A cold case more than half a century in the making has been cracked after a San Francisco woman who vanished without a trace was identified as a Jane Doe who died more than 1,900 miles away in Texas. The San Francisco Police Department announced Thursday that DNA evidence identified Cheryl Lanier, a 27-year-old woman who was last seen in the Bay Area in 1973. “The initial missing person’s report of Lanier was filed in 2010. SFPD’s Missing Persons Unit worked tirelessly on the investigation. However, the case remained open and unsolved,” the department said. Cheryl Lanier, 27, was last seen in San Francisco in 1973. Credit : San Francisco Police It was not clear why it took 37 years for Lanier to be reported missing. A breakthrough in the case came in July 2025, when police in Harris County, Texas, tipped off investigators that a deceased Jane Doe — who died three years after Lanier was last seen — may be their missing person.…