Rochester, N.Y. (WHAM) — On Christmas Eve 1984, Rose Marie Gayhart moved from Dansville to Cape Coral, Florida with her boyfriend, Robert Paddock.

Just a few months later, Gayhart vanished.

For years, there was no trace of her. The case went cold until just two years ago.

“We had somebody that was utilizing a kayak in the northern part of our city and stumbled upon a human skull,” said Chief Anthony Sizemore from the Cape Coral Police Department.

After DNA testing was completed, the skull was recently determined to be Gayhart’s.

“We go back out with excavators and earth movers and forensics teams and sifting material and start looking for additional evidence,” Sizemore said. “We found additional skeletal remains on that search.”

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Sizemore said the remains had possibly been there for decades.

“I would say pretty consistent with around the time that she went missing in March of ’85,” Sizemore said.

The cold case quickly turned into a homicide investigation.

“You look at old interviews, old police reports from New York, from Florida, people that are alive, you re-interview them,” he said. “So much so that our investigators went back up to New York, worked with our law enforcement partners there and conducted interviews.”

Sizemore said there are two people of interest in the case, and one of them is Paddock.

“He does have a history of abuse,” Sizemore said. “His mother did not like Rose. I think that’s pretty, pretty widely known.”

Paddock has not responded to 13WHAM’s request for comment.

“I will tell you that he has vehemently denied it, but he’s also made some pretty bizarre statements throughout the decades, even as very recently as the present day,” Sizemore said.

In the days before Gayhart’s disappearance, a witness saw her leaving her job and getting into a red truck with an unknown man, according to Sizemore. That led them to their second person of interest, a now-dead serial killer named Roland Davis.

Sizemore said Davis was in the area during the time of Gayhart’s disappearance.

“This individual traveled between Ohio and here,” he said. “His mother was a co-owner of the Mayfair lounge. He’s been there many times. Rose has been there.”

Sizemore said any information is helpful.

“Some people think, ‘Well, I know this. Of course the police know it.’ Not actually the case. We know things because people who know things tell us,” Sizemore said. “Tell the police — please do that. If it’s of no value, no harm, no foul. But it could be big.”