CA CA - Kym Morgan, murdered and dismembered in Santa Barbara, April 1985

[Marilynilpa]

On April 28, 1985, Kym Morgan received a telephone call in response to an ad she had placed in the paper. She was seeking a room in exchange for doing light chores. She arranged to meet the caller, and was never seen alive again. Her dismembered body was found by a man looking for aluminum cans.

"Kym's death, possibly the work of a serial killer, was one of four unsolved homicides featured in a three-part News-Press series that ran Dec. 29-31.

The series generated more than 30 fresh tips detectives are now pursuing in search of information that could lead to arrests. The other victims highlighted in the series were Esther Taboada, Frank Gomez and Lori Rosen."

The complete story: http://www.newspress.com/coldcases/kymkiller.htm

[Richard]

If this was the work of a serial killer - as many believe - what links can be seen between this case and others before and after 1985? It involves a killer seeking his victims through the want-ads and setting up a meeting place.

---------------------
From Marilyn's link:
Her fate was probably decided when the killer called her Valerio Street home that Sunday morning. He was responding to an ad she placed in the News-Press seeking a room in exchange for light chores. He offered one, in a beautiful Montecito house.

If Kym met him right away on the Mesa, she was told, she could also meet the kids at his mother-in-law's nearby house.

Police believe the killer waited for her in the parking lot of the Santa Cruz Market, now Lazy Acres, where a sweet hint of ocean air lingers from the morning fog.

Kym was seen with a man whose dark complexion stood out against a blue Hawaiian shirt and blue pants. A police bulletin and sketch identified him as possibly Italian, Indian or Portuguese. Two-inch elevator shoes brought his height to about 5 feet 6. He was in his early 30s.

At nearly 6 feet tall, witnesses later recalled, Kym towered over the short man as she shook his hand that morning.

He was seen getting out of a car with a white top and a blue body — either a 1979 Buick Century or an early '80s Chevrolet Caprice or Impala. Shoppers recalled a gold license plate with dark blue letters, perhaps from Oregon.

Detectives are uncertain whether this man was the killer, or even the caller. But he may have been the last person to see her alive.

Police believe that within a short time, at the parking lot, the killer tricked Kym into trusting him. Or else she wouldn't have gotten into his car — not after what happened to her five years earlier.

When Kym was 19, a man abducted her from a Los Angeles disco, beat and raped her, then left her for dead. The hospital listed Kym as a Jane Doe. She was beaten so badly, only her mother was able to recognize her. She identified the little freckle between her middle and ring fingers to police.

"She had amnesia," Evan Morgan said. "They didn't know if they'd ever bring her back."

Kym spent four months in the hospital learning to talk, walk and feed herself again. It took years for her to fully come back.

But five years later, she would become a victim again.

Somehow, the killer dispelled any suspicions Kym may have had that day on the Mesa and enticed her into his trap.

The next morning, Kym's landlord spotted her 1965 white Corvair abandoned in the market parking lot. He called police. And then he phoned John and Evan Morgan in Palm Springs to tell them their daughter was missing. Her father's first words: "Oh no... Not again."

THE CAN MAN

Four days later, Thursday, May 2, a man looking for aluminum cans off East Camino Cielo found what he thought might be a body part....

[Kat]

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-12-..._death-penalty

December 16, 1995

In Santa Barbara, Police Capt. Greg Stock said homicide investigators continue to look at Rathbun in connection with the 1985 murder of Kym Morgan, although they have not uncovered anything to link Rathbun to the slaying of the 24-year-old photography student and part-time model, whose body was recovered in Los Padres National Forest five days after her disappearance.

It took me a while to remember where I had heard that name before.

He murdered Linda Sobek.

I wonder what the conclusion that LE came to? I don't know much about Rathbun's crimes with the exception of a very vague memory of Linda's murder.

[annemc2]

http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?nid=50907

Composite sketch at link. Comments are interesting, also (including one by Jaycee Hunter, SBPD cold case homicide investigator written in March 2011).



I don't know what this page is about (and I didn't try too hard to find out), but it has a copy of a newspaper article with Kym's photo on it. She was stunning.
http://www.truthasaur.com/local/secretcity10.html

[Still looking in MS]

If Kym Morgan WAS in fact killed by some serial killer, I am fairly sure you can (for once) rule OUT Tommy Lynn Sells. He was not incarcerated at the time, and he later did spend time in CA, but from what I can tell from all the sources about his timelines, he was pretty much in the St. Louis area at the time. He is credited with the Gill murders in St. Louis a few months after Kym Morgan's murder in CA.

[fred&edna]

While researching another California cold case murder, I found...

a recent post (March 2013) at http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?nid=50907 (site mentioned previously)

"I am friends with the sister of Kym Morgan, and have spoken with Kym's mother about this gruesome murder. TXXX XXXX is the major suspect in this case. ..."

* Name removed by me. You can read more at link.