21-year-old Kimberly Shawn Cheatham was last seen on April 8, 1989 in Dallas, Texas. The circumstances of her disappearance are scantily reported, so much of this story relies on anonymous forum posts that should be taken with a grain of salt.

That said, a forum poster going by Earthbound Misfit—who self-identifies as one of Cheatham’s loved ones—wrote on a forum that Cheatham was last seen driving her 1988 burgundy sunbird to her cousin’s house to do laundry.

Cheatham never made it to her cousin’s house that night. When she failed to make contact by the next morning, her cousin reported Cheatham missing.

Cheatham was a graduate of Pflugelville High School in Austin, TX, according to Earthbound Misfit, and was working as a hostess at Lowe’s Anatoll Hotel in Dallas. One of three children born to Samuel and Freddie Cheatham, she appears to have been quite close with her family. Unfortunately, I know very little about Cheatham besides her physical characteristics: she was tiny—less than five-feet-tall, according to her mother—and was known to wear a single hoop earring with a luggage key hanging from it.

At the time of her disappearance, she was dating an abusive man who was reportedly banned from stepping foot on the Hotel’s property after previously harassing Cheatham while she was on the job. (This man has not been charged in Cheatham’s case, and to avoid inciting a witchhunt, I’m not going to post his name, but you can easily find it if you are so inclined.)

On April 12th, Cheatham’s car was found completely gutted and covered with brush in a wooded field outside Dallas, at 7700 Indian Ridge Trail, according to the National Missing Persons Directory. Earthbound Misfit states that a single shell casing was discovered in the car.

What happened next—both in terms of the investigation and to those who knew Cheatham—is super unclear to me. Earthbound Misfit reports that Cheatham’s family was very much involved in the search: her mother held out hope and spread the word on the internet until she passed away in 2016. but official reports are scant for the next twenty years. In fact, I can’t find a single article about her disappearance in the archives. Not a single one. This is another case of a missing woman of color that seems to have received far too little media attention.

UP4005 

In June 2018, Kimberly Cheatham was positively identified as being an unidentified decedent, Namus #UP4005, found outside Dallas. Unsurprisingly I can’t figure out when the remains were found, as the casefile for #UP4005 has since been removed from both Namus and the Doe Network. However, a forum post indicates that a Websleuths poster suggested the match a few years before the DNA match in 2018.

The circumstances of the decedent’s discovery remain unclear, but per Earthbound Misfit, the body was discovered in a field outside of Dallas, in somewhat close proximity to where her car was discovered. I don’t know if her cause of death could be determined, or if it was determined but simply hasn’t been released.

Dallas homicide investigators are reportedly on the case, but they haven’t said much about it. This could be because they don’t want to taint an active investigation, but it also could mean this case isn’t a high priority.

I am looking to speak to someone who knew Kimberly Cheatham.

I want to know more about her as a person, and what happened in the aftermath of her disappearance. If you knew her or her family, please drop me a comment below or shoot me an email.