A Kayaker Found a Skull in a Cape Coral Canal. It Took 40 Years to Learn Her Name.

CAPE CORAL, Fla. — A man out on the water in a northeast Cape Coral canal in May 2024 spotted something on the bottom that did not belong there. It was a human skull. He called the police.

It took two more years to give it a name. This week the Cape Coral Police Department confirmed the remains are those of Rose Marie Gayhart, who was 23 years old when she disappeared from the Cape Coral and North Fort Myers area in March 1985.

Her family lives in Dansville, New York. They have waited more than forty years.

How they finally identified her

The identification required DNA from Gayhart's relatives, obtained with the help of a New York law enforcement agency, and two years of testing against the recovered skull. Forensic work of this kind is unglamorous and slow, and it is the only reason this case has a name attached to it at all.

"No matter how much time passes, even after four decades, our investigations do not stop, and our pursuit of justice does not end," Chief Anthony Sizemore said.

What was known in 1985

Gayhart had recently moved to the area and taken a job at Howie's Hot Dogs. She was living with her boyfriend, Robert Paddock, and his mother. Witnesses at the time reported seeing her with a white male in a red pickup truck shortly before she vanished.

That description sat in a file for four decades. It is now the most actionable detail in an open homicide investigation.

Why this case matters beyond one family

A 23-year-old woman disappeared in 1985 and the answer sat in a canal a short drive from where she was last seen. That is not a failure of forensic science, which did not exist in usable form then. It is a reminder of how much of the country's unsolved violent crime is waiting on technology that has already arrived and manpower that has not.

Departments across Florida have added cold case units in recent years, and southwest Florida agencies have leaned on Crime Stoppers programs to keep decades-old files in front of the public. This is what that investment looks like when it works.

What's next

The case is now classified as an active homicide investigation rather than a missing persons file — a distinction that unlocks different resources and a different urgency.

Anyone who was in the Cape Coral or North Fort Myers area in early 1985 and remembers a young woman working at Howie's Hot Dogs, or a red pickup truck, is being asked to contact the Cape Coral Police Department or Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers.

Whoever put Rose Marie Gayhart in that canal may well still be alive. Police are working on the assumption that he is.