CA CA - Karen Tompkins, 11, Torrance, 18 Aug 1961

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tuffy said:
I found some 23 news paper with accounts of the disapperance of Karen, as much as I can gather there were several different ways she could have walked a little less then four blk.the most interesting is the school yard photo in the paper shows an area just back of the school that was under constrution....shown by photos as they tried walking her dog to see if he could pick up a scent.....
The Libaray dated base in my area has pro-quest and for a small fee....will e-mail all titles from the subjet you need for research....The main Libaray vs. a branch goes back as far as you need.......and is why I was able to find all this information......
I have gotten permisson from all of these news paper and I am working on a site....for Karen Tompkins....and Sharon Marshall......
Click to expand...
 
Paper: Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA)
Title: Does separate case hold clues to disappearance?
Date: August 17, 2003

Does separate case hold clues to disappearance?


By Larry AltmanThe folded-up note sits in a blue canvas notebook,
encased sheets of paper covered with math problems and social studies
answers.


"To Gale only," one of Dorothy Gale Brown's friends wrote to her on the
piece of paper apparently passed in class 40 years ago. "Do you want
the gum with different colors? P.S. Give it to Patty and tell her to
answer it."


The note is contained inside the 11-year-old's notebook, preserved and
booked into evidence at the Torrance Police Department when she was
molested and killed in 1962. Police believe the same person probably is
involved with the disappearance of Karen Lynn Tompkins in the Los Angeles
city strip a year earlier.


The notebook, unchanged from the time it was last used, reveals the
last days of her life.


"Johnny Crawford is a sweet boy," Gale wrote in a report about the teen
heartthrob at the time. "He is a sweet boy and nice. He has a very
sweet voice and he can play the guitar very well. He plays his part in 'The
Rifleman' very well. He is very cute. He is very smart."


Gale's nude body was discovered July 4, 1962, floating 25 feet down in
the water off Corona del Mar. Skin divers enjoying the Independence Day
holiday found her.


Torrance investigators immediately joined with Los Angeles police
working the Tompkins case because they believed the cases were linked. The
blond, blue-eyed girls were the same age and lived just blocks from each
other, one in the Torrance city limits, the other in the Los Angeles
city strip, now called Harbor Gateway.


"I think that's quite a bit of a coincidence," said Torrance police
Detective Walt Delsigne, a homicide investigator who plans to take a fresh
look at the Brown case.


It was 6 p.m. July 3, 1962, the last time Gale's father would see her
alive. Gale kissed William Brown at their trailer park home in the 1800
block of Torrance Boulevard and said she was going for a bicycle ride.


When she did not come home, her father went looking for her. He found
only her bicycle on 213th Street near Border Avenue later that evening.


Just as they did in the Karen Lynn Tompkins case, police mounted a
house-to-house search with dozens of officers.


"There is a chance the girl spent the night at a friend's home," then
Torrance Police Chief Percy Bennett said hopefully that day. "But we
can't operate on that assumption."


An autopsy showed Gale had drowned and was sexually molested, news
reports said.


"We just can't understand why this happened to us," Gale's grieving
father told the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner that day. His wife, Charleyne,
was placed under a doctor's care.


A couple of days later, a Long Beach family found Gale's dress stuffed
into a beer can and discarded on the beach.


Police officers swarmed over the Browns' trailer park, looking for any
clues to find a killer. Nothing helped.


Torrance detectives interviewed hundreds of sexual predators, and went
through downtown Torrance hotels looking for transients to question.
One who lived near both Karen and Gale was questioned, but released.


A transcription of his shocking interview with detectives, including
admissions about child molestation, remains among the evidence in boxes
marked Dorothy Gale Brown at the Torrance Police Department.


No suspect was identified and no charges were ever filed.


"There's definitely people to still look at," Delsigne said. Current
detectives plan to take a new look at the Brown case, going through
police reports, audio tapes and transcripts of interviews with suspects to
pick up where their predecessors left off 41 years ago.


"There's nothing that gets you more than any of the child murders. It
gets to us all a bit more. We are talking about innocent young
children."


Dorothy Gale Brown


- City:Torrance


- Missing: July 3, 1962.


- Found killed: July 4, 1962.


- Location: Bicycle found at 213th Street near Border Avenue, Torrance.


- Detective: Walt Delsigne, Torrance Police Department, 310-618-5570.


CLAN ARCHIVE 00917 082003 173952%WEBCOPY%Murder case linked A1 SUN
BLN
 
This article says that a friend rode along Karen on a bike for a short time before she disappeared. I hadn't heard that before. (Thanks to the party that shared this info with me.)

