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During a brief stop in Davenport, Iowa, in March 1980, Kimberly Doss informed her mother by phone that she would soon resume her bus journey to Houston. However, she was never seen again. When the teenager failed to arrive, her mother tried to file a report, only to be bounced between Houston and Davenport police departments, each refusing jurisdiction.
The official paperwork was finally opened two years later, but officers listed Kimberly Doss as a 16-year-old runaway instead of a 14-year-old endangered child. This marked a clerical error that slowed early investigation efforts.
Further confusion arose in 1984 when California authorities arrested a young woman using the alias Kimberly Gardner. The Davenport detectives accepted that mistaken identity and closed the file, a decision overturned only after DNA testing in 2021 proved the women were different people.
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The renewed investigation, spotlighted in the June 2, 2025 Crime Junkie episode UPDATE: Kimberly Doss now focuses on gaps in the original timeline and the last witnesses who saw Kimberly Doss alive.
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5 key details about Kimberly Doss’s disappearance explored
More than 4 decades after 14-year-old Kimberly vanished while trying to travel from Davenport, Iowa, to Houston, Texas, key facts in her file are finally being clarified. A June 2, 2025 Crime Junkie episode revisited the case, correcting long-standing errors, spurring a renewed inquiry.
The points below outline the five most significant developments in the investigation, drawing on the podcast, police records, and archival reporting, which remains a priority for investigators today.
1) A call home and a missed arrival
Kimberly Doss phoned her mother on March 24, 1980, from Davenport and said she had met "a girl named Kathy." She further informed that she would remain overnight in Chicago before finishing the bus trip to Houston.
She never reached Houston, and the expected confirmation call never arrived. That unanswered phone call marks the last confirmed contact the family ever had with Kimberly.
2) Jurisdictional deadlock delayed the missing-person report
After relocating to Iowa in 1982, Linda Doss finally convinced Davenport police to open a missing-person file for Kimberly. However, the paperwork tagged the 14-year-old as a 16-year-old runaway, an administrative mistake that misdirected the investigation from the very beginning.
The case had lingered unresolved, partly because Houston authorities said they lacked jurisdiction, noting that Kimberly had never arrived in Texas. On the other hand, Davenport officials had originally argued it was Houston’s responsibility.
3) False ID as Kimberly Gardner halted the search
Los Angeles police detained a young woman using the alias Kimberly Kathleen Gardner in 1984. Detectives in Iowa identified, without DNA proof, that this woman was Kimberly Doss and closed the case.
A June 5, 2024, update on The Charley Project notes that the mistaken identity prompted authorities to delete Kimberly’s record from the National Crime Information Centre more than once.
4) Unpursued local leads: the ride in a green two-door
Family testimony places Kimberly in a green two-door car driven by a 17-year-old classmate named Cecil on March 23, 1980. A witness later recalled Cecil saying Kimberly “walked off without her coat the next morning,” despite cold weather.
Records reviewed in 2023 show no interview with Cecil before his 2025 death, and no formal questioning of Kimberly’s boyfriend, Dallas.
5) The 2023-25 review and public appeal
A new detective reopened the file after family advocates obtained case documents through FOIA. The Crime Junkie episode outlined the errors and asked listeners to contact Davenport police.
Host Brit Prawat said during the broadcast, as per the Crime Junkie episode aired June 2, 2025:
"Because now that we have the facts, we're hoping that getting them out there might jog the right person's memory and maybe even finally solve this case."
Investigators now focus on Kimberly’s final 24 hours and on identifying the elusive Kathy.
Stay tuned for more updates.
