Identified! CA - Dixon, WhtFem 15-23, punk rock hair, ring, necklace, smock, Aug'80 - Holly Ann Campiglia

[Triss]

Rest in peace Holly.

 

[FogHornFiles]

Despite knowing her identity I believe the identity of her killer is still unknown.

 

[Punkramona]

The body was identified as Holly Ann Campiglia. Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

i'm glad she got her name back, so sad the family had to wait so long for answers.

 

[lindylou]

RIP, thankful for her family.

 

[Pseudonymph]

The body was identified as Holly Ann Campiglia. Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

This is confusing because it sounds like she was identified in the early 90s based on this article.

 

[snowgoose]

This is confusing because it sounds like she was identified in the early 90s based on this article.

Yes and she was never on NamUs, so I don't think there was any ambiguity about her being identified.

The person who started the thread probably wanted to share the news article about the unidentified person, but couldn't find the update. It can be hard searching for info about obscure cases like this, especially when there's no official identifying number like a NamUs case number.

 

[FogHornFiles]

Police did not release much information once it was discovered there had been a mistake and her body had been discovered in California. After posting the original article I was made aware of the update. However despite getting her name back, there are few leads regarding the identity of her killer.

 

[MadMcGoo]

I come across so many articles like the one in the OP, and rarely am able to find any follow up (for a number of reasons.) I’m glad to know there was an identification in this case. I hope they’re able to solve the murder someday.

Rest peacefully now Holly.

 

[beubeubeu]

I stumbled on this thread and it stunned me how accurate that first sketch seems to be.

I guess that there is not much hope for her killer to be brought to justice.

June 10, 1980 - Holly runs away
July, 1980 (approx. month later) - letter from Holly, mailed from Sacramento
August 3, 1980 - body found



Looks like she was living in the area, wonder from where that "punk rock" came from, as her clothing doesn't seem to imply anything punk related.
If her hair were indeed, as short as these drawings show, it doesn't look like she cut it short after running away, cause that would require her to shave her head bald or cut her hair repeatedly.
It's likely irrelevant, but could cutting her hair so short before her murder may mean something?
Like maybe her murderer did this? Or forced her to do it? Or maybe she sensed danger and tried to change her appearance and hitchhike away from Sacramento area but the killer got her?

 

[snakefinger]

The hair made me recall Robert Ben Rhoades (in regard to Regina Kay Walters). Rhoades preyed on hitchhikers and truckstop sex workers, starting in the 1970s. Supposedly there are a large number of possible victims in which his involvement was suspected, although not proven.
Robert Ben Rhoades - Wikipedia

 

[Melt71]

I stumbled on this thread and it stunned me how accurate that first sketch seems to be.
View attachment 328231
I guess that there is not much hope for her killer to be brought to justice.

June 10, 1980 - Holly runs away
July, 1980 (approx. month later) - letter from Holly, mailed from Sacramento
August 3, 1980 - body found

View attachment 328233…..
If her hair were indeed, as short as these drawings show, it doesn't look like she cut it short after running away, cause that would require her to shave her head bald or cut her hair repeatedly.
It's likely irrelevant, but could cutting her hair so short before her murder may mean something?
Like maybe her murderer did this? Or forced her to do it? Or maybe she sensed danger and tried to change her appearance and hitchhike away from Sacramento area but the killer got her?

The hair is pretty typical rebel 80s in some circles. It was called the Chelsea cut as it became popular first in that part of London. I was too young for this cut in 1980 but in early 1983 when I was 12 my mother gave in and let me cut my butt-length hair to this style. Such a momentous haircut I’ll never forget it! Here’s a link with some 1980-81 photos Meet the reverse mullet: this 80s hair trend is the perfect isolation look

 

[carbuff]

In 1980 it was pretty rare to see a woman with hair that short

The hair is pretty typical rebel 80s in some circles. It was called the Chelsea cut as it became popular first in that part of London. I was too young for this cut in 1980 but in early 1983 when I was 12 my mother gave in and let me cut my butt-length hair to this style. Such a momentous haircut I’ll never forget it! Here’s a link with some 1980-81 photos Meet the reverse mullet: this 80s hair trend is the perfect isolation look

I was going to post some of the same information.

It really became popular in 1983 when Annie Lennox leading the Eurythmics hit it big. Everybody wanted to look like her. But the look had been around in the trendy parts of cities like San Francisco for several years. (speculation: Ms. Campiglia might have come to California specifically to be part of that scene.)

 

[beubeubeu]

The hair is pretty typical rebel 80s in some circles. It was called the Chelsea cut as it became popular first in that part of London. I was too young for this cut in 1980 but in early 1983 when I was 12 my mother gave in and let me cut my butt-length hair to this style. Such a momentous haircut I’ll never forget it! Here’s a link with some 1980-81 photos Meet the reverse mullet: this 80s hair trend is the perfect isolation look

Yeah but was it popular in any circles in Sacramento area in summer of 1980?
Of course nobody can really tell how fast her hair grew so that's just a guess, but judging by her picture with long hair, and every girl I knew that had possibly similar type and got pixie cut/mohawks... their hair grew fast, seriously fast, like almost an inch/month kind of fast so it really strikes me as odd.