Paper: Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA)
Title: The girl who never came home
Date: August 17, 2003

The girl who never came home


A South Bay 11-year old vanished in 1961, and her family is still
waiting for answers


By Larry AltmanLaura Tompkins keeps photographs of her daughter, Karen,
in her room. The pictures show a friendly 11-year-old girl with blond
hair and blue eyes.


"I will always see her as she was then," Tompkins said. "It's hard to
think of her as being older. She would be almost 54 now."


Karen Lynn Tompkins disappeared 42 years ago Monday. After helping her
teacher at Halldale Avenue Elementary School in Harbor Gateway, Karen
headed home.


No one ever saw her again. No trace of her was ever found. Although
police and her family members believe a kidnapper grabbed her, no one
knows for sure what happened.


"If you know someone is killed in an accident or something, it's
closure," Karen's mother said from her home in Orange Park, Fla. "But this
way it isn't. You never know if she was killed or if she is somewhere
being tortured or something. You think about it a lot."


Los Angeles police robbery-homicide detectives recently pulled out of
storage a box containing the old detectives' dusty reports on Karen's
disappearance.


One old photograph of Karen with her dog was enough to bring Detective
Vivian Flores into the case.


"She just stole my heart away," said Flores, a homicide detective who
investigates cold cases in a long, narrow office at Parker Center in
downtown Los Angeles.


The box - one of two packed away long ago - contains a stack of index
cards full of clues, those received at police headquarters and the
Harbor Division station when news of Karen's disappearance broke on Aug. 18,
1961. A second box containing reports and information is missing.


From August to October 1961, police received 5,000 telephone calls and
letters from the public, all trying to help find the missing girl and
bring her home to her family.


"These detectives did an amazing amount of work," Flores said. "They
put in 413 man-hours in 1961."


[] [] []


Laura Tompkins does not remember much about that final morning at home.
It was too normal.


She got Karen and her 8-year-old brother ready for summer school, sent
them on their way and headed to her job at the Broadway department
store in Torrance.


Laura Tompkins, whose then 38-year-old husband was at sea with the
Navy, lived with her mother and children in the 21100 block of Halldale
Avenue. Karen's grandmother stayed home with her 4-month-old sister, Lori.


Karen and Michael walked to school that morning, but their dog
followed. At school, Michael was told to take the dog home, so he did.


In class, Karen worked on an arts-and-crafts project, creating a
covered wagon and helping her teacher clean up the room. She ran out to the
playground after school, telling her former kindergarten teacher, "I'm
having a nice summer, but I'll be glad when school begins."


A classmate on a bicycle rode alongside her for a minute or two when
Karen left the school at 5:30 p.m. They talked about a dog Karen had
entered in a pet show.


Karen disappeared somewhere along the four-block route home.


"When I got home my mother said Karen hadn't gotten in yet and she
should have been in already," Tompkins said. "I started looking for her and
no one had seen her. Then we called the police and they said, 'Well, a
girl that age, not to worry about her. She'd probably come home.'. . .
Today they'd have the Amber Alert."


Karen never did come home, prompting a massive search for days. Police
officers scoured the area near the school. Boy Scouts searched.
Firefighters took to the ocean in boats and helicopters hovered above. Thirty
men rode horses.


"People were actually putting her picture on the sides of their cars,"
Flores said.


A loud-speaker truck patrolled Torrance streets looking for anyone who
had seen Karen. Police went door-to-door, and searched storm drains.


"We're afraid she's been kidnapped and perhaps is dead," a police
officer told the Daily Breeze three days after her disappearance.


William Tompkins rushed from the USS Ticonderoga in the Far East to be
with his wife and children.


"There is nothing I can do but hope," he said upon his return.


Detectives brought in a number of suspects for questioning and checked
a list of hundreds of what they called "sexual deviates," but never
identified anyone as a kidnapper.


"Nothing of hers was found, the covered wagons or anything," Laura
Tompkins said. "I think if she was alive she would have been able to get to
us. Unless she was being tortured or held captive or something.


"I think she was bringing those covered wagons home, probably proud to
show us. I don't think she would wander off. She was either grabbed and
taken or either told a story of some kind to get her in a car."


Time passed. Not a word. Nothing.


The family moved to a new home in Harbor Gateway. A son Randy was born.
When the late Mr. Tompkins retired from the Navy, he moved his family
to Visalia, where he took a job with the post office.


"It's hard, but you have to go on," the mother said. "I had other
children."


[] [] []


Lori Buck never knew her sister. She was just 4-months-old when Karen
disappeared.


"It was always just something we grew up with - that she had been
kidnapped and that she was never found," Buck said. "We always talked about
her. We always had the clippings around and we always knew about it."


Buck said people often said she looked like Karen.


