Beaumont mother missing 25 years found buried under ex-boyfriend’s house

A tip finally cracked open a Beaumont cold case that had outlasted an entire generation. Kimberly Ann Langwell, a 34-year-old mother who vanished after work on July 9, 1999, was found buried beneath the floor of her ex-boyfriend Terry Rose’s house after investigators searched the property for several days in June 2024.

Langwell’s daughter, Tiffani McInnis, was 15 when she reported her mother missing on July 10, 1999. McInnis had found Langwell’s car parked in a strip mall lot in front of an Eckerd Pharmacy, a detail that turned an ordinary missing-person report into a long-running mystery in Beaumont, Texas. Former Beaumont detective Joe Ball later said the case haunted him and that he felt he had failed Langwell and her family because he could not find her.

The breakthrough came decades later from information that led investigators to Rose’s home, where a nonprofit search team also helped locate the remains. Police found human remains on June 13, 2024, and scientific testing confirmed on July 23, 2024 that the remains were Langwell’s. Rose was arrested in June 2024 and indicted for murder, setting in motion a prosecution that finally connected the 1999 disappearance to a hidden grave inside a private home.

Rose was later found competent to stand trial in June 2025, but he pleaded guilty a week before trial and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. At sentencing, McInnis delivered an emotional impact statement, and a recorded jail call between Rose and his son was played in court, drawing a reaction from the judge. The outcome closed the criminal case, but it also spotlighted how a missing-person file can sit unresolved for years before a single tip, a property search, and forensic testing force an answer.

Langwell’s disappearance became the focus of a CBS News “48 Hours” episode, “Kimberly Langwell’s Hidden Grave,” which aired April 11, 2026, with a companion “Post Mortem” discussion released April 14, 2026. The case stands as a reminder that in Texas, as in so many places, accountability can arrive late, but it still depends on investigators, evidence, and persistence that never should have been left so long to catch up.