Identified! NV - Henderson, 'Arroyo Grande', WhtFem UP46, "S" tattoo, Oct'80*GRAPHIC* - Tammy Corrine Terrell

[Feme98]

As Bit of hope said, DDP are approached by the agencies, and AGJD's agency is aware of them.
AGJD was also on DDP's Submitted for Consideration list and has been suggested many times on their Facebook page.

Is possible that DDP works on her case in the future

 

[alucardsdream]

As far as I understood only LE can ask for it. IIRR her "all time" advocate, a detective working on the case. John Williams (I tip my hat for him), who also paid for her gravestone and visited there a lot, is retired.

John Williams is the reason I'm slightly obsessed with this case...seeing how emotional he got talking about a girl he never knew really tugged at me. I would love to see her identified, not just for her and her family, but for her Henderson police family as well. She was a beautiful girl and it really boggles my mind that no one has been looking for her.

 

[MadMcGoo]

A few days ago I almost posted this on WCJD’s thread. Simply because of the necklace. It was hard to miss and hard not to associate the two because of it! But, I did some more research on Khymbrly Marcella Scruggs and all the info led back to Ms AGJD. I submitted the information to the CC ME but she will be out until Wednesday of next week, so I’ll resubmit then. The link above is for her NamUs profile, the following is Charley Project.

—————————————————————————
Khymbrly Marcella Scruggs

• Missing Since: 01/12/1980
• Missing From: Sacramento, California
• Classification: Endangered Missing
• Date of Birth: 08/13/1960 (59)
• Age: 19 years old
• Height and Weight: 5'6, 115 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description: A burgundy wool coat with camel-colored stripes.
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Sandy blonde/brown hair, brown eyes. Scruggs has a chipped front tooth. At the time of her disappearance, she had a glass cut on her right shin. Scruggs may go by the nickname Khym (possibly spelled "Kim") or spell her name "Kimberly."

Details of Disappearance:
Scruggs was last seen at her apartment near Fair Oaks Boulevard and Howe Avenue in Sacramento, California on January 12, 1980. She talked to a friend on the phone at 6:30 p.m., and said she was scheduled to work the next day.

Scruggs's roommate was spending the night elsewhere. When she arrived home the next day, Scruggs was missing. All her belongings, including her purse, clothing and identification, were left behind in the apartment, and she had not gone to work or called to say she would be absent.

Foul play is suspected in Scruggs's case; authorities believe a neighbor murdered her and concealed her body. The suspect had cuts and scratches on his body after Scruggs's disappearance, and eluded the police for three months before he was picked up and interrogated for twelve hours.

He denied involvement in Scruggs's disappearance and was eventually sent to prison for an unrelated rape. He was paroled in 1989 has never been charged in Scruggs's case.

Scruggs was a student at California State University at Sacramento in 1980; she studied political science and international affairs and had a job as a sales clerk at Weinstocks. She is originally from Pismo Beach, California. Her case remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency

• Sacramento County Sheriff's Department 916-874-5467

————————————————————————
The following 2 photos I found via classmates/ancestry.

Ironically, she graduated from Arroyo Grande High School in 1978. From what I’ve gathered her parents are from WV, Topeka, KS., and ultimately the San Luis Obispo area prior to their deaths. They had Khymbrly in 1960 and she grew up in the same area. I found these two photos in the ‘75 (freshman) and ‘78 (senior) Arroyo Grande yearbook. ‘76/‘77 were not available on classmates, although I admittedly have a love-hate relationship with the site so I could have missed them. I’ve read that she was attending University of Sacramento/Sacramento State University...all I found was a newspaper article that mentioned her in an awards announcement for Cuesta College in 1978. Nothing about the UOS/SSU. I’m not familiar with CA at all but the family remained in the Grover Beach/Pismo Beach/Oceano/Shell Beach area. I checked all the yearbooks for those areas and found nothing else. Newspapers.com had a couple of younger photos of her (Girl Scouts) but they were not great images. Her mother taught at Frances Judkins Middle School for awhile and her father was a Professor at Cal Poly. He passed away in 1971 and her mother remarried in 1974, but her father and stepfather’s obituary listed her as “survived by one daughter” (and one son - Khym’s brother). Her mother and stepfather even made a donation to Grover Beach Elementary in “their daughter’s name”, so it appears as though they were a close blended family. That’s just MOO, looks can be deceiving.

