{"id":702957,"date":"2026-04-03T22:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T22:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/702957\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T22:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T22:30:13","slug":"riverside-county-cold-case-reopened-victim-identified-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/702957\/","title":{"rendered":"Riverside County. cold case reopened, victim identified \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More than 46 years after a Riverside County homicide case went cold, investigators reopened it Friday after confirming the victim\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n<p>The California Department of Justice Crime Laboratory identified the victim as Victoria Jean Hargrove after matching her DNA to that of a close relative in Alabama, according to the Riverside County District Attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>A genealogist with the county\u2019s Regional Cold Case Homicide Team found the match after officials created a DNA profile for Hargrove and uploaded it to an ancestry database in January.<\/p>\n<p>Her remains were exhumed in December 2024, and bone and tissue samples were sent to a private forensic lab for DNA analysis.<\/p>\n<p>Family members said she disappeared from her home in Opelika, Ala., on Jan. 28, 1980, and that they reported her disappearance to local law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>Hargrove\u2019s body was found 35 feet down a ravine off Highway 74 south of Cahuilla in an unincorporated community near Palm Desert on Feb. 18, 1980.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The case was reopened in 2008 and 2009, but no new leads were developed.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators are now re-examining Hargrove\u2019s disappearance and what led to her death.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team at (951) 955-0070.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 46 years after a Riverside County homicide case went cold, investigators reopened it Friday after confirming&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":702958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,224,5337,8470],"class_list":{"0":"post-702957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-riverside-county"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116343146259381446","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}