The Murder of Kathy Lynn Beatty

[notintheknow]

Motherof5, I've wondered about this too, particularly with her being found without shoes. I grew up in the MD suburbs of DC, but somewhat later (born in the early 1980s). At least in my neighborhood, kids didn't really wander around outdoors barefoot, at least not if they expected to have to go any distance away from their house. Reading Richard's post of April 15 above, it seems to me that if Richard's hypothesis is correct and Kathy had been heading for the K-Mart, she would've stopped back at her house to put some shoes on. I suppose it's possible that for whatever reason she simply didn't bother, but this has puzzled me.

 

[Motherof5]

I thought I read her mother saying that she wouldn't have gone walking around the area that she was found in barefoot due to broken glass(or alone at night) and what not. I just haven't figured out what happened to her shoes. If they were found at home it would lead me to believe that she was taken from home. If they were found near her but not on her feet or just never found then I'd think she was out and about when taken.

 

[Richard]

I thought I read her mother saying that she wouldn't have gone walking around the area that she was found in barefoot due to broken glass(or alone at night) and what not. I just haven't figured out what happened to her shoes. If they were found at home it would lead me to believe that she was taken from home. If they were found near her but not on her feet or just never found then I'd think she was out and about when taken.

The following is from post number four of the first page in this thread. It was taken from a 1976 news paper article:

---------------

... There were several persons who saw her the night she disappeared, about 8:30 p.m. near Parkland Junior High School. Several of them, youngsters Kathy's age, refused to take polygraph tests.

A boy who lived next door had seen Kathy at home about 6:30 or 7 p.m. the night she received the injuries. He had brought her a shirt from Ocean City, chatted with her awhile, then left, said her mother. After that, she was not sure what happened. Although several youngsters said they saw her at the school, "none of them claimed they were with her," Mrs. Beatty said.

"We feel sure that Kathy would not have gone up to K-Mart alone." said her mother. For one thing, although the area was littered with broken glass and stones, she was barefoot, her mother said. "I think someone down at Parkland Junior High that night must be responsible for her death. She wouldn't have gotten in a car with a stranger and she wouldn't have gone up to K-Mart by herself," her mother said. ...

---------------

The statement by Kathy's mother was an indication of her feelings based on what she accepted as a fact regarding Kathy being bare foot. Unfortunately, I do not know the exact answer to your question regarding her shoes. My own feeling is that she was found without shoes - neither on her feet nor in her vicinity. The condition of her feet may have indicated that she had been walking without shoes, and some of the children interviewed may have also stated that she was barefoot that night.

Kathy's purse was found some distance from her body according to the same article. No mention is made regarding whether or not Kathy was clothed when found, and no specific mention regarding her injuries, except that she had been struck in the head and sexually molested but not raped.

Her mother's conclusion that Kathy must have been accompanied by someone from the neighborhood because she would not have accepted a ride from a stranger or walked to K-Mart alone - is speculation on her part. It is known that Kathy was, in fact, walking around the neighborhood alone and it is quite possible that she was enticed or forced into an abductor's car. Unfortunately, there isn't much evidence either way.

The fact that the area near K-Mart was littered with broken glass would tend to argue that she did not go there intentionally on her own without her shoes - whether alone or voluntarily with another kid. My feeling is that she was either injured elsewhere and then dumped where she was found, or she was pursued to that place, attacked, and left there.

 

[dotr]

Bumping this case and wondering if there are any further details concerning the rumour concerning injuries to Kathy's hands. Has Fred Howard Coffey, Jr's DNA ever been found to be present on the body?
Has FHC been known to travel to Toronto ?

 

[dotr]

If the rumour of an injury to K's hand is true, could it have been caused by the key found near her body?
Have other victims of murder been found with a similar injury to the hands?
Just speculation..

 

[Richard]

A previous poster to this forum mentioned hearing a rumor about injuries to Kathy's feet and hands. I have never seen any medical reports or police reports which mentioned such injuries.

Any theories as to what may have caused injuries to her feet and/or hands would be speculation based on rumor.

The keys were in fact found near Kathy and it was said by her mother that they did not belong to Kathy. They could have belonged to her attacker, or may have been lost by someone not at all connected with her attack.

There is no indication in press reports or police reports that the keys were used to inflict any kind of injury on Kathy. If this were the case, there would not be doubt as to whether or not they belonged to her attacker.

It is believed that she was beaten on the head with a blunt object, but no suspected weapon has ever been identified.

 

[CanManEh]

I have 2 questions to ask but thier a little O/T . Iam curious why this case is under the lyon sisters topic ..I also wanna know if anyone knows if there is any video about this case the sister's case i am refering too i read there was a book written but is there any documentary's or has this case been featured on tv crime shows cause i look under youtube and there is litterally only one video and its only 4 minutes long you would think with this case being so interesting and the exact type of show that u would see on the show disappeared or vanished maybe 48 hours or dateline anything like that .Does anybody know if this case has been on featured on any shows. ?