Other than few links listed on her thread here on WB, I couldn’t find much about the neighbor they suspected of murdering and disposing of Khymbrly. He was arrested for an unrelated rape(s) in 1982 and was sentenced to prison. Nothing ever came of his potential involvement in Khym’s disappearance.

I just realized this post is a few sentences shy of a novel, so if anyone is interested in the links to anything mentioned (newspapers, etc) just let me know!

•MMcG•

never fails... ETA: side by side

 

[Awsi Dooger]

I prioritize situational influence immediately. Forget about specifics of the crime scene. Law enforcement gets tunnel vision in that regard. What might have brought her to the area? As soon as I saw the date I thought of the Ali/Holmes fight. That was massive, massive, massive. It is impossible to translate to younger fans how big boxing was in that era, especially a heavyweight title fight involving perhaps the most famous and charismatic athlete of all time. Ali regained the title from Spinks two years earlier and then retired, seemingly for good. Once he announced plans to come out of retirement to fight the current champ Larry Holmes, it became an event that was anticipated for months and months. The fight itself was a sad dud but nobody knew that beforehand. Las Vegas was desperate to land that fight because it has lost mega fights like Leonard/Duran in July 1980 to Montreal, and then the famous "No Mas" rematch in New Orleans in November 1980. This event was between those two fights and served to reassert Las Vegas as boxing capital of the planet.

So how is it possible that law enforcement never mentions that fight during attempts to identify this woman? Beyond mind boggling. They are stuck in their own world. Forget about prostitution or gambling. Countless guys loved to be seen at huge fights, and in the company of an attractive female. They would either fly the woman with them, or meet her in the avalanche of people hanging around the hotel, in this case Caesar's Palace.

I lived in Las Vegas from 1984 through 2008 so I saw that dynamic dozens and dozens of times. Drunken homely guys showing off some gal they would obviously be with for that event and that event only.

Do I think that's how she got there? Absolutely not. Low percentage, given every possibility. But given the timetable 3 days apart you've got to publicize and give it a chance: "Did you have a relative or friend who liked to attend boxing matches or other huge sporting events, circa 1980 and especially in Las Vegas? Take a look at these sketches and the photo. She is believed to have been 14-25 years old during fall 1980, but late teens is most logical."

Grateful Doe type of thing. Prioritize a sensible connection.

BTW, major kudos to the poster who mentioned that Ali/Holmes fight. I am sorry I forgot to quote directly but I got lost since it was midway in the thread. I didn't want to post until I had seen if that fight and the date had been spotlighted here.

That was indeed a trucker's route. The two long east/west roads connecting 1-15 area to Henderson area in that time frame were Lake Mead and Sunset Drive. Short cuts from I-15 to Boulder City/Hoover Dam area if intending to drive into Arizona. Both routes were dusty and isolated as heck. Kink of eery. You never wanted to have car trouble out there. I drove them perhaps twice apiece and never wanted to do it again. Sunset Drive is closer to Las Vegas proper, and also larger with more chance of being seen. The road chosen here was called Lake Mead at the time and perfect for someone with local knowledge. Mile after mile of nothing. I don't think it was a trucker. No suburban sprawl in Henderson in those days. Anyone from Henderson proper who wanted to dump a body would know that just a bit west on Lake Mead would basically be in the middle of nowhere. No need to take traipse all the way to the popular dumping spots closer to Lake Mead itself.

Here is an excellent video from a few years ago. The actual area where the body was found appears to be at the 51 second mark:

BTW, Arroyo Grande is Spanish and pronounced grahn-day, not grand as in grand piano. The Spanish translation is " big creek"

Genealogy will rescue her name. The only variable is time.

 

[Awsi Dooger]

One thing I forgot to mention that adds a little bit of viability to the fight connection is that it was held on a Thursday night. These days we think of mega fights on Saturday night only. That is indeed the tradition, to allow for maximum weekend viewing audience. But for a while there the hotels were trying to artificially create a long weekend by staging huge fights on Thursday then keeping the tourists around through Saturday before they returned home. One year later the legendary first fight between Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns was also held on Thursday night at Caesar's Palace.

So the timeline would be: Fight on Thursday, kill and dispose of the girl on Saturday night, then be out of town and unsuspected back home on Sunday.

