'' NARRATIVE: Laurie Jean Wardein, 26, worked at a record store in Metrocenter mall and had her mother drive her to the bus stop every day because she did not drive. Cortina Bandolero loved Phoenix nightlife in the mid-1980s and chronicled the Valley’s music scene for The New Times. Investigators, and many of Wardein’s friends, would not discover the two women were one and the same until police found her murdered in her apartment in the 800 block of East Bethany Home Road early in the morning on June 10, 1985. Wardein was stabbed numerous times in her chest and stomach and left to die in her blood-spattered bedroom. Investigators know Wardein went to dinner and a movie with a male companion the evening before her murder, and she returned home with the man who said he left about 1 a.m. June 10. There was no sign of forced entry into the apartment, according to investigators, but Phoenix police Detective J.J. Alberta said there was a window at the rear of the unit that was cracked open with a screen that was partially removed. “It looked like whoever had been there intentionally tried to wipe away some of the blood,” Alberta said. “It didn’t look like it was just left open by chance.” Investigators have submitted physical evidence recovered from the crime scene and property of a person of interest in the case, but tests in the crime lab have yet to produce a viable suspect. “It would take very intimate DNA, some firsthand knowledge or a witness account of this incident to successfully close it,” Alberta said. If you have information, call Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS.
PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT''
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