"My dad talked about Karen more than anyone," Buck said. "I think my
mom accepted more that she was gone. My dad, he always thought that she
was alive."


Laura Tompkins often told stories about Karen, saying she was
kindhearted, the type of girl who would cry during a cowboys and Indians movie,
not because people got shot, but because the horses fell down.


"She was always there in our life. She was always our sister," Buck
said. "From what I heard, she was sweet and kind and I just know my life
would have been completely different if she had been around."


Karen liked to read, especially her Betsy McCall paper doll book. She
played with Barbie dolls, earned A's and B's in school and loved her
baby sister and younger brother.


Once she disappeared, Tompkins became overprotective of her other
children, always wanting to know their whereabouts.


"I said, 'If you go anywhere be sure and let me know. If you are out
late, let me know,' " Tompkins said. "I had newspaper clippings that we
had saved. I let them look through and told them about it. I was always
cautious."


Although Michael never talks about his missing sister, Lori Buck wants
to know what happened to her.


"I always lived with it," she said. "It didn't affect me until I had my
own son and I said I can't imagine going to bed at night not knowing
where my child is."


Buck recently looked up old news clippings and photographs about her
sister and wrote a letter to Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton,
asking that officers look into the case. Bratton assigned the cold case
team to do so.


Flores had Karen's mother and sister provide DNA samples to submit to a
national database, in the event any unidentified remains can be
matched. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children created an
updated photograph that depicts what Karen might look like if she was
still alive today.


"I just want it to be looked into," Buck said. "If nothing comes of it,
fine, we tried our best. If she's out there someplace and nobody has
given her a name, she needs to be given a name. She needs to be brought
home. An unidentified body buried someplace needs to be named."


Karen Lynn Tompkins


- City: Los Angeles city strip (Harbor Gateway)


- Missing: Aug. 18, 1961.


- Location: Walk home from Halldale Avenue Elementary School, 21514
Halldale Ave.


- Detectives: Vivian Flores, Richard Bengston, Los Angeles Police
Department, robbery-homicide division, cold case unit, 213-485-2129.


CLAN ARCHIVE 00918 082003 174000%WEBCOPY%Missing girl A1 SUN
BLN
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"Torrance detectives interviewed hundreds of sexual predators, and went
through downtown Torrance hotels looking for transients to question.
One who lived near both Karen and Gale was questioned, but released.


A transcription of his shocking interview with detectives, including
admissions about child molestation, remains among the evidence in boxes
marked Dorothy Gale Brown at the Torrance Police Department."

Sounds like LE had a viable suspect. He lived near both of them and could have seen them walking or riding bikes on a daily basis. I wonder how close he lived to where Gale's bike was found.
 
Usher737 said:
"Torrance detectives interviewed hundreds of sexual predators, and went
through downtown Torrance hotels looking for transients to question.
One who lived near both Karen and Gale was questioned, but released.


A transcription of his shocking interview with detectives, including
admissions about child molestation, remains among the evidence in boxes
marked Dorothy Gale Brown at the Torrance Police Department."

Sounds like LE had a viable suspect. He lived near both of them and could have seen them walking or riding bikes on a daily basis. I wonder how close he lived to where Gale's bike was found.
Click to expand...
Glad to see some action on this thread again!! Sadly, they did assume Dorothy Gale's killer was also who abducted Karen. Because of that, they didn't look closer at any other suspects. They had never heard of Franklin Floyd or Sharon Marshall when I contacted Torrance PD.

I think if he killed Karen, her body would have been found too.

Thanks Gina for adding the info to MySpace. Lori Peugeot is also a possibility.
 
Gina M.I have photos of Karen and her family and articials that have appered in the news papers the latest one 2003....karens family Brother ,sister ,Mother and Dad...
if you would like to read them or see the photos..they are on photobucket...some of them anyways....
Again...your site for Sharon is realy takeing off..........I am still in tears with the add of music...
 
tuffy said:
Gina M.I have photos of Karen and her family and articials that have appered in the news papers the latest one 2003....karens family Brother ,sister ,Mother and Dad...
if you would like to read them or see the photos..they are on photobucket...some of them anyways....
Again...your site for Sharon is realy takeing off..........I am still in tears with the add of music...
Click to expand...
Thanks Tuffy. Glad you like my page. :)
I'd like to see the pics you have...what's the link to your photobucket site?
 
"Gale's nude body was discovered July 4, 1962, floating 25 feet down in
the water off Corona del Mar. Skin divers enjoying the Independence Day holiday found her."


It appears Gale's body was found by accident. I wonder if LE ever sent a dive team down there in search of Karen's body. If they were killed by the same person he could have used the same place twice especially since he got lucky the first time.
 
