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Disappearance of Michael Vanzandt
On March 5, 2016, Michael David Vanzandt, a 36‑year‑old U.S. Air Force veteran from Lancaster, California, disappeared in Hermosa Beach after becoming separated from friends during a night out. While the group was waiting in line outside a bar, he told them he was going to use the restroom in a nearby liquor store; surveillance footage later showed him returning to the area after they had gone into another bar. He…
1991 · CaliforniaMissingDisappearance of Jared Negrete
Jared Michael Negrete (born September 11, 1978) is a missing person who was last seen on July 19, 1991, during a Boy Scouts camping trip at Mount San Gorgonio in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. Search personnel recovered some of his personal effects, including a camera and food wrappers, during an extensive search of the area that lasted 16 days. The camera contained the last known photo of…
1977 · CaliforniaUnsolvedMurder of Melinda Beardsley
Emigrant Gap Jane Doe was a formerly unidentified murder victim whose body was found on December 17, 1977, near the intersection of I-80 and Highway 20 in Emigrant Gap, California. Despite extensive investigation by the Placer County sheriff's office, no identification of this decedent was made at the time. NamUs and The Doe Network announced that the woman had been identified in 2026.
1926 · CaliforniaMissing
Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson
On May 18, 1926, American Christian evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared from Venice Beach, California, after going for a swim. She reappeared in Mexico five weeks later, stating she had escaped from kidnappers there. Allegations arose that the kidnapping story was a hoax carried out to conceal a tryst with a lover, leading to court inquiries.
1902 · CaliforniaMissing
Yda Hillis Addis
Yda Hillis Addis (born 1857, disappeared 1902 in California, U.S.) was the first American writer to translate ancient Mexican oral stories and histories into English, some of which she submitted to San Francisco-based newspaper The Argonaut. The most widely popular of her more than 100 stories are Roman's Romance and Roger's Luck.
2017 · CaliforniaOverturnedCraig Coley
Craig Richard Coley (born June 7, 1947 in Los Angeles County, California) is an American man who was wrongfully convicted of a double murder in Simi Valley, California, and spent 39 years in prison. He was pardoned by the governor of California in 2017 because DNA testing, not available at his original trial, did not support his conviction.
2020 · CaliforniaMissingDisappearance of Sydney West
Sydney Kaitlyn West, a 19-year-old student at the University of California, Berkeley, disappeared near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, on September 30, 2020. West was last captured on surveillance footage walking toward the bridge amid heavy fog and wildfire smoke. The case remains unresolved.
2001 · CaliforniaMissingDisappearances of Shaina Kirkpatrick and Shausha Henson
Shaina Ashley Kirkpatrick (born April 27, 1997) and her sister, Shausha Latine Henson (born January 26, 2001), are two missing American children who vanished under mysterious circumstances in 2001 from Portland, Oregon, United States. The siblings accompanied their mother, Kimyala Henson, on a road trip with Kimyala's childhood friend, Christina Noel Mayer, and Mayer's boyfriend, Frank Lee Oehring. The group had…
2004 · CaliforniaMissingTimothy Verne Perryman
Timothy Verne Perryman (born December 5, 1950) is a missing person. He was last seen March 28, 2004 near his home in Agoura Hills, a Los Angeles, California suburb. Tim Perryman earned his BA from USC, and at the time of his disappearance had recently earned his MBA from California Lutheran University.
1995 · CaliforniaMissingDisappearance of Erin Marie Gilbert
Erin Marie Gilbert (May 4, 1971 – disappeared July 1, 1995) is an American woman who vanished while attending the Girdwood Forest Fair in Girdwood, Alaska. Gilbert, who had previously resided in California, had moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where she lived with her sister and worked as a nanny. At the time she disappeared, Gilbert was on a first date with a man, David Combs, whom she had met at a bar in Anchorage…
2016 · CaliforniaMissingDisappearance of Arianna Fitts
Arianna Fitts (born September 6, 2013) is an American child missing since 2016. Arianna and her mother, Nicole Fitts (then aged 32), were reported missing on April 5, 2016, in San Francisco, California. Nicole was last seen on April 1, 2016, and Arianna has not been seen since mid-February 2016.
1999 · CaliforniaMissing
Disappearance of Michael Negrete
Michael William Negrete (born March 25, 1981) was an eighteen-year-old American man and student at the University of California, Los Angeles, who vanished without a trace in Los Angeles in December 1999. Police consider his disappearance to be suspicious and have categorized his disappearance as a homicide case.
