MASON CITY, Iowa (KFSM) — The remains of Cerilla Doyle, a former Pea Ridge Police officer who went missing from her Bentonville home in 2008, has been found in Mason City, Iowa, police confirmed.
Doyle was 51 when she disappeared on Oct. 27, 2008, from her Bentonville home.
Her remains were found in a non-residential area, according to Sgt. Gene Page of the Bentonville Police Department.
Bentonville police are waiting on state investigators in Iowa to determine a cause of death, Page said.
Pea Ridge police in a statement said Doyle will "always have a special place in the hearts of everyone here at (the department) and the city of Pea Ridge."
The statement said Doyle served as an officer and a sergeant at the department from 1995 to 2008.
According to information put out at the time of her disappearance, Doyle's daughter returned home from her job later in the evening and found her mother missing.
“I kept hoping she would come home like I saw on the news a couple months ago in New York. Forty years missing, and she was found. I kept hoping that would be my mom one day,” Danielle Doyle said.
Doyle said her father died after going into a diabetic coma several months before her mom`s disappearance and said her mom was suicidal.
“We have some closure but there is always going to be a wonder of how did she get there, what happened to her. They don`t even know exactly how long she has been dead. They say at least five years but maybe the whole time she`s been gone, she`s been dead,” she said.
Doyle's identification, cellphone, vehicle and all other personal property were left behind.
Police said they thought from Doyle's Internet usage that she may have taken a bus to Tulsa.
She was last seen buying a bus ticket on Oct. 28, 2008, at the bus station. It is unknown how or when she ended up in Mason City.
Doyle sometimes went by the name Cerilla Ann Bolton, the information said.
Doyle had been a police officer at the Pea Ridge Police Department for several years before retiring in 2008.