CAPE CORAL, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A mystery is taking a major turn after authorities confirmed human remains found in a Cape Coral canal belong to a woman who vanished in 1985.<\/p>\n
Cape Coral police say the skull discovered by a teenager while kayaking in 2024 belongs to Rose Gayhart, who disappeared without a trace.<\/p>\n
Gayhart\u2019s case went cold for years before Crime Stoppers reopened the investigation in 2013, uncovering new details about her personal life and possible leads.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it possible that she went off the grid? It\u2019s possible. Is it possible she died? Yes,\u201d Matt Walsh, a former special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, told Gulf Coast News.<\/p>\n
Investigators previously learned Gayhart may have been dealing with domestic issues and was possibly pregnant when she disappeared. Two witnesses also reported seeing her with a white man in a red pickup truck.<\/p>\n
Authorities say they learned two months ago the remains belonged to Gayhart.<\/p>\n
Last week, Cape Coral police searched the area where the skull was found, looking for additional evidence and possibly more remains.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t make me feel better because it is not solved yet, but I would definitely like to get this person behind bars,\u201d said Cape Coral resident Ashley LaRosa. \u201cGet justice for her and her family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police say the Livingston County Sheriff\u2019s Office in New York helped secure the DNA used to identify Gayhart\u2019s remains.<\/p>\n
The case is now being investigated as an open homicide as detectives continue searching for answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A mystery is taking a major turn after authorities confirmed human remains found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-352490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}