5 days ago
Cold-case 1986 disappearance of nurse after going on date with boyfriend she planned to dump solved in saddest way
The remains of a woman found on the Arizona-Nevada border have finally been identified as those of a Southern California nurse reported missing in 1986 after planning to break up with her boyfriend.
Carol Ann Riley, from San Diego, disappeared after she had scheduled a dinner date with her boyfriend and told friends she intended to dump him, according to the Mohave County Sheriff's Office.
Riley's remains were discovered at Lake Mead in May 1987 after a person rounding up steers near Bonelli Landing found a human skull on the ground.
More remains were found in a shallow grave in the area, but they went unidentified until just last month, when dental records confirmed the match, authorities said.
Riley's boyfriend, known as Robert Howard Smith, told police at the time of her disappearance that she had cancelled their date.
Just two days later, he left town and 'dropped out of sight,' the sheriff's office said.
Investigators discovered that Smith's real name was Robert Dean Weeks, who had a history of adopting aliases and was also connected to another disappearance in Nevada.
Weeks' ex-wife, Patricia Weeks, had vanished from Clark County in 1968 just a few weeks after their divorce was finalized. Her body was never found.
Carol Ann Riley (pictured) , from San Diego, disappeared after she had scheduled a dinner date with her boyfriend with the intention of dumping him
Riley's remains were found at Lake Mead in May 1987 after a person rounding up steers near Bonelli Landing (pictured) found a human skull on the ground
Riley's then-boyfriend, later identified as Robert Dean Weeks (pictured), told police that Riley had cancelled their date. Just two days later, he 'dropped out of sight'
Weeks also dated a real estate agent, Cynthia Jabour, who disappeared in 1980 after the pair had a dinner date scheduled where she also planned to end their relationship, authorities said.
He had also got into an argument with a business associate, James Shaw, who disappeared in 1971. Shaw's bloodstained car was found abandoned in a Las Vegas parking lot.
Shaw and Jabour were ever found.
A warrant was issued for Weeks' arrest for fraud and embezzlement charges related to his business, and he was found and arrested in Arizona after he was featured on the popular TV show Unsolved Mysteries.
At Weeks' trial, two of his children with ex-wife Patricia took to the stand and detailed 'how their father had beaten their mother on numerous occasions,' according to the Charley Project.
In April 1988, he was convicted of murdering Patricia and Jabour, and sentenced to life in prison in Nevada.
He was never charged with the murder of Riley or Shaw.
He died in prison in 1996.
The dental comparison between the remains and records of Riley confirmed that the body was that of the missing nurse
Unsuccessful attempts to match Riley's remains to DNA or dental records occurred in 2011, 2024 and 2025, before the Mohave County Sheriff's Office Special Investigations Unit was contacted by the Mohave Medical Examiner's Office.
'An email received indicated that a forensic odontologist and staff from the Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit, California Department of Justice, had worked on dental comparison of the Jane Doe victim and Carol Ann Riley,' the sheriff's office said in a release.
The dental comparison between the remains and records of Riley confirmed that the body was that of the missing nurse.