2016 · CaliforniaMissing
Sherri Papini kidnapping hoax
Sherri Louise Graeff-Papini is an American woman who disappeared on November 2, 2016, reportedly while out jogging a mile from her home in Redding, California. Papini was 34 years old at the time. She reappeared three weeks later on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, having been reportedly freed by her captors at 4:30 that morning, still wearing restraints, on the side of County Road 17 near Interstate 5 in Yolo County,…
2015 · CaliforniaMissing
Disappearance of Asha Kreimer
Asha Kreimer (born May 2, 1989; disappeared September 21, 2015) is a missing Australian woman. She had been awake for five days, suffering a mental health crisis, and had been released following a psychiatric evaluation. While eating breakfast with her boyfriend and a family friend in the Rollerville Cafe in Point Arena, California, she headed for the restroom.
1969 · CaliforniaUnsolvedMurder of Reet Jurvetson
Reet Silvia Jurvetson (Estonian: Jürvetson; September 23, 1950 – c. November 14, 1969) was an Estonian-Canadian woman who was murdered in California in November 1969 at age 19. Her body remained unidentified for 46 years, until an online mortuary photograph was recognized by her family and friends in 2015.
1994 · CaliforniaUnsolvedMurder of Kori Lamaster
Kori JoAnne Lamaster was a formerly unidentified American murder victim who was found on January 29, 1994, after being killed in Pogonip Park, California, in 1993. She was reburied in an unmarked grave at nearby Soquel Cemetery. Lamaster's body remained unidentified for nineteen years until the comparison of familial DNA and a finger print card revealed her identity in 2013.
2015 · CaliforniaUnsolvedMurder of David Stack
David Arthur Stack (July 5, 1957 – June 9, 1976) was an American man who was murdered while hitchhiking from his home in Broomfield, Colorado to California. Stack was murdered by an unknown assailant or assailants in Wendover, Utah. His body was found approximately one day after his murder in a landfill in rural Tooele County, although he remained an unidentified decedent for 39 years until 2015 when his body was…
1978 · CaliforniaUnsolvedKilling of Marilee Bruszer
Marilee Lee Bruszer, previously known as Juab County Jane Doe, was a formerly unidentified American murder victim who was found on September 3, 1978. Bruszer's body was not identified until August 2015, 37 years after her discovery, due in part to inaccurate estimates of her age and physical characteristics, and also due to the long distance between the site of her disappearance in California and the discovery of…
1998 · CaliforniaUnsolvedMurder of Jill Ann Weatherwax
Jill Ann Weatherwax (October 26, 1970 – March 24, 1998) was an American model and aspiring singer. A former "Miss Hollywood", Weatherwax was found stabbed on March 25, 1998, in Fresno, California. Her murder remains unsolved.
1988 · CaliforniaMissingDisappearance of Michaela Garecht
On November 19, 1988, nine-year-old Michaela Joy Garecht (born January 24, 1979) was abducted in broad daylight at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue in Hayward, California, United States. Sketches of Garecht's abductor were distributed along with missing person flyers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area within 24 hours of her disappearance, but search efforts proved fruitless. Her case was…
1966 · CaliforniaUnsolvedMurder of Cheri Jo Bates
The murder of Cheri Jo Bates occurred in Riverside, California, on October 30, 1966. Bates, an 18-year-old college freshman, was stabbed and slashed to death on the grounds of Riverside City College. Police determined the assailant had disabled the ignition wiring and distributor of Bates's Volkswagen Beetle as a method to lure her from her car as she studied in the college library.
1974 · CaliforniaUnsolved
Doodler
The Doodler is an unidentified serial killer believed responsible for between 6 and 16 murders and three assaults of men in San Francisco, California, United States, between January 1974 and September 1975. The nickname was given due to the perpetrator's habit of sketching his victims prior to stabbing them to death. The perpetrator met his victims at gay nightclubs, bars and restaurants.
Year unknown · CaliforniaMissing
Charles Clifford Ogle
Charles Clifford Ogle (January 21, 1923 – c. August 12, 1964?) was a businessman and developer in San Francisco and Oakland, California, at the time of his disappearance.
Year unknown · CaliforniaUnsolvedGeorgette Bauerdorf
Georgette Elise Bauerdorf (May 6, 1924 – October 12, 1944) was an American socialite and oil heiress who was strangled in her home in West Hollywood, California. Her murder remains unsolved.