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A Montgomery County, Maryland, cold case detective, who’s spent much of her career trying to solve one of the area’s most perplexing murders, is hoping that new forensics analysis and old fashioned tips can bring answers to the question: “Who killed 15-year-old Kathy Lynn Beatty?”
“Fifty years ago, officers found the body of Kathy Beatty, unconscious, in a wooded area behind the Kmart, which was located at Georgia and Connecticut avenues, in the Aspen Hill area of the county,” Lisa Bromley told WTOP. “She’d been sexually assaulted and brutally beaten.”
She died 11 days later.
The teenager was last seen at approximately 8:30 p.m. on July 24, 1975, near Parkland Middle School, in Rockville, near her home on Frankfort Drive.
“She would have had to actually pass her house before getting up to that area in the woods where she was found,” Bromley said.
The day after she was last seen, Beatty’s sister located her behind the Kmart department store, where classmates hung out.
“They would ride dirt bikes back there, drink beer, smoke cigarettes,” Bromley said. “So, we don’t know if she willingly went there with somebody, or if she possibly was fleeing from someone that she didn’t know, and went there because it was a known location for her.”
When Beatty was found, she was barefoot.
“Based on Kathy not having shoes on at the time, we believe she possibly got in a car with somebody,” Bromley said.
Beatty’s mother had recalled there was torrential rain the night her daughter disappeared, but she was in Baltimore with a friend that evening.
Montgomery County detectives have never publicly named a suspect, but there have been many people who were on investigators’ radar.
With the passing decades, “People have passed away, people’s memories are fading over the years, and we’re just hoping someone will come forward with some information about who Kathy was with, what she was doing and possibly solve who committed this crime against her,” Bromley said.
Without the benefit of surveillance video, detectives have to rely on evidence gathered in 1975, as well as information from the public.
“When she was found, she was alive. So, when she went to the hospital they were trying to save her, and put her right into surgery. Some of the evidence that would have been preserved, if it would happen today, didn’t happen back then,” Bromley said.
DNA testing wasn’t an option in criminal investigations 50 years ago. While Bromley declined to specify what items have been submitted for DNA analysis, it’s likely that clothes Beatty was wearing when she was found have been sent for testing, in hopes of identifying a suspect.
Before discovering Beatty’s body, her sister found her purse. Items in the purse had spilled onto the ground — her sister scooped up nearby items and put them in Beatty’s purse.
“Later, it was discovered that there was a set of keys in the purse that did not belong to anyone in Kathy’s family,” Bromley said.
She said police have identified the types of cars which would use the type of key that was found. But Bromley said it’s possible the keys have no connection the case.
While police and Beatty’s surviving family members hope for answers in who killed the teenager, Bromley said detectives will keep trying.
“She’d just turned 15 years old, and her whole life was stolen from her and her family,” said the detective.
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