CA CA - Kim Allen, 19, Santa Rosa, 4 March 1972

[burblestein]

Kim Wendy Allen
DOB: 22 September 1952
Place of birth: Oakland CA
Education: Graduate, Ursuline High School, Santa Rosa

Kim Allen was a student at Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa CA, and was accustomed to hitchhiking during her daily life. Although warned about the dangers of hitching rides by both her mother and a favorite college instructor, she ignored them. It is unknown how the double disappearance of Maureen Sterling and Yvonne Weber http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...ta-Rosa-CA-4-February-1972&highlight=Sterling on 4 February 1972 affected her.

At about 5 PM on 4 March 1972, Kim left her job at a health food store in Larkspur CA. She was wearing an aluminum-framed backpack and carrying a large wooden soy sauce barrel labeled with red Chinese characters. She was hitchhiking home to 2298 Guerneville Road, Santa Rosa, or to college. Two men stopped and gave her a ride north to San Rafael, well short of her home. They last saw her at the Bell Street freeway entrance to Highway 101.

Her body was found 8 miles southeast of SantaRosa at about 2 PM on 5 March 1972 by a pair of 17 year old boys riding their motorcycles. They were riding on Enterprise Road, between Bennett Valley and Sonoma Mountain Roads when they spotted a nude female body face down in the creek at the bottom of a 20 foot embankment. Investigating officers concluded she had been murdered elsewhere and dumped over the side of the road from a car. She had been raped; semen was recovered from her corpse. Because she had yet to be reported missing, there was a slight lag in identifying Kim. However, the men who gave her a ride were found. After one of them passed a polygraph test, both were cleared of the murder.

Kim had been wounded on the left clavicle. She had also been bound hand and foot. Her cause of death was strangulation by ligature. She had been slowly and tortuously asphyxiated for about half an hour on Saturday night/Sunday morning. One earring was found with her remains; the other was missing.

A possible slip mark atop the embankment above the dump site led LE to believe the perpetrator may have fallen while discarding the body. There was an imprint in the soft dirt about ten feet below the slip mark. The imprint was about a foot long and 14 inches deep. Medical facilities were alerted to this possible leg injury.

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office put 10 detectives to work investigating the case.

Kim was cremated on 17 March 1972.

Sources:

SR Hitchhiker Murder website: http://www.santarosahitchhikermurders.com/allen.php

Death certificate: http://www.santarosahitchhikermurders.com/docs/dcs/allen_dc.pdf

Santa Rosa Press Democrat, 6 March 1972: http://www.santarosahitchhikermurders.com/articles/allen/slain_woman_found.pdf

Santa Rosa Press Democrat?, 8 March 1972: http://www.santarosahitchhikermurders.com/articles/allen/slain_woman_was_tortured_no_id_yet.pdf

Santa Rosa Press Democrat?, 9 March 1972: http://www.santarosahitchhikermurde...awmen_say_woman's_killer_could_be_injured.pdf

Santa Rosa Press Democrat?, 10 March 1972:
http://www.santarosahitchhikermurders.com/articles/allen/murdered_girl_was_jc_student.pdf

Santa Rosa Press Democrat?, 12 March 1972:
http://www.santarosahitchhikermurde...Kim_Wendy_Allen_the_search_for_her_killer.pdf

Santa Rosa Press Democrat?, 13 March 1972: http://www.santarosahitchhikermurders.com/articles.php

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Rosa_hitchhiker_murders

 

[burblestein]

The Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders are at
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...chhiker-Murders-7-girls-young-women-1972-1973

 

[burblestein]

After an art instructor at Santa Rosa JC died in a car crash, drawings of Kim Allen were found in his belongings. Because he portrayed her in bondage and discipline scenarios, some LE believe he may have murdered Kim.

 

[burblestein]

Other Websleuths elsewhere have outed the instructor as Fred Manalli. I haven't seen any articles on him...but come to think of it, I haven't tried.

