Fort Bragg lost 20-year-old Georgina Fatima Pacheco in early September 1988. She was last seen on September 1 after finishing a shift as a waitress at the Sea Pal Restaurant; her brother-in-law, 27-year-old Robert James Parks, was the last person known to have given her a ride. Georgina was reported missing on September 4, and on September 10 a man walking his dog found her nude body concealed in brush south of Fort Bragg. Medical examiners concluded she had been raped, bludgeoned and strangled with an orange and black nylon rope.

Swabs taken at autopsy produced only a blood type profile with 1988 technology. Parks was questioned and took a polygraph; he passed. Investigators also noted Georgina’s reported contacts in the local drug scene and considered other leads, but the case went cold for decades.

The case was reopened in 2009 and, on July 9, 2013, a full DNA profile from the 1988 swabs matched Robert James Parks. Parks had died by suicide in July 1998, when he tied himself to his fishing boat in Long Beach Harbor and sank the vessel. The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office subsequently closed the case.

If anyone knew Georgina or saw her around Fort Bragg in late August or early September 1988, any detail could still matter.