 

[Richard]

You ask a lot of questions. I will try to answer those which I can.

First, Kathy Lynn Beatty does have her own thread on Websleuths. It can be found in the Cold Case section.

Kathy's case appears here in the Lyon Sisters featured case because of the possibility that the two are connected. Here are a few of the similarities:

- They occurred only four months apart in time (March 1975 for the Lyon Sisters' disappearance, and July 1975 for the attack on Kathy). Also, they occurred only four miles apart in distance.

- Regarding victim description; Sheila and Katherine Lyon were days away from turning 13 and 11 respectively. Kathy was 14 years old.

- Sheila and Katherine had recently been walking alone from their residential neighborhood to and from a shopping center (Wheaton Plaza). Kathy was reportedly walking alone in her residential neighborhood and was found unconscious and beaten in a field adjacent to the K-Mart parking lot.

Between the two cases, there occurred several other unsolved disappearances and attacks on children in adjacent states.

The book which you may be referring to was a novel titled "What the Dead Know", by a Maryland author of mystery stories. That book incorporated some elements of the actual Lyon case, such as two sisters disappearing from a shopping center in 1975, but deviated in setting and many details. Names, of course were all changed.

The Lyon Sisters' disappearance received a lot of press coverage at the time, and over the years on anniversary dates. There have been some local (Washington Metropolitan Area) news stories, but I do not believe that their case has ever been covered in any of the nationally broadcast news programs, or featured on any of the network crime shows.

Kathy Lynn Beatty's murder has received very little press coverage - either at the time or in the years subsequent. A few years ago, there was some renewed interest and a local TV news program on Kathy. I believe that there is a link to it in this thread or in the thread on Press Coverage.

I am not a TV show producer, but my speculation as to why these cases have not been featured is simply the lack of evidence, clues, eyewitnesses, and solid suspects.

 

[dotr]

A number of links including this video are in Kathy's sister's webpage. Also in comments section, several names are mentioned.

http://www.kathybeatty.com/

Kathy Beatty - YouTube

 

[Fukiyama]

Kathy's main thread


I'll bump this up here. Welch in my mind is a far more likely candidate for Kathy than the Lyon sisters.

With juvenile Lloyd wandering around the area in 1975, it is quite possible he bumped into Kathy at the parties in the area, took an interest in her, and then beat her up and left her for dead.

I'd be really interested in learning if Kathy's friends were hesitant to talk due to people like Welch hanging around their parties.

 

[Motherof5]

Kathy's main thread


I'll bump this up here. Welch in my mind is a far more likely candidate for Kathy than the Lyon sisters.

With juvenile Lloyd wandering around the area in 1975, it is quite possible he bumped into Kathy at the parties in the area, took an interest in her, and then beat her up and left her for dead.

I'd be really interested in learning if Kathy's friends were hesitant to talk due to people like Welch hanging around their parties.

Welch was arrested for burglary 1 mile from the Lyon home on Hobson Street. Hobson intersects with McComas....McComas is where Kate and Sheila would turn to take the short cut home through the woods. He was familiar with their neighborhood. I think he's a great perp for both cases.

 

[scriptgirl]

Has there been any more info on Welch since the news broke about him possibly the perp?

 

[Richard]

Has there been any more info on Welch since the news broke about him possibly the perp?

To date, there has been no further information or any update from MCP since their early February press conference in which they identified Lloyd Welch a person of interest in the Lyon case. There was a brief mention in the news that the announcement had generated a number of tip line phone calls. No information about those phone calls, however, was released.

While Montgomery County Police have identified Lloyd Welch as a person of interest in the missing Lyon sisters case, they have NOT made any statements linking him to the murder of Kathy Lynn Beatty.

It is certainly a possibility to consider, since the two cases might be connected. MCP has done some previous investigation and research on just that possibility. This was back at least as early as 1987, when they were looking into Fred Howard Coffey, Jr. as a possible suspect in both cases.

But to be clear, MCP has never come out with a definitive press statement that the Lyon case and the Beatty case are in fact connected. Each is being treated as a separate open and active investigation. Both cases have been open and active continuously for the past 39 years.

I have - in these threads - stated my own opinion that the two cases are related, as have some other posters, but again that is not necessarily the official police position.

 

[scriptgirl]

I don't think he is the perp-at least not with the Lyon girls. Too convenient.

 

[Richard]

Kathy Lynn Beatty
Birth: Jul. 8, 1960
Death: Aug. 5, 1975

Inscription:
Beloved Daughter And Sister
Kathy Lynn Beatty
July 8, 1960
Aug. 5, 1975

Burial:
National Memorial Park
Falls Church
Fairfax County
Virginia, USA
Plot: U-328-3

Created by: Poivre
Record added: Jul 31, 2008
Find A Grave Memorial# 28686147


LINK:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSvcid=196795&GRid=28686147&

 

[Richard]

There was a radio news report today which said that Police investigators may have a lead on this case. Nothing specific, but will be watching for more.

