Cold Cases of the Golden Coast

Note: While this write-up was originally published on August 5, 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 edits are extensive, I re-post the write-up entirely. This post was last updated on February 18, 2026.    From the Sept. 14, 1977 edition of the  Fremont Argus. Background   Kurt Theodore Kaikinger was born on November 18, 1948 in San Francisco, CA to parents Theodore Joseph Kaikinger and Elaine Barbara Botzer, who had married in April of that year. Theodore's parents were originally from France. Kurt was the oldest of three boys, with his younger brothers Karl and Christian being born in 1950 and 1956, respectively. By 1950 the family was living in Oakland, Alameda County, CA before moving to San Leandro in the same county. Kurt graduated from Pacific High School in San Leandro in 1966.  According to classmates of his, who posted on ...

UPDATE: On April 3, 2026  it was announced that Jane Doe has been identified as Victoria Jean Hargrove.  For more details, a full update can be found here . This post was originally published on Aug. 18, 2025. Aside from this update (in bold), I have not edited the contents in any way since Feb. 16, 2026. This post will remain standing as it is, containing all information about the victim prior to her identification that was known as of Feb. 16, 2026. Furthermore, due  to her identification, some of the links may no longer work or have since been edited to reflect the recent developments. At about 11:00am on Monday, February 18, 1980, three tourists from Canada stopped at a mountain viewpoint on Highway 74 about four to 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 to 30 ft gully, or about 35 ft down a ravine near a turn-out in the highway. The body was determined to be that ...

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...

Photo from CBI. Larry Gene Loucka was born on June 6, 1946. He first lived in Arizona starting in at least 1961; he may have been born there. He attended his freshman year of high school at Camelback High School in Phoenix, Maricopa County, AZ in 1962. Larry then attended Norte Vista High School in Riverside, Riverside County, CA for his sophomore and junior years; it is unknown if he graduated. He then lived in Denver, Colorado for a period of time before moving back to Phoenix, AZ.  In early September 1974, Larry moved back to Denver from Phoenix. Larry was a 28-year-old white man who was known to his friends as "Smiles". His last known address according to one clipping was 1630 Humboldt St. According to his obituary, his address may have been 281 Sherman St. At 11:10pm on Sunday, September 8, 1974, Larry was walking on the sidewalk down the 400 block of E. 11th Avenue, holding a portable radio to his ear. An unknown man then ran up behind Larry and fired three shots, at le...

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....

Peter Joseph "Pete" Bonick and Richard Nelson "Rick" Lamson are two friends who are believed to have gone missing together on Sunday, February 22, 1970. Despite this, accounts of each boy's disappearance differ both between boys and across sources. Because of this, I will be discussing the circumstances of each one separately. Richard Lamson Photo of Richard Lamson from NamUs. Richard Lamson, 18, was last seen at home in San Mateo, CA on Sunday, February 22, 1970. His friend Peter Bonick disappeared at the same time; authorities believe they left together. Neither of them have ever been seen or heard from again. Very few details are available in his case. According to Ancestry and the City of San Mateo directories from 1969 and 1971, Richard was living with his parents Richard Charles Lamson and Lorraine Lamson (nee Zell) and his older sister Constance, who was a student. Richard's father, Richard Sr, was a field supervisor at San Francisco Naval Shipyard, w...

At 11:18am on Sunday, March 16, 1980, the decomposed body of a man was located on the dirt shoulder of Avenue 50 between Polk & Tyler St.s in Coachella, Riverside County, CA. He had multiple gunshot wounds, and had been dead for one to two days, putting his death somewhere between March 14th to 15th, 1980. He was fully dressed, but did not have any identification or personal belongings on him. His page on the Riverside County Sheriff's cold case website specifies that, "It is unknown where death occurred," indicating that he had been killed elsewhere before being dumped at the location where he was found. John Doe was a white man with possible Hispanic ancestry who stood 5'9 tall and weighed 160 lbs. While NamUs and Doe Network put his possible age range at 20 to 30 years old, The Desert Sun  and the Riverside County Sheriff's Office (RCSO) puts him at 20 to 25 years old. His estimated age group on NamUs is "Adult - Pre 30." John Doe had light to med...

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 ...

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 the night of Sunday, September 8, 1968, a fire erupted at the home of the Walker family at 1042 Panadero Way/Court in Clayton, Contra Costa County, CA. The parents, Richard and Jean, were at a hospital fundraising event at the time. A neighbor, James Hanson, noticed the fire when his dog began to bark at the sparks; he called the fire department. Earlier that evening, the son of a neighbor, a Contra Costa County municipal court judge, had been visiting to play with the children, though he left after dinner. Another neighbor, Dale Ross, rushed to the scene, where he saw two of the children, Carolyn, 6, and Carlton, 9, banging on a window. Ross broke the window and pulled the children out of the house. However, Carlton stated that he needed to go rescue his 6mo baby sister, so Carlton ran back into the house. Ross was unable to follow after him due to the intense heat. Neighbors reported hearing numerous small explosions during the fire, followed by a final "big blast." Flam...