IMO, the best post in this thread was from someone who proposed that the victim was attacked in the shower. Makes a ton of sense to me. I'm surprised there wasn't more attention given to that possibility. That scenario would neatly explain several aspects: the injuries to the back from a somewhat unusual household-type object, the observation that the body may have been cleaned before it was dumped, and also the shower curtain found near the body.

 

[Bit of hope]

Quote from the above post (didn't worked to put in as a quote) from Awsi Dooger.
IMO, the best post in this thread was from someone who proposed that the victim was attacked in the shower. Makes a ton of sense to me. I'm surprised there wasn't more attention given to that possibility. That scenario would neatly explain several aspects: the injuries to the back from a somewhat unusual household-type object, the observation that the body may have been cleaned before it was dumped, and also the shower curtain found near the body.

I wonder what the color of the shower curtains in Caesar's Palace were and also how to get a body out of a hotel unseen.

 

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

I wonder what the color of the shower curtains in Caesar's Palace were and also how to get a body out of a hotel unseen.

I assume you're using Caesar's Palace as an example, since it could be any hotel/motel in the area, but as for smugling a body out of a hotel, that might not be so difficult as it seems. She could have been carried out in a suitcase, or in a portable laundry basket, etc.

Since this was in 1980, the use of CCTV wasn't perhaps that widely used yet, at least not in smaller establishments, but I am also reminded of an assignment I once had at university about people's attention span, or rather the lack of attention to their surroundings, especially when their attention is already on something else.
We were in groups of two-three; one put on the role of being the one who attracted the attention (by dropping a cup on the floor or falling over or something), the others tried to get away with doing as much weird stuff as they could in the short period of time people's attention were somewhere else (like switching plates in the cantina, even "stealing" furniture, clothes, etc.). If we were caught, our task was to act casual and, if necessary, provide some sort of reasonable explanation -with a disarming smile. I'm still disturbed over how easy it was to get away with the (harmless!) stuff we did, but if AGJD's killer(s) were slightly rutined, they would have no problems, especially if they were well-spoken and could remain calm and casual.

 

[Bit of hope]

I assume you're using Caesar's Palace as an example, since it could be any hotel/motel in the area, but as for smugling a body out of a hotel, that might not be so difficult as it seems. She could have been carried out in a suitcase, or in a portable laundry basket, etc.

Since this was in 1980, the use of CCTV wasn't perhaps that widely used yet, at least not in smaller establishments, but I am also reminded of an assignment I once had at university about people's attention span, or rather the lack of attention to their surroundings, especially when their attention is already on something else.
We were in groups of two-three; one put on the role of being the one who attracted the attention (by dropping a cup on the floor or falling over or something), the others tried to get away with doing as much weird stuff as they could in the short period of time people's attention were somewhere else (like switching plates in the cantina, even "stealing" furniture, clothes, etc.). If we were caught, our task was to act casual and, if necessary, provide some sort of reasonable explanation -with a disarming smile. I'm still disturbed over how easy it was to get away with the (harmless!) stuff we did, but if AGJD's killer(s) were slightly rutined, they would have no problems, especially if they were well-spoken and could remain calm and casual.

I always love your replies. Interesting experiment. Just the other day I was talking with somebody about "looking" and recognizing a missing person. We assume that when we see a missing person's face, we would recognize it in real life. I can assure you people are not looking. Maybe only if this person is fresh in your mind and known to you....after a few day's you forget, and people change appearances very easily...or brain will not adapt to that, doesn't "see".
What I meant to say....and my comment was a little sarcastic (my bad): hopefully LE checked hotels and the like for screams, missing shower curtains and such. She was punctured numerous times with a pointy instrument and hit with a claw hammer...The bathroom (supposedly she was in the shower) would be covered in blood splatters. Not a scene that would occur in a hotel room easily unless you were the owner and had the time to clean everything, IMO. The fact that this sweet girl was obviously never claimed makes me think this was a domestic thing or even a child killing and an act of outrages anger, overkill. Not "something" to get rid of after a boxing match. Although dumping a girl, unclothed, in the middle of nowhere is not consistent with that, unless you are a not-feeling ******** It's hard to figure this one out...She is dear to my heart. Really want this girl to be identified and her killer caught.

 

[Feme98]

That’s a great possibility, is possible that she had a gap on her teeth as AGJD?

A few days ago I almost posted this on WCJD’s thread. Simply because of the necklace. It was hard to miss and hard not to associate the two because of it! But, I did some more research on Khymbrly Marcella Scruggs and all the info led back to Ms AGJD. I submitted the information to the CC ME but she will be out until Wednesday of next week, so I’ll resubmit then. The link above is for her NamUs profile, the following is Charley Project.

