The Unnamed · Open case
Irma Clouse Chavez
Last seen in Alpine, Texas on 3 July 1981. She was thirty years old. She has not been heard from since.
What the record establishes
- NameIrma Clouse Chavez
- Also recorded asIrma Chavez · Irma Chavez-Cordova
- Age when missing30
- Last seen3 July 1981
- PlaceAlpine, Brewster County, Texas
- Description5′5″, about 127 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes
- NamUs caseMP50274
- Agency case number15-0068
- StatusMissing. Not located, not identified, not declared
Why this page exists
There is almost nothing about Irma Chavez online. A database entry, two listings that repeat it, and a local news segment from 2018 whose link no longer works. Forty-five years have produced a height, a weight and a date.
Her case was not entered into the national missing persons database until 24 May 2018 — thirty-seven years after she disappeared. A single photograph was added two weeks later.
She is recorded under more than one surname. The national database lists her as Irma Clouse Chavez. An Alpine High School memorial roster lists her as Irma Chavez-Cordova. A search for one name does not find the others, which is part of why so little about her surfaces at all.
I am an independent writer in Marfa, and I am reporting on this case from the public record. This page exists so that her name is findable, and so that anyone who knew her, is related to her, or remembers that summer has somewhere to arrive.
If you are related to Irma
There is one thing that could identify her, and it is simple.
A DNA sample from a living relative can be compared against unidentified remains across the country. A relative on her mother's side is the most useful — a sibling, her mother, a maternal aunt or cousin, or a sister's child — because that line of DNA survives best in old cases.
If no relative has ever given a sample, then no comparison has ever been possible. That is fixable, and it costs nothing.
Please write to me and I will put you in touch with the right office, or go directly to NamUs and ask about case MP50274.
If you remember her
Alpine was a small town in 1981. People who were there are still here.
If you knew Irma, worked with her, went to school with her, or remember anything about the summer she disappeared, I would like to hear it — including things that seem too small to matter. You do not have to be named, and you do not have to go on the record.
If you have a photograph of her, that matters more than almost anything else. One degraded image is all that is publicly available.
If you have information about the case
Contact the investigating agency directly.
The Brewster County Sheriff's Office can be reached at 432-837-3488. In August 2026 that office advised me that the Texas Rangers, a division of the Texas Department of Public Safety, are the investigating agency for this case.
Her case can also be viewed and contacted through NamUs MP50274.
What this page does not say
I do not know what happened to Irma Chavez, and this page does not speculate. No cause is stated, no person is accused, and nothing here should be read as establishing that she died.
Some genealogy sites record 3 July 1981 as a date of death. That is the date she was last seen. It is not a finding of death.
How I source, verify and correct this work is set out in my editorial standards. If anything on this page is wrong, write to me and I will correct it in public, with the date.
Contact: hello@leslielstevens.net
Leslie L. Stevens · Independent investigative writer · Marfa, Texas
Page created 2 November 2026 · Reporting ongoing