News paper Photos from Torrance,California and LA Times
Karens Home.....This photo is now in archives of events of 1961...interesting that there were few that where added...and this one made it into archives...
Karen and her Brother Mike taken a year before she dissappered.
Would be interesting to know what Nationality Karen is as the jacket her brother is wearing looks sweedish...or Native American?...I do recall a thread a while back that Karens Mother is from Oklahoma.......
 

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News paper Photos from Torrance,California and LA Times
Karens Home.....This photo is now in archives of events of 1961...interesting that there were few that where added...and this one made it into archives...
Karen and her Brother Mike taken a year before she dissappered.
Would be interesting to know what Nationality Karen is as the jacket her brother is wearing looks sweedish...or Native American?...I do recall a thread a while back that Karens Mother is from Oklahoma.......
Click to expand...


Photos won't open
 
jpg.gif
016-017.jpg try again if this wont open I will post to Marshall page.it worked for me this time HUMMMMM..........News paaper and archives of Congress......
 

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I was wondering if anyone knew if a link between Karen and Susan Nason had been investigated?? I read the story of Susan, who was 8 when she was abducted and murdered in 1969 in People's true crime book, and when I first saw Susan's picture I thought it was Karen - the resemblence is uncanny. I've been searching the internet for her picture but no luck. I will try and scan her picture later, because the resemblence is eerie.
 
Its is ODD! that this persons name is Fraklyn also in ref.to Sharon Marshall case............



until 9/1988 then University of Southampton



Desperately seeking evidence: The recovered memory debate



Introduction

In the 1990s we have seen a startling rise in reports of memories of childhood sexual abuse from adults alleging that the memories were previously `unavailable' to them. Such memories are often `recovered' during psychotherapy and have resulted in fierce debate concerning the reality and reliability of such memories. It is a debate that has elicited considerable controversy in the courts, in academic circles and in professional practice due to its personal, social and political implications. A criminal case based on the recovered memory of a murder was instrumental in bringing the debate to the attention of the public and courts. In 1990,:crazy: George Franklin:liar: was convicted for the murder of a child based primarily on evidence from his daughter Eileen who claimed she had repressed the murder of her friend for 20 years (Maclean, 1993). The conviction was overturned following a successful appeal in 1995 but the case nevertheless remains a poignant example of impact of a recovered memory in the legal context. In the academic domain, recovered memories have presented memory researchers with some challenging questions. The debate has focused attention on conditions under which memories are recovered and the power of suggestion bringing the practices of psychotherapists under close scrutiny. Unfortunately some have interpreted this as an invasion of the therapist's domain and an attempt to undermine the credibility of therapists and victims. This has resulted in a polarisation of the debate, the consequences of which are well illustrated by recent reviews (Loftus and Ketchum, 1994; Ofshe and Watters, 1994, Lindsay and Read, 1995; Pendergrast, 1995). This paper will show how scientific research can inform the courts about the reliability of recovered memory evidence.
 
Sorry, I haven't had any access to a scanner. (I'm not in my apartment, I've been at home on break for the past week.) I will take a picture of it tomorrow with my camera to at least give everyone an idea of what Susan looked like. I have found MANY articles on her, but no pictures. Even if it is not the best quality, it will be better then nothing.
 
The news story concerning construction worker and the School area of Karen Lynn Tompkins , was under construction in 1961 photos from News papers I posted a few threads ago I will try and find the news paper accounts said Karen and Her brother used a short cut to school that passed through this area!
I still have several downloads I passed to another WS member may still have on my PC,I will search the other post and bring them up?
In case they have not known this I am forwarding to PD now.....
Great you found this Carl,,,,,
.Karen and her brother were enrolled in a summer arts class at Halldale Ave. Elementary School within four blocks from their home. That day the family dog had followed them to school so, her brother {who was 8 yrs old} took the dog home before class was out. Karen stayed after class to help the teacher. The teacher and other students saw her leave the school at approx. 5:00 pm. She was carrying 2 conastoga wagons that she and her brother had made in art class. At 6:00 pm the police were called when Karen did not arrive home.

The school is located at 215th Street and Halldale Ave. 4 blocks from Karen's house in Torrance, California.

Karen was wearing royal blue shorts with white printed band on bottom, white sleeveless blouse, rubber sandalls {they were called zories}, also a white cardigan sweater.
Ok! Guys this is toooo much calling in this information is not that easy.............however pushing forward......
detective Flores ,received the news paper clipping and was aware of the confession sense there are so many cases to search connected with this persons confession............. I did not think it a bad thing to forward this to LAPD.
Thank You Carl for posting that I have not been on the thread for awhile..........
My Heart goes out to the Tompkins family...
then there is always a chance for Hope ! I will forward any replies I receive if any from Det.Flores
 
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