—————————————————————————
Khymbrly Marcella Scruggs

• Missing Since: 01/12/1980
• Missing From: Sacramento, California
• Classification: Endangered Missing
• Date of Birth: 08/13/1960 (59)
• Age: 19 years old
• Height and Weight: 5'6, 115 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description: A burgundy wool coat with camel-colored stripes.
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Sandy blonde/brown hair, brown eyes. Scruggs has a chipped front tooth. At the time of her disappearance, she had a glass cut on her right shin. Scruggs may go by the nickname Khym (possibly spelled "Kim") or spell her name "Kimberly."

Details of Disappearance:
Scruggs was last seen at her apartment near Fair Oaks Boulevard and Howe Avenue in Sacramento, California on January 12, 1980. She talked to a friend on the phone at 6:30 p.m., and said she was scheduled to work the next day.

Scruggs's roommate was spending the night elsewhere. When she arrived home the next day, Scruggs was missing. All her belongings, including her purse, clothing and identification, were left behind in the apartment, and she had not gone to work or called to say she would be absent.

Foul play is suspected in Scruggs's case; authorities believe a neighbor murdered her and concealed her body. The suspect had cuts and scratches on his body after Scruggs's disappearance, and eluded the police for three months before he was picked up and interrogated for twelve hours.

He denied involvement in Scruggs's disappearance and was eventually sent to prison for an unrelated rape. He was paroled in 1989 has never been charged in Scruggs's case.

Scruggs was a student at California State University at Sacramento in 1980; she studied political science and international affairs and had a job as a sales clerk at Weinstocks. She is originally from Pismo Beach, California. Her case remains unsolved.
Investigating Agency

• Sacramento County Sheriff's Department 916-874-5467

————————————————————————
The following 2 photos I found via classmates/ancestry.

Ironically, she graduated from Arroyo Grande High School in 1978. From what I’ve gathered her parents are from WV, Topeka, KS., and ultimately the San Luis Obispo area prior to their deaths. They had Khymbrly in 1960 and she grew up in the same area. I found these two photos in the ‘75 (freshman) and ‘78 (senior) Arroyo Grande yearbook. ‘76/‘77 were not available on classmates, although I admittedly have a love-hate relationship with the site so I could have missed them. I’ve read that she was attending University of Sacramento/Sacramento State University...all I found was a newspaper article that mentioned her in an awards announcement for Cuesta College in 1978. Nothing about the UOS/SSU. I’m not familiar with CA at all but the family remained in the Grover Beach/Pismo Beach/Oceano/Shell Beach area. I checked all the yearbooks for those areas and found nothing else. Newspapers.com had a couple of younger photos of her (Girl Scouts) but they were not great images. Her mother taught at Frances Judkins Middle School for awhile and her father was a Professor at Cal Poly. He passed away in 1971 and her mother remarried in 1974, but her father and stepfather’s obituary listed her as “survived by one daughter” (and one son - Khym’s brother). Her mother and stepfather even made a donation to Grover Beach Elementary in “their daughter’s name”, so it appears as though they were a close blended family. That’s just MOO, looks can be deceiving.

Other than few links listed on her thread here on WB, I couldn’t find much about the neighbor they suspected of murdering and disposing of Khymbrly. He was arrested for an unrelated rape(s) in 1982 and was sentenced to prison. Nothing ever came of his potential involvement in Khym’s disappearance.

I just realized this post is a few sentences shy of a novel, so if anyone is interested in the links to anything mentioned (newspapers, etc) just let me know!

•MMcG•

never fails... ETA: side by side

If her alleged abductor got her on the 12th, is possible that he held her captive, long enough until October 4th

 

[MadMcGoo]

That’s a great possibility, is possible that she had a gap on her teeth as AGJD?

If her alleged abductor got her on the 12th, is possible that he held her captive, long enough until October 4th

YES! Not only did she have a SMALL gap, but later in her life she developed a small chip in one of her teeth! I think it’s entirely possible for her to have 1. Been held captive until around October. 2. Been killed earlier than the timeframe given for Jane Doe’s estimated TOD. OR 3. The date of her disappearance been unclear or mistaken by whoever reported it.

