Rosa Everts

For nearly four decades, she was known only as “Parker Doe,” an unidentified woman whose skeletal remains were found in a rural corner of Yakima County, Washington. But in late 2025, thanks to advances in DNA technology and the persistent work of investigators, she was finally given her name back: Rosa Elia Vargas Jimenez Everts. At the time of her death, she was a 31-year-old female from the nearby city of Toppenish.

Rosa was last seen by a former roommate in December 1986. For months, the roommate believed Rosa had moved back to California to be with family. The alarm was raised on August 6, 1987, when a relative confirmed that Rosa had not been in California and had not made contact with her family. The Toppenish Police Department took a missing person report, and an investigation into her whereabouts began. Over the years, multiple officers and detectives would work the case, but all leads went cold.

Six months after she was officially reported missing, in February 1988, a person riding a horse near Parker Bridge Road and the Sunnyside Dam discovered skeletal remains. The location was near the unincorporated town of Parker, from which the unidentified victim would take her name. The Yakima County Sheriff's Office responded to the scene. An examination determined the remains belonged to an adult woman, likely between 30 and 45 years old, who stood between 4'11" and 5'1" tall. Investigators believed she had been deceased for four to ten months. She had dark hair, with a section in the front that had been bleached light brown. She was found wearing lavender pants, a long-sleeved shirt with a Mexican label, and mismatched brown bowling-style shoes. Despite releasing composite sketches, her identity remained a mystery. Her case was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as UP16335.

For 37 years, the case grew colder. Investigators had considered a possible link between the disappearance of Rosa Everts and the discovery of Parker Doe, but there was never enough evidence to make a definitive connection. The breakthrough came from a multi-agency effort and the power of forensic genetic genealogy. In 2024, a detective with the Toppenish Police Department revisited Rosa’s missing person case and enlisted the help of an investigator from the Washington Attorney General’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & People (MMIWP) Cold Case Unit. The investigator located Rosa’s mother and sister living in Utah. They provided crucial information and, with the assistance of local police, submitted DNA samples for comparison.

In a parallel effort, the Yakima County Sheriff's Office and the King County Medical Examiner's Office submitted forensic evidence from the Parker Doe case to Othram, a private lab in Texas specializing in advanced DNA testing. Othram scientists built a comprehensive DNA profile from the degraded remains. In September 2025, cold case investigators from the Sheriff's Office and Toppenish Police began working together to directly compare the family DNA samples to the profile of Parker Doe. On October 22, 2025, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety confirmed a match. Parker Doe was, in fact, Rosa Everts.

The identification brought a measure of resolution to Rosa’s family, but her homicide case remains open and active. "While the results bring some answers, we understand that the criminal investigation is still ongoing, and our hearts go out to Ms. Everts' family and loved ones," Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said in a statement. He praised the collaborative work of the MMIWP Cold Case Investigations Unit and the numerous other agencies involved. Law enforcement officials noted they were working to return Rosa's remains to her family.

As of January 2026, the Yakima County Sheriff's Office continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding Rosa Everts' death. They are asking for the public's help to finally solve this decades-old homicide. Anyone with information regarding the case is urged to contact the Yakima County Sheriff's Office cold case unit at (509) 833-2240.