Kathleen Mary O'Brien Doyle
Photo courtesy of Norfolk Police Department
Friends found Kathleen Mary (O'Brien) Doyle’s body on Sept. 11, 1980, inside her Ocean View area home in the 9400 block of Granby Street, Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Doyle had been raped, stabbed with a knife, and choked with a cord, according to police. She had been dead for at least 24 hours by the time her body was found.
At the time, Doyle’s husband of nine months, Lt. Stephen Douglas Doyle, United States Navy, was away at sea on the USS Eisenhower in the Indian Ocean.
While her husband was deployed, Kathleen Doyle had been living in her home alone with her tabby cat, Ike. The Doyles had no children.
Kathleen grew up in a Navy family. Her father, John O'Brien, was a retired Naval officer, living in San Diego and her grandparents reportedly lived in Tidewater at the time of her death.
The murder of Kathleen Doyle has remained unsolved for almost 40 years. In November, 2019, Virginia authorities requested extradition from Michigan of one Dennis Lee Bowman and charged him with Kathleen's murder.
Bowman, who was 31 in 1980, is also suspected of murdering his own adopted daughter, Aundria Bowman in Michigan. He was extradited to Virginia and is awaiting trial on charges of murdering Kathleen Doyle.
Police did not specify what cracked the case 39 years later, but a press release credited an extended investigation by Norfolk detectives and Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents, “along with forensic evidence.”
Two other men were previously accused of murdering Doyle. In 1984, Norfolk police charged Henry Lee Lucas, then 47, and Ottis Elwood Toole, 37, with rape and murder based mainly on "confessions" that Lucas had made. Those charges were later dropped.
LINKS:
Man charged in 1980 slaying of 25-year-old Norfolk woman
Photo courtesy of Norfolk Police Department
Friends found Kathleen Mary (O'Brien) Doyle’s body on Sept. 11, 1980, inside her Ocean View area home in the 9400 block of Granby Street, Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Doyle had been raped, stabbed with a knife, and choked with a cord, according to police. She had been dead for at least 24 hours by the time her body was found.
At the time, Doyle’s husband of nine months, Lt. Stephen Douglas Doyle, United States Navy, was away at sea on the USS Eisenhower in the Indian Ocean.
While her husband was deployed, Kathleen Doyle had been living in her home alone with her tabby cat, Ike. The Doyles had no children.
Kathleen grew up in a Navy family. Her father, John O'Brien, was a retired Naval officer, living in San Diego and her grandparents reportedly lived in Tidewater at the time of her death.
The murder of Kathleen Doyle has remained unsolved for almost 40 years. In November, 2019, Virginia authorities requested extradition from Michigan of one Dennis Lee Bowman and charged him with Kathleen's murder.
Bowman, who was 31 in 1980, is also suspected of murdering his own adopted daughter, Aundria Bowman in Michigan. He was extradited to Virginia and is awaiting trial on charges of murdering Kathleen Doyle.
Police did not specify what cracked the case 39 years later, but a press release credited an extended investigation by Norfolk detectives and Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents, “along with forensic evidence.”
Two other men were previously accused of murdering Doyle. In 1984, Norfolk police charged Henry Lee Lucas, then 47, and Ottis Elwood Toole, 37, with rape and murder based mainly on "confessions" that Lucas had made. Those charges were later dropped.
LINKS:
Man charged in 1980 slaying of 25-year-old Norfolk woman
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