Overview

Last seen: March 1974 — California DOJ lists March 28; NCMEC lists March 1
Location: Santa Rosa/Sonoma County, California, reportedly around Guerneville Road and Coddingtown Mall
Age: 15
Date of birth: January 9, 1959
Status: Missing; case remains unresolved
NamUs: MP40480
NCMEC: 1311886
Sonoma County Sheriff case: SD171030010

Peggy may have been hitchhiking when she disappeared. No confirmed sighting of her after March 1974 has been publicly documented.

Detailed Case Breakdown

Peggy Ann Reed: 15-Year-Old Vanished From Santa Rosa, California in 1974

Peggy Ann Reed was only 15 years old when she disappeared from the Santa Rosa area of Sonoma County, California, in March 1974. More than five decades later, Peggy remains missing, and her disappearance continues to be investigated as an unresolved missing-person case.

California’s official missing-person database lists Peggy’s last-seen date as March 28, 1974. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and several other case databases, however, use March 1, 1974. Despite that discrepancy, the sources consistently place her disappearance in the Santa Rosa area during March 1974.

Brief Case Summary

Last seen: March 1974 — California DOJ lists March 28; NCMEC lists March 1
Location: Santa Rosa/Sonoma County, California, reportedly around Guerneville Road and Coddingtown Mall
Age: 15
Date of birth: January 9, 1959
Status: Missing; case remains unresolved
NamUs: MP40480
NCMEC: 1311886
Sonoma County Sheriff case: SD171030010

Peggy may have been hitchhiking when she disappeared. No confirmed sighting of her after March 1974 has been publicly documented.

Who Was Peggy Ann Reed?

Peggy Ann Reed was born January 9, 1959. At the time she disappeared, she was described as a white female approximately 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighing about 100 to 110 pounds. She had light brown or brown hair and brown eyes.

One of Peggy’s most notable identifying characteristics was a reddish or strawberry-colored birthmark on the back of her neck near or above the hairline. She also wore eyeglasses, described in some records as round, gold-colored metal frames.

Descriptions of Peggy’s clothing vary slightly among sources. Detailed accounts describe a dark men’s-style windbreaker, a scoop-neck shirt, brown dress slacks and tan or gray shoes with heels. Some sources also say she wore rings and carried a small brown leather shoulder purse.

The Disappearance of Peggy Ann Reed

Peggy was reportedly last seen around Guerneville Road and Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa. Contemporary details about exactly who saw her, where she was going and what happened immediately before she vanished remain remarkably limited.

Multiple missing-person resources report that Peggy may have been hitchhiking when she disappeared. She has not been publicly confirmed as having contacted relatives or friends afterward.

The precise date remains one of the most noticeable inconsistencies in the public record. The California Department of Justice currently gives March 28, 1974 as Peggy’s last-seen date. NCMEC, The Charley Project and GINA for Missing Persons Foundation use March 1, 1974. Some researchers have acknowledged both dates because the surviving public information does not explain why the records differ.

Possible Connection to the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders

Peggy disappeared during the same general era in which a number of young women and teenage girls were abducted and killed in Sonoma County in cases commonly referred to as the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders.

Because Peggy may have been hitchhiking and disappeared from the Santa Rosa area, her name has periodically been discussed as a possible additional victim. Her disappearance near Coddingtown Mall has further attracted attention because locations in and around Santa Rosa figure prominently in discussions of those crimes.

However, no publicly available law-enforcement source located for this article identifies Peggy as a confirmed victim of the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders. There is also no public evidence establishing that she was murdered.

For that reason, the connection should be regarded as a theory rather than a documented conclusion.

The Sonoma County Jane Doe Theory

Another theory repeatedly discussed by missing-person researchers involves unidentified skeletal remains found in Sonoma County in 1979.

Online researchers have proposed Peggy as a possible identity for that unidentified young woman because of similarities in age, physical characteristics, geography and the estimated period of death. People have submitted the comparison for consideration over the years.

Public discussion about the comparison has been inconsistent. Some individuals have reported being told that Peggy was ruled out, while other researchers have noted that an exclusion was not visible in the public NamUs information they reviewed. A 2026 Reddit discussion again claimed she had reportedly been excluded at the local-law-enforcement level, but that statement was not accompanied by an official public case record confirming the exclusion.

Accordingly, claims about Peggy being either a match or an officially documented exclusion should not be treated as established fact without confirmation from the investigating agency.

Latest Publicly Available Investigation Information

Peggy’s case remains listed in California’s active missing-person records. The California Department of Justice continues to identify the Sonoma County Sheriff as the reporting agency and lists case number SD171030010.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children also continues to maintain an active poster for Peggy under NCMEC case 1311886 and NCIC number M884227401. NCMEC’s current poster includes an age-progressed image showing how Peggy might have appeared at approximately age 65.

The Charley Project similarly updated Peggy’s profile in April 2025 in connection with the newer age progression.

Doe Network, which added Peggy as case 4527DFCA in November 2023, recorded another case-information update for her profile in 2025. The update log does not describe a resolution, and Peggy has not been placed among its identified or closed cases.

As of the latest publicly accessible information reviewed, there has been no official announcement that Peggy has been located, no publicly identified suspect, no announced arrest and no official finding that she was murdered.

Why Peggy Ann Reed’s Case Still Matters

More than 50 years have passed since a 15-year-old girl vanished from Sonoma County, but Peggy’s case remains open to information.

Modern age-progression technology has given the public a new representation of what she could look like as an older adult. At the same time, computerized missing-person databases make it possible to compare Peggy’s information against unidentified-person cases around the country in ways investigators in 1974 could not.

The uncertainty surrounding even Peggy’s precise disappearance date demonstrates another difficulty faced in decades-old cases. Records created at different times can contain conflicting dates, descriptions or details, making preservation of original records and careful comparison of sources especially important.

What remains certain is that Peggy Ann Reed disappeared as a 15-year-old girl in Sonoma County in March 1974 and has never been publicly accounted for.

Anyone with firsthand information about Peggy, people she associated with in 1974, where she intended to travel, anyone who may have picked her up while hitchhiking, or information explaining what happened after she was last seen should contact the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

Even information that seemed insignificant decades ago may provide context investigators did not previously have.