<\/p>\n
“When she came up missing, that was horrifying. And our family went through a lot of pain for 41 years, and without question, it was hard. But now we’re way closer. Now we just need justice,” Travis said.<\/p>\n
In May, Livingston and Lee County sheriffs went to Travis’s house to tell her they had found her sister. Travis said she couldn’t even talk.<\/p>\n
“I was hoping for it a lot sooner, but it really shocked me. It really did. 41 years. It’s a long time,” she said. “We’re, we’re very happy that they found them.”<\/p>\n
Gayhart vanished in 1985, last seen at a restaurant where she worked. She had moved from New York to North Fort Myers with her boyfriend and his mother.<\/p>\n
“She was like my best friend,” Travis said.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t until 2024 that kayakers discovered Gayhart’s remains in a canal in northeast Cape Coral. Travis said she fought every day for 41 years.<\/p>\n
Investigators were able to identify Gayhart using DNA from a cheek swab they did in 2007. “My sister Rose has finally been found, and I’m grateful we can bring her home and lay her to rest with dignity,” Travis said.<\/p>\n
Travis will be laying two sisters to rest. Travis lost her other sister Saturday, but said she died knowing Gayhart had been found.<\/p>\n
“She was smiling about it,” Travis said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Travis said she has a meeting with investigators on Thursday as the Cape Coral Police Department continues to investigate Gayhart’s death.<\/p>\n
“Someone took her life. Someone left her out there. For decades, my family has lived with pain, questions, and heartbreak for 41 years. I want accountability. I want the person responsible to face consequences under the law. Rose mattered. She was loved, and I will keep fighting for her until justice is done,” she said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the family is working to get Gayhart sent to a funeral home in New York so she can be laid to rest next to her son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 A New York family has been waiting 41 years to find out what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,4469,356,144095],"class_list":["post-354172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-cape-coral-police-department","tag-lee-county","tag-rose-gayhart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354172","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=354172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}