Body of woman missing since 2000 is unearthed in the Mojave Desert

San Bernardino County sheriff's cold case investigators have unearthed the body of a woman missing for eight years.

On Tuesday, the county coroner used dental records to confirm the identity of the woman found Friday in the Mojave Desert: Kathryn Barrett, 46, of Phelan, a married mother of four who disappeared on June 21, 2000.

The day after Barrett disappeared, her husband of 25 years, William Barrett, called the Phelan Sheriff's Station to report that she was missing, authorities said. She was last seen driving the family's 1989 Volvo, in the company of Guy Bruce Johnson, 26, and Christopher Sterling Tolliver, 23, both of Phelan.

The next day, investigators found the Volvo in a remote area of Wrightwood known as Helicopter Hill. The car appeared to have been pushed into a ravine and set on fire, said Cindy Beavers, a sheriff's spokeswoman.

As days passed and Barrett failed to call, investigators began treating the case as a homicide, Beavers said.

"They did expect at the very least that she had been injured, because she did not make any contact with her family," she said.

Investigators offered a $10,000 reward for information in the case. They looked for Barrett's body in the area where she was eventually found in the Mojave Desert west of Adelanto, near El Mirage. Earlier searches had failed to turn up any evidence, Beavers said.

"The problem was it was such a large area -- four acres -- they said where do we even begin to dig?" she said

Last year, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Thomas filed murder charges against Tolliver and Johnson. Tolliver was immediately arrested in San Diego, where he was serving an unrelated prison sentence, and a few days later, Guy Bruce Johnson was arrested in Phelan. Both remain in sheriff's custody, Beavers said.

It is unclear how the victim knew the two men, she said.

Earlier this month, investigators received an anonymous tip about where Barrett's body was buried, and began digging last Friday, Beavers said. She could not say whether the tip came from Johnson or Tolliver.

The search began with a cadaver dog, the same dog investigators recently used to search for remains at the Manson family's Barker Ranch in Panamint Springs, Calif.

After the dog located a likely spot, investigators began digging with a backhoe at 9 a.m. At about 4 p.m., they found a human leg bone, Beavers said. They switched from the backhoe to picks, shovels and sifters, she said, "like archaeologists."

By 10 p.m., investigators had recovered remnants of clothing that matched what Barrett was wearing when she disappeared, Beavers said. They also recovered a fired cartridge casing and most of a skeleton, she said, including a skull with what appeared to be a bullet wound.

The body had been buried about four feet down, probably in a preexisting hole, one of several on the property, Beavers said.

Barrett's family was notified of the search and the findings, she said. An autopsy is scheduled for later this week. No additional charges have been filed or arrests made since the discovery, she said.

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com