 

[RookieInvestigator]

The tools (claw hammer) used to kill her would be found in someone's home IMO...Unless a maintenance man at a hotel attacked her....A maintenance man could easily replace a shower curtain, but you would think the hotel front desk would notify police that a guest was missing...

I was considering the possibility that she could be from another country (Canada, UK, Europe, etc)...I checked the doenetwork for Europe's missing persons but didn't find her...I'm sure people from all over the world visit Vegas...If she was local you would think someone would've recognized her...

 

[MadMcGoo]

The tools (claw hammer) used to kill her would be found in someone's home IMO...Unless a maintenance man at a hotel attacked her....A maintenance man could easily replace a shower curtain, but you would think the hotel front desk would notify police that a guest was missing...

I was considering the possibility that she could be from another country (Canada, UK, Europe, etc)...I checked the doenetwork for Europe's missing persons but didn't find her...I'm sure people from all over the world visit Vegas...If she was local you would think someone would've recognized her...

I agree! If she was not claimed it’s either because no one knew her or someone knew her too well. My money is on the former! Im noticing, as I read through solved and unsolved cases, it was almost always the case that the perpetrator took their victims across the nearest state line in order to throw authorities off their trail. Which honestly, they weren’t wrong in doing so. Interagency communication is below par now...it couldn’t have been better back then!

 

[RookieInvestigator]

I agree! If she was not claimed it’s either because no one knew her or someone knew her too well. My money is on the former! Im noticing, as I read through solved and unsolved cases, it was almost always the case that the perpetrator took their victims across the nearest state line in order to throw authorities off their trail. Which honestly, they weren’t wrong in doing so. Interagency communication is below par now...it couldn’t have been better back then!

I remember reading about killers/serial killers transporting bodies to other counties or states because they knew LE didn't share a lot of info...

 

[Earth]

Well now we have Websleuths, so you might say that karma's come to bite them.

 

[MadMcGoo]

I remember reading about killers/serial killers transporting bodies to other counties or states because they knew LE didn't share a lot of info...

Touché

Well now we have Websleuths, so you might say that karma's come to bite them.

and touché!

It’s also a good thing there is such a large group of non-law enforcement who are putting in so much work on these cases! Just an extra bit of fuel to throw on the fire! The last several agencies I’ve talked to regarding cold cases, and even not so cold ones, were extremely receptive to the information I was passing on to them! Even if it wasn’t extremely helpful, it rekindled their hope in the fact that somewhere, someone knows something, and the next phone call they received could very easily be the one it takes to solve the puzzle!

The monsters can only hide under the bed for so long before they need to come up for air!

•MMcG•

 

[Feme98]

The discrepancy of her eye color is due to decomposition? Description of 3 different colors is kinda odd.

 

[MadMcGoo]

The discrepancy of her eye color is due to decomposition? Description of 3 different colors is kinda odd.

Coming from a blue-eyed girl...the description of my eyes varies from person to person. My drivers license says hazel, my work ID has always said green, and my eyes are VERY blue! I’m not sure someone (anyone) filing a missing person report on me could give an accurate color of my eyes. So, yes, ones eye color appears to change after death, which is caused by the “cloudiness”, but even in life it usually difficult to distinguish between those particular colors!

I hope that helps!

 

[Feme98]

Coming from a blue-eyed girl...the description of my eyes varies from person to person. My drivers license says hazel, my work ID has always said green, and my eyes are VERY blue! I’m not sure someone (anyone) filing a missing person report on me could give an accurate color of my eyes. So, yes, ones eye color appears to change after death, which is caused by the “cloudiness”, but even in life it usually difficult to distinguish between those particular colors!

I hope that helps!

I'm confident that the missing girl that you posted could be AGJD, did you submit this tip to LE?

 

[MadMcGoo]

I'm confident that the missing girl that you posted could be AGJD, did you submit this tip to LE?

I did! She’s been weighing on my mind since I posted! I’ve not heard anything back today, but she wasn’t going to be back in the office until today...so maybe next week if I haven’t heard anything I’ll call and see!

 

[rainwaterstill]

The discrepancy of her eye color is due to decomposition? Description of 3 different colors is kinda odd.

Natural vs. artificial light can change the appearance of someone's eye color. My mom had hazel eyes. In certain lighting, her eyes looked green and in other lighting, blue. In the family room, they appeared blue-green, in the upstairs hallway in the daytime they looked hazel, in the hallway at night, green. Just as an example.