 

[annemc2]

Interesting, burblestein. There's quite a bit out there regarding Fred Manalli -mostly linked with Zodiac stuff. Quester has some interesting posts on the Sonoma Coed Killer. Here's one that mentions Allen and Manalli as a suspect:

https://questersite.wordpress.com/2...l-fredas-night-out-sonoma-coed-killer-part-3/

 

[burblestein]

Great find, ann! I am going to share it with other websleuths over in the Santa Rosa Hitchhike Murders thread.

It would be interesting to find out whether Manalli had any particular familiarity with the Calistoga Road area, or with the even more obscure Franz Valley Road.... Also, did he have access to a pickup truck with a homemade wooden camper shell?

 

[Richard]

Kim Wendy Allen
Birth 22 Sep 1952
California, USA
Death 5 Mar 1972 (aged 19)
Sonoma County, California, USA
Burial
Calvary Catholic Cemetery
Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California, USA

LINK:

Kim Wendy Allen (1952-1972) - Find A Grave...

 

[jaejae]

Others might know more than I do but at Wikipedia it indicates there may be DNA from some of the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murder:

Current status[edit]
These cases represent eight of 54 total unsolved homicides between the years 1970 and 2006 within the jurisdiction of the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. In 2011, cold storage DNA from some of the cases was submitted to Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a national DNA database.[2] In 2018, DNA was brought out for testing hoping to identify the killer(s) in the same manner the Golden State Killer was caught.[60]

Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders - Wikipedia

 

[imstilla.grandma]

On March 4, 1972, 19-year-old college student Kim Wendy Allen was seen hitchhiking at the Bell Avenue Freeway entrance on her way to a night class after completing her shift at the food store where she worked. She would never arrive at her class, and the next time anyone saw her again was when her nude corpse was stumbled across by two high school students sprawled out in a creek bed 8 miles south of Santa Rosa on March 5. An autopsy would show that she had been roughly bound by her wrists and ankles, raped, and mercilessly tortured before dying from slow strangulation by a wire or cord.

One potential suspect emerged in 1976, when a Santa Rosa Junior College creative writing professor Fredric Manalli, of whom victim Kim Allen had once been a student, died in a car crash to leave behind some sinister clues that perhaps tied him to her murder. It would turn out that Manalli had harbored a demented obsession with Allen, having drawn numerous deviant sexual drawings featuring her, and additionally he was found to be in possession of various bizarre and perverted items, such as pictures of him cross-dressing, a lock of hair he had creepily kept in his wallet, and reams of writings heavily featuring sadomasochism, sex slavery, and sexual torture. It would seem that the mild mannered professor had had some skeletons in his closet, but ultimately there was no concrete evidence to pin him with Allen’s death or any of the others, and any involvement he had had in it all he had taken to the grave with him.
The Phantom Hitchhiker Killer of Santa Rosa | Mysterious Universe

 

[bykerladi]

There was semen found, I thought, so couldn't they do a DNA test to rule Manalli out or not?

 

[burblestein]

The reference to DNA available for testing doesn't link it to any suspect's name. Additionally, an unidentified DNA result would need to be compared with a known DNA sample from Manalli.

DNA results are not the magic solution as shown on tv.

 

[burblestein]

And the Phantom Hitchhiker article linked above doesn't even know the actual location of the body drops on Calistoga Road and Franz Valley Roads. This article is so sloppy and generalized as to be essentially useless.

 

[Richard]

Fred Manalli

 

[theshadow45]

Kim went missing 51 years ago today.

 

[theshadow45]

Kim went missing 52 years ago today.

 

[Kmoore]

Kim went missing 52 years ago today.

I keep waiting to hear that law enforcement has performed genetic genealogy on the dna recovered from the semen found in Kim Allen’s body…..I’m not sure what’s stopping them other than cost. Assuming they preserved it properly.

My little town north of Santa Rosa (Cloverdale, where hitchhiker Susan Lori Dye’s body was found in 1979) just solved our open case from 1982 of the rape and murder of 13 year old Sara Geer, using genetic genealogy from a dna sample that was found on items that have been stored all these years. It took lots of time and money of course, but finally having resolution on her case is priceless to all of us here in our community.
I’m not sure how to share links here but there is a discussion here on Sara Geer’s case.

Maybe they are in the process of performing this on the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker case.

 

[Richard]

Kim Wendy Allen, age 19
Murdered 4 March 1972