerprints or DNA are available. He has zero rule-outs on NamUs page, which was created on December 26, 2017. The Fond Du Lac County (Wisconsin) Sheriff's Department is investigating his case. The reason why WI authorities are investigating is not stated, though it seems th...

At the time of his death, 19-year-old Everett Lloyd Bradley, a young Black man, was a cook. At 7pm on Friday, February 1, 1974, Everett's wife Emma and her mother-in-law  — Everett's mother, Rosa  — returned to the couple's home at 80 West Point Rd in San Francisco. Emma had been in the hospital, and had not seen Everett since Wednesday, January 30. Upon returning home, Emma and Rosa discovered Everett's body sprawled behind a couch in the living room. He had been stabbed several times in the back. According to investigators, there was evidence of a violent struggle in the front room of the house. While newspapers don't state when he was last seen by anyone other than Emma, his death date is listed as February 1st on all records/clippings I could find, so it seems that he had been murdered on the same day that he was found. Little can be found about his case, but his murder was still unsolved by November 14, 1974, more than nine months after his death. His case is n...

At 4:17pm on Sunday, September 5, 1965 — the day before Labor Day  — 16-year-old Humberto Cepeda was riding his new motorcycle down a hill at 22nd and Noe St.s in San Francisco when he was suddenly shot from behind. Humberto managed to bring his motorcycle to a stop on the side of the curb and get off. He then slumped to the pavement onto his back. Several witnesses heard the gunshot, and the police were called. Humberto was taken to Mission Emergency Hospital, where medical staff found the bullet caught in his clothing.  The .25 caliber bullet had entered high up in his back, then emerged through his upper right chest.  He was reported to be in good condition the following day. Two witnesses told police that they saw a light-colored station wagon with a rooftop luggage rack coming down the hill behind Humberto, but nobody actually saw the shooting occur. The owner of the station wagon was being sought for questioning; it's unclear if anything ever came of it. Humberto wa...

At about 6:30am on Tuesday, July 9, 1968, a man named Clarence Lewis — of 560 Scott St — was walking in San Francisco when he spotted a bundle wrapped in a bedspread in a driveway off 1262 Grove St, in SF's "hippie area." Lewis pulled back a corner of the bedspread and saw that it covered a body, then called the police. The body was that of a blonde woman who had died only days prior. Her ankles and wrists were tied, and there were marks on her throat indicating that she had been strangled. Inspectors William Armstrong and Dave Toschi said that it appeared that the woman had been killed somewhere else, then transported to the driveway and dumped there. At the time, it was first reported that the woman was "blonde, somewhere in her 20s, [and] wore a blue-green pullover blouse, brown jeans, an olive-colored corduroy jacket, [and] blue anklet socks but no shoes." The woman apparently had a "hippie appearance." One clipping states that she had been dumped ...

Denise Dorfman, 28, was last seen at about 5:30pm on Saturday, February 9, 1980 at a neighborhood grocery in San Francisco, CA. She reportedly "purchased a few assorted items and appeared to those who saw her then as in good health and spirits." She has never been seen again since. Denise was an Administrative Assistant in the Department of University Relations at the University of San Francisco (USF), where she was also a night student. When Denise didn't show up for work two days later, on Monday, February 11, her employer called her parents to notify them of her absence.  Denise Dorfman. Photo from NamUs. Her mother promptly went to Denise's apartment at Lake St and 22nd Ave in the Richmond District to check on her; the door was closed but unlocked, and there was no evidence of a struggle or forced entry. The lights were on and her bed was unmade, "as though she had just gotten out of bed." Her keys, purse, money, etc were still inside the apartment. It i...

Linda Uhlig was born on November 12, 1952, in Colby, Clark County, Wisconsin. She was one of seven living children at the time. Soon after graduating high school in 1970, Linda got a job at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. in San Francisco. At the time of her death she was living in an apartment at 528 29th Ave in San Francisco. One of her siblings also lived in CA, while the rest, along with their parents, still lived in WI. On the afternoon of Friday, March 24, 1972, Linda, 19, cashed her paycheck of about $180 in SF, and then was expected to arrive at her brother Wilbert's home in Millbrae, San Mateo County, CA that evening. Millbrae is about 10mi south of Linda's apartment. Linda didn't own a car, though her brother told authorities that she normally did not hitchhike. From this information it seems that she planned to take a bus or perhaps get a ride from a friend. She was last seen alive by friends in SF that afternoon or evening. Linda Uhlig. Photo from FindAGrave...