 

[Boo2007]

Here's hoping...
Article also has a lovely picture that I've not seen before.

Social media may thaw local cold case

WASHINGTON --It was the summer of 1975 when 15-year-old Kathy Lynn Beatty disappeared.

The next day, it was her own sister, just a few years older, who discovered the seriously wounded Kathy in a wooded area not far from their Aspen Hill, Md., home. Police say she'd been sexually assaulted, and her skull crushed. She died days later.

Now, nearly 40 years later, Kathy Beatty's memory is still very much alive for Steve Kerpelman. A retired Prince George's County Police officer-turned-private- investigator, Kerpelman says Beatty's case "Is one of these things that you never forgot".

http://wtop.com/41/3631895/Investigator-hopes-to-crack-1975-murder-of-15-year-old

 

[Richard]

No new facts or leads presented. Only the launching of a facebook page and a poster distribution plan. Hopefully this will spark new interest in the case and maybe bring something to light. There is indeed a nice photo of Kathy at the link and if you go to the face book page, there are two different color photos of her.

July 24th will mark 39 years since the attack on Kathy. She died 12 days later in a hospital without ever regaining consciousness. She had just turned 15 a few days earlier. She was found in a rocky, trash strewn area near the K Mart parking lot.

----------------------------------------------
Social media may thaw local cold case - WTOP.com

Kathy Beatty of Aspen Hill was 15 when she went out to party and never came home. Her sister found her severely beaten in a wooded area. She died a few days later and death remains a mystery. (Courtesy of Steve Kerpelman)

Former classmate thinks social media is yielding new clues

WTOP's Kate Ryan reports

WASHINGTON --

It was the summer of 1975 when 15-year-old Kathy Lynn Beatty disappeared. The next day, it was her own sister, just a few years older, who discovered the seriously wounded Kathy in a wooded area not far from their Aspen Hill, Md., home. Police say she'd been sexually assaulted, and her skull crushed. She died days later.

Now, nearly 40 years later, Kathy Beatty's memory is still very much alive for Steve Kerpelman.

A retired Prince George's County Police officer-turned-private- investigator, Kerpelman says Beatty's case "Is one of these things that you never forgot". That's because Kerpelman was a classmate of Kathy Beatty's. She even signed his yearbook. He remembers Kathy's red hair and sweet nature. "She was quiet, smiled a lot." she was, he says, " just easy to get along with."

That night, in July of 1975, 15-year-old Kathy left her Aspen Hill, Md., home headed to a friend's house. Her mother says Kathy had left a note, saying she'd gone to a party and that she'd be back by 10 p.m. "That was unusual for her," says her mom, adding that the rules were Kathy was to be home by the time it got dark.

Her mother, now 80, remembers that on the night that Kathy went missing, there was a violent thunderstorm. It pains her to think of her injured daughter, left helpless in the storm. "She must have been terrified. It's a terrible thing to be laying there, and you can't get away and you can't do anything." Her thin voice trails off on the phone line. "Oh, if I just could have been there that night..."

Kerpelman has been on this case for six years, and he's hoping that new appeals on social media may generate the information that might lead to a break in the cold case. He urges people to call him (1-240-304-8633), even if they think what they have to tell him is insignificant. "Over the last couple of month we've received a lot of information" and he attributes that to new outreach on a Facebook page dedicated to Kathy Beatty.

Kathy's mom shares Kerpelman's sense of encouragement, saying, "this time, I have more hope than I've ever had before. I really think that we're going to get answers to this". She's grateful for Kerpelman's doggedness. "I just pray with my whole heart that this will be solved before I leave this world".

See the investigators' video here:

LINKS:

http://www.wtop.com/41/3631895/Social-media-may-thaw-local-cold-case

https://www.facebook.com/KathyLynnBeatty

 

[Richard]

Another website for Kathy:

http://www.kathybeatty.com/

 

[Richard]

WJLA interview with Pat Halberman, mother of Kathy Lynn Beatty

31 May 2014

ROCKVILLE, Md. (WJLA) - Pat Haberman believes somebody knows who killed her daughter in July of 1975. She hopes that Facebook will help her find some answers.

Kathy Beatty was 15 the night she was murdered. She had left a note for her mom saying that she was going to a friend's party and that she'd be back by 10. She never came home and was found fatally injured behind a K-Mart in Rockville, Md. Police said she'd been sexually assaulted and her skull had been crushed. She slipped into a coma and died a few days later.

"There's always been suspects, but never enough evidence to go to the Grand Jury," Haberman said.

Steve Kerpelman is a private investigator and was a classmate of Beatty's. On the desk where he works on her case, he keeps the yearbook that features their pictures and her signature. It was Kerpelman who created the Facebook page, which has been shared almost a thousand times.

"There would be no great satisfaction for me than to be able to tell her mother that we solved this, we know what happened," Kerpelman said....

Link:

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/0...leans-on-facebook-to-find-answers-103669.html