Florida kayaker’s grisly find identified as woman missing for decades – now cops hunt her killer

Human remains found by a kayaker in Florida have been identified as those of a 23-year-old woman who disappeared more than 40 years ago.

Rose Marie Gayhart was reported missing in March 1985 by her parents, who lived in Dansville, New York.

Before her disappearance, Gayhart was last known to be living and working in the Cape Coral and North Fort Myers area, according to the Cape Coral Police Department.

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She’d been living with her boyfriend, Robert Paddock, and his mother, Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers reported in a 2013 video aimed at drawing new attention to the cold case. She’d moved to the area just three months before her disappearance, Cape Coral Police Chief Anthony Sizemore told Fox News Digital.

When Gayhart’s frequent letters and phone calls to her family "quickly stopped," they "had a gut feeling something was wrong," Crime Stoppers reported. They knew, according to the video, that she and her boyfriend didn't have "the perfect relationship."

After interviewing witnesses, including Paddock and his mother, detectives said Gayhart was last seen "walking down the street with a suitcase" after being "kicked out of the trailer" where the three lived. A neighbor told investigators that Gayhart "came to her house to use her phone to call her family," according to Crime Stoppers.

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"That's when she told her neighbor that she was pregnant and she wanted to keep the baby, but her boyfriend did not want her to keep the baby."

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A neighbor in the trailer park reported "a lot of arguing and a lot of crashing one night, as far as things being destroyed," according to the video report.

Gayhart had just started working at Howie’s Hot Dogs in Cape Coral.

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"Her boyfriend at the time went to pick her up, and she wasn't at work," Sizemore said.

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Restaurant staff told authorities that she’d left with a man in a red pickup truck.

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Two independent witnesses reported seeing Gayhart before her disappearance with "a white male in a red pickup truck," Sizemore said.

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Identifying him is thought to be a critical piece of information that could help solve the case.

In May 2024, a kayaker paddling in a northeast Cape Coral canal discovered a human skull and alerted police.

With the help of a New York law enforcement agency, Florida authorities obtained DNA from Gayhart’s family. It took two years, but testing on the skull revealed proof Gayhart had been found.

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"For more than 40 years, Rose Marie Gayhart’s family has carried the weight of not knowing what happened to her," Sizemore said in a news release. "While this identification brings long-awaited answers, it also strengthens our resolve.

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

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The long-cold case now is considered an active homicide investigation.

Now, Sizemore is asking for help.

"We ask anyone with information to come forward so we can help bring accountability and closure to this case and to the family."