It would be wonderful to mark a missing person case off the books and provide closure for a family wondering where a loved one went, area law enforcement officers agree. But they’re not counting on anything until they hear from the Tarrant County medical examiner about unidentified human bones found Monday near Lewisville Lake.

Stobaugh

At least four people have vanished in the county in the past dozen years, and their names are still on the books and still in the hearts of their families.

Diana Goldston, known as “the flower girl,” disappeared off a Denton street July 1, 1996. Exactly a year later, University of North Texas student Kelli Cox disappeared after touring the city jail July 1, 1997. Kathy Stobaugh went to her former home near Sanger to talk divorce with her husband on Dec. 29, 2004, and never has been heard from again. And Rufford Hobson, 75, walked away from his girlfriend’s Hickory Creek home April 20 and into thin air.

Hobson

Could the remains be one of those missing people? Or is yet another family wondering why a loved one doesn’t call?

“We’re waiting to see what they come up with,” said Denton County sheriff’s spokesman Tom Reedy.

Lewisville police recovered part of a skull and several bones and fragments Monday, Assistant Police Chief Joni Eddy said. The area is on Army Corps of Engineers property south of the Lewisville Lake dam bordered by the business loop of State Highway 121 and Jones Street.

Corps employees were burning off the area to clear it when someone noticed the skull and called police.

“Prior to 2001, there was an entrance off 121 and one off Jones Street that were open to the public,” Eddy said. “Those were gated after 9/11 and Homeland Security measures were put into place. There is no real access right now, and probably there has not been since 2002.”

Goldston

Officers searched about 4 acres for three days and found more scattered bones and fragments. The remains had not been buried, and animals likely scattered the bones, the assistant chief said. No jewelry, clothing or shoes were found, she said.

An anthropologist with the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office, where the bones were taken for study, said she expected the bones to have been at the location more than a year and possibly five years, Eddy said.

“A DNA analysis will be done. We’re hoping to get some more specific characteristics. Some area agencies have missing people, but we don’t really have a likely candidate,” she said.

More than seven months ago, Rufford Hobson, 75, walked away from the Hickory Creek home of a woman he was living with.

Cox

He was carrying a backpack but left all his belongings behind. He hasn’t accessed his bank account, where his military pension is automatically deposited.

Hickory Creek police opened a missing person case but have said they believed he left on his own, in good health, and don’t believe any foul play was involved.

Still, his daughter, Debbie Bass, wants to know what happened to him. She lives in Florida but continues to call to check on progress in the case.

On Dec. 29, 2004, Sanger resident Kathy Stobaugh drove to the home she had shared with her husband, Charles, for more than 20 years to discuss their divorce. They disagreed on how they would split the estimated $1 million property, and Charles Stobaugh said she left angry.

But her car was still in his driveway five days later, when their teenage daughter reported her missing. Stobaugh had discouraged his daughter from contacting police, saying she had simply gone off with someone else, according to court records.

The Denton County Sheriff’s Office and the Texas Rangers searched the property and never found a trace of the missing mother of two.

They said from the beginning that Stobaugh was their only suspect. But they have no proof that she is even dead, let alone that her husband murdered her. So Kathy Stobaugh still is classified as a missing person.

Reedy said nothing can be done in the investigation until the identity of the remains is determined.

“It would be premature to even speculate at this point,” he said.

Two women remain missing on the books of Denton police.

Ten years ago last July, Kelli Cox toured the city jail with a UNT class. Then she realized she had locked her keys in her car. She called her boyfriend in Carrollton to bring her another key. When he arrived, she was gone.

No one has seen or heard from her since.

Exactly a year earlier, Diana Goldston was abducted from a Denton street with witnesses watching.

A man and woman dragged her into a pickup truck, and the witnesses heard a shot. Police found bloodstains in the truck. But they never found Goldston’s body.

The man and woman, who apparently were angry because they mistakenly believed she had stolen money from them, were convicted of kidnapping.

But her mother and sister lamented that they had no burial plot to visit. The young woman who made her living selling roses has no flowers on her grave.

“It would be really nice to be able to tell one of these families where their daughter is,” said Detective Sgt. Jim Brett. “It would be really nice to close one of those cases. But we’ll just have to wait and see.”

DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com.