A cold case more than half a century in the making has been cracked after a San Francisco woman who vanished without a trace was identified as a Jane Doe who died more than 1,900 miles away in Texas.
The San Francisco Police Department announced Thursday that DNA evidence identified Cheryl Lanier, a 27-year-old woman who was last seen in the Bay Area in 1973.
“The initial missing person’s report of Lanier was filed in 2010. SFPD’s Missing Persons Unit worked tirelessly on the investigation. However, the case remained open and unsolved,” the department said.
It was not clear why it took 37 years for Lanier to be reported missing.
A breakthrough in the case came in July 2025, when police in Harris County, Texas, tipped off investigators that a deceased Jane Doe — who died three years after Lanier was last seen — may be their missing person.
Investigators contacted the Houston Police Department and teamed up with the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Forensic Services to pursue the lead.
“SFPD used DNA analysis to determine that ‘Jane Doe’ was Lanier and closed the case after 53 years, bringing closure to her family,” the department added.
“SFPD offers its sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Lanier.”
SFPD released no additional details beyond Lanier’s basic identifying information, describing her as a 5-foot-7, 130-pound black woman with brown hair and brown eyes.
Houston Police Department spokesperson Jodi Silva told the San Francisco Chronicle that Lanier died on Sept. 30, 1976 — three years after she vanished.
Two days before her death, Lanier was spotted on the side of Interstate 10, aka the Katy Freeway, where a trucker had pulled over to check on a flat tire.
He told police a woman approached him asking for a ride, but he told her he couldn’t take passengers and tried to leave, according to the outlet. Lanier, however, climbed in the big rig and urged him to let her take the wheel, warning that the truck was going to “blow up.”
When he refused, she leapt out of the moving tractor-trailer. Cops were called ot the scene and rushed Lanier to a Houston hospital — which has since been demolished — and she died from her injuries two days later.
Silva told the Chronicle that the driver and two witnesses from that day have since died.
Investigators also said they have been unable to locate any records of a third witness.
Agencies across multiple states — including the NYPD and the Greenville Police Department in South Carolina — ultimately worked together to crack the case, SFPD said.
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