Human remains discovered by kayakers in Florida last year have now been linked to a New York woman whose disappearance remained unsolved for more than four decades.
The Cape Coral Police Department announced Friday that DNA analysis confirmed the remains were those of Rose Marie Gayhart, who was 23 years old when she went missing.
The discovery was made in May 2024, when kayakers came across the remains in a canal in northeast Cape Coral.
According to police, the department’s Violent Crimes Unit received confirmation in May 2026 that the remains belonged to Gayhart, with assistance from the District 21 Medical Examiner’s Office.
Investigators said the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office in New York was also crucial to the case, helping obtain the family DNA that ultimately verified Gayhart’s identity.
Gayhart’s parents reported her missing from Dansville, New York, in March 1985. Police said she had been living and working in the Cape Coral and North Fort Myers area around the time she vanished.
“For more than forty years, Rose Marie Gayhart’s family has carried the weight of not knowing what happened to her. While this identification brings long-awaited answers, it also strengthens our resolve,” Cape Coral Police Chief Anthony Sizemore said.
Gayhart’s sister, Laurie Travis, said she spent years pushing for the truth about her sister’s disappearance, holding on to hope that answers would one day come.
“I mean, there’s always that wondering, where are you? Where are you?” Travis said in a 2017 interview with WINK.
At the time of her disappearance, Gayhart was working at a Cape Coral restaurant once known as Big Howie’s Hot Dogs.
Months before she vanished, she had moved to a trailer park in North Fort Myers on Christmas Day 1984 from New York with her boyfriend and his mother, her sister said.
Travis said that neighbors of where her sister was staying believed she was murdered.
“I think she was murdered, the neighbors were all saying when they did the investigation,” Travis told the outlet.
“Also, there was a lot of crashing and banging and fighting going on at the trailer park all the time.”
Some neighbors also believed Gayhart was pregnant and trying to go home — but her boyfriend refused to let her leave, Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers reported, according to WINK.
Others believed the boyfriend’s mother had her own reasons for wanting Gayhart gone.
“My mother got a letter from his mom, stated that she got the bus ticket for her [Gayhart] and everything, that she was hanging in bars and she was no good and this and that and she was sending her back to my mother and then she never came back,” Travis told WINK.
With the remains now identified as Gayhart’s, the case is considered an active homicide investigation, police said.
“No matter how much time passes, even after four decades, our investigations do not stop, and our pursuit of justice does not end,” Sizemore said.
“This is now considered an active homicide investigation, and we are committed to following every lead.”
Anyone with information on Gayhart’s case is urged to call the Cape Coral Police Department at 239-574-3223.
