Independence police say remains of Kansas City woman missing for 41 years identified
More than 41 years after 19-year-old Kimberly Lawanda Carter disappeared, her remains have been identified — a major breakthrough in one of Kansas City’s oldest cold cases.
Carterdisappeared in the early evening hours of July 5, 1984, near the 4500 block of Kensington Avenue in Kansas City, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).
Carter’s case is one of the oldest listed on the Kansas City Police Department website. Only five cold cases precede Carter’s.
Following forensic testing, investigators have revealed that Carter’s remains were found in a remote area of eastern Independence, according to a press release from Independence Police Department spokesperson, officer Bryan Conley.
In August 1988, a construction crew uncovered a human skull in Independence, according to the press release. The remains were transferred to the University of Missouri’s anthropology lab for analysis where they remained until October 2024.
An IPD investigator who reviewed Carter’s case noticed that “no modern efforts had been made to identify the individual,” according to the press release.
After partnering with the Missouri State Highway Patrol and a Texas-based forensics genomics laboratory located in The Woodlands outside Houston, a family DNA match confirmed the remains were Carter’s, according to the press release.
July 5, 1984
Carter’s missing person poster says she left her children with a friend that July day before going to work. It was the last time she was seen by those closest to her.
She later called a friend “from somewhere in Kansas,” requesting a ride, according to the Kansas City Police Department. She later told the friend a man had offered her a ride.
Carter’s mother, Vera Owsley, never gave up on her daughter’s case.
In 2006, Owsley told The Kansas City Star she would visit the police station two to three times per week, hoping for new information.
The woman would pass out flyers with her daughter’s photo around town, even pleading with truckers at Wal-Mart to distribute them nationwide, according to previous reporting from The Star.
In the 2006 article, Owsley remembered her daughter as “a natural gymnast” who loved climbing and doing flips, sewing outfits for her dolls, and loved shopping and dressing up.
At the time, she told The Star she felt the pain of losing her daughter “like it happened yesterday.”
“I see someone like her, I circle the block, I look her in the face, and then I go on,” Owsley said.
A criminal investigation into Carter’s death is ongoing. Anyone with information related to Carter’s disappearance and death is encouraged to contact the Independence Police Department at 816-325-7300 or the anonymous TIPS hotline at 816-474 TIPS.
This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 10:08 PM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misidentified the city where the DNA lab is based, which is The Woodlands, Texas, near Houston.
