Jun 23, 2026 · 39 min · 12 segments
When a woman vanishes while traveling in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, law enforcement and her family act quickly to try and figure out what happened to her. After her skeletonized remains are…
[gentle somber music] On Thursday, September 27th, 1984, loved ones of 35-year-old Rosalind Rose Goodman noticed that she hadn't returned from a vacation in Eastern Tennessee.
His sister was divorced with two kids and owned a cleaning business called Yes We Do Windows that she ran out of her home in Memphis.
At the time, her teenage daughter Adrienne and son Nicholas lived with their dad Roy in Bartlett, Tennessee.
But it seems despite the couple's divorce, the kids had a good relationship with both their parents.
However, based on what I read in news coverage about this case, it doesn't appear the co-parenting situation between Rosalind and Roy was very good, though.
Investigators learned from speaking with her loved ones that shortly before her trip she complained to relatives that she'd been having problems with her ex-husband, which is why she wanted to get away to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to, according to her, meditate and pray in the mountains.
After giving it a few days, Rosalind's family decided on October 4th that enough was enough, and they officially filed a missing persons report for her with the Shelby County Sheriff's Department, now known as the Shelby County Sheriff's Office.
Investigators from that agency learned from speaking with Rosalind's friends and family that after leaving home on the morning of Monday, September 24th, she'd briefly stopped in Jackson, Tennessee to see one of her brothers for lunch before traveling to meet up with a friend in Nashville that same night.
She went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with that friend, which ended at 9:00 PM.
According to coverage by the Knoxville News Sentinel, another friend of hers who lived in Atlanta, Georgia was originally planning to meet up with her in Nashville and then go camping together in the Smokies.
But at the last minute, that person ended up bailing because of a scheduling mix-up, so Rosalind had continued on her journey alone late at night on the 24th.
And despite her Nashville friend's warning that it was dangerous to travel alone, Rosalind had left the music city and gone east to the Gatlinburg area.
In fact, around lunchtime either that day or the day before, she'd called her teenage daughter Adrienne from a payphone and told her she was looking forward to being back.
One of Roslyn's sisters told the Knoxville News Sentinel that she had told Adrienne, quote, "We were camping in Cades Cove, and I am going back to Cades Cove to get my stuff," which suggested she was in the company of other people, otherwise Roslyn wouldn't have used the phrase, we.
And that statement struck loved ones as odd at the time, because as far as they were aware, after Roslyn's friend bailed on her, she was supposed to be traveling by herself.
But until loved ones knew what exactly was going on, they basically had to sit tight and wait to see what investigators would turn up.
An important piece of the puzzle, though, regardless of whether Roslyn was just overdue or something worse had happened to her, was her car.
The vehicle was described as a yellow in color, well-used 1970 Volkswagen Beetle with a Tennessee license plate.
Like Roslyn, it was missing, along with all of the camping gear that neighbors had seen her pack for her trip.
She'd also just acquired an Arabian stallion, which she was boarding at a stable near her home, and reportedly this horse purchase was something she was really excited about, so it didn't make any sense that she'd not come back to care for it.
However, despite authorities working the case diligently, few clues emerged in the weeks after Roslyn was reported missing.
About three months later, some of her friends started making plans to travel to the Gatlinburg area to search for her, but those plans would be dashed come Saturday, December 29th.
That day, a family hiking through a wooded area on a steep ridge near the Cades Cove section of Great Smoky Mountains National Park came across what appeared to be a human skull buried beneath a clump of leaves or a log.
[gentle somber music] On Thursday, September 27th, 1984, loved ones of 35-year-old Rosalind Rose Goodman noticed that she hadn't returned from a vacation in Eastern Tennessee.
His sister was divorced with two kids and owned a cleaning business called Yes We Do Windows that she ran out of her home in Memphis.
At the time, her teenage daughter Adrienne and son Nicholas lived with their dad Roy in Bartlett, Tennessee.
But it seems despite the couple's divorce, the kids had a good relationship with both their parents.
However, based on what I read in news coverage about this case, it doesn't appear the co-parenting situation between Rosalind and Roy was very good, though.
Investigators learned from speaking with her loved ones that shortly before her trip she complained to relatives that she'd been having problems with her ex-husband, which is why she wanted to get away to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to, according to her, meditate and pray in the mountains.
After giving it a few days, Rosalind's family decided on October 4th that enough was enough, and they officially filed a missing persons report for her with the Shelby County Sheriff's Department, now known as the Shelby County Sheriff's Office.
Investigators from that agency learned from speaking with Rosalind's friends and family that after leaving home on the morning of Monday, September 24th, she'd briefly stopped in Jackson, Tennessee to see one of her brothers for lunch before traveling to meet up with a friend in Nashville that same night.
She went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with that friend, which ended at 9:00 PM.
According to coverage by the Knoxville News Sentinel, another friend of hers who lived in Atlanta, Georgia was originally planning to meet up with her in Nashville and then go camping together in the Smokies.
But at the last minute, that person ended up bailing because of a scheduling mix-up, so Rosalind had continued on her journey alone late at night on the 24th.
And despite her Nashville friend's warning that it was dangerous to travel alone, Rosalind had left the music city and gone east to the Gatlinburg area.
In fact, around lunchtime either that day or the day before, she'd called her teenage daughter Adrienne from a payphone and told her she was looking forward to being back.
One of Roslyn's sisters told the Knoxville News Sentinel that she had told Adrienne, quote, "We were camping in Cades Cove, and I am going back to Cades Cove to get my stuff," which suggested she was in the company of other people, otherwise Roslyn wouldn't have used the phrase, we.
And that statement struck loved ones as odd at the time, because as far as they were aware, after Roslyn's friend bailed on her, she was supposed to be traveling by herself.
But until loved ones knew what exactly was going on, they basically had to sit tight and wait to see what investigators would turn up.
An important piece of the puzzle, though, regardless of whether Roslyn was just overdue or something worse had happened to her, was her car.
The vehicle was described as a yellow in color, well-used 1970 Volkswagen Beetle with a Tennessee license plate.
Like Roslyn, it was missing, along with all of the camping gear that neighbors had seen her pack for her trip.
She'd also just acquired an Arabian stallion, which she was boarding at a stable near her home, and reportedly this horse purchase was something she was really excited about, so it didn't make any sense that she'd not come back to care for it.
However, despite authorities working the case diligently, few clues emerged in the weeks after Roslyn was reported missing.
About three months later, some of her friends started making plans to travel to the Gatlinburg area to search for her, but those plans would be dashed come Saturday, December 29th.
That day, a family hiking through a wooded area on a steep ridge near the Cades Cove section of Great Smoky Mountains National Park came across what appeared to be a human skull buried beneath a clump of leaves or a log.
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