These portraits are post-mortem reconstructions.
As decomposition goes and tissues are going throug it human hair appear slightly longer than before death, right?
Even assumming that it'd be just like 1/10 of an inch of "additional" lenght. If she cut them shortly after arriving there - so before sending that letter it "should" be about three weeks. So at least half of an inch growth - if not more.
That would suggest that she shaved herself bald or almost bald then. It should be pretty unusual, right?
She didn't have chelsea haircut, her hair look like they are sort of equal lenght and don't give any "punkrock" vibe to me.
Annie Lennox could be a great potential inspiration to do so but her iconic haircut is later thing. She had short, but significantly longer hair in 1980, and chelsea haircut before.

Looking for pics from Sacramento punk rock scene in 1980 I also can't find any girl who would have hair this short - which imo implies that either that haircut wasn't related or she may be a girl that people from that crowd would remember even years and years later cause she'd be THAT GIRL who stood out from the crowd.

Also - if she was so, so eager to run away, desperate enough to jump off the moving car to run away. If it wasn't like her only chance to run away, cause family guarded her all the time, that could mean that she possibly ran away to meet someone she knew?
<modsnip>
No info if it was a crime scene or just dumping ground.

 

[carbuff]

Sacramento is only a couple of hours' drive from San Francisco, and SF definitely had a big punk rock scene before 1980.

It's easy to maintain a haircut like that. Run a men's #4 or 5 hairclipper over it every week or two.

 

[FogHornFiles]

A change of hairstyle would make her harder to recognize while she crossed the country had authorities been looking for her or it could possibly have been an attempt to hamper identification of the body.

 

[beubeubeu]

But the only implication of Holly's connection with that scene is the fact that her haircut was described as "punk rock". It may be accurate, but also somebodys first association: woman with short hair - must be one of these "punks" while reason for her hair being cut so short may be something else.

That article has no mention about investigation in her case so I can't help but picture some pigeonholing happening there. Such small thing could be responsible for a big change in narrative.

Assumming that victim was part of punk scene would be likely implication of transient lifestyle, no traceable connections, likely nobody actively looking for her...

Totally different from possibility to have a girl with hair cut or chopped (maybe that "punk rock" came out not cause her hair was so short, but unevenly cut) shockingly short, shoot and dumped in a place, widely known as gang dumping ground...

<modsnip>

 

[cymster]

Very sad. I grew up in Cherry Hill, and where Holly jumped out the last time by the Sheraton Post, that's like mere minutes from my childhood home. She was much older than me though so our paths would probably never have passed. I hope she's at peace.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man already serving life sentences for rape and child murder has now been arrested on suspicion of killing a woman who was found dead in a California cornfield more than 40 years ago, authorities announced.

DNA evidence linked Herman Lee Hobbs to the August 1980 death of 21-year-old Holly Ann Campiglia, the Solano County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement this week.

Campiglia was from New Jersey. Two field workers found her body in a cornfield in unincorporated Dixon, southwest of Sacramento. She had been shot several times in the head and neck, authorities said.

Her identity wasn’t known until 1992 and the case went cold until 2021, when at her family’s request, a sheriff’s technician reviewed the original evidence to see if anything could be resubmitted for additional DNA analysis, the Sheriff’s Office said.

A lab reported finding male DNA and that eventually led to Hobbs, who was arrested last Friday in state prison and transferred to the county jail to face a charge of first-degree murder.

Convicted murderer held for woman's 1980 California killing

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man already serving life sentences for rape and child murder has now been arrested on suspicion of killing a woman who was found dead in a California cornfield more than 40 years ago, authorities announced.

apnews.com

Augustine and Sally Campiglia had filed a missing person report for their daughter Holly Ann Campiglia in June of that same year. Her parents told the Courier-Post that the New Jersey college student’s mental state started changing in high school, and she’d become increasingly erratic. On the way to a counseling center, Holly Ann jumped from her mother’s car; they never saw her again. All the family knew was that she had hitchhiked to Sacramento. After sending them one letter, she stopped contacting them.

Man with disturbing history arrested in Bay Area cold case killing

Herman Lee Hobbs, who is already in prison for rape, was arrested on suspicion of killing Holly Ann Campiglia in the Bay Area in 1980.

www.sfgate.com

 

[cvaldez1975]

wow.. he killed in 75 and 80 and raped in 2000. there has got to be more victims out there of this monster.

 

[Vern]

wow.. he killed in 75 and 80 and raped in 2000. there has got to be more victims out there of this monster.

Man with disturbing history arrested in Bay Area cold case killing

Herman Lee Hobbs, who is already in prison for rape, was arrested on suspicion of killing Holly Ann Campiglia in the Bay Area in 1980.

www.sfgate.com

I quite suspect that he aslo killed Ms. Tucker in 1994; per the article he was a friend of the family.

A timeline of Herman Lee Hobbs’ alleged violent crimes:​

1969 - Hobbs is sent to prison for multiple armed robberies in the Sacramento area
1975 - Terri Pata, 13, disappears from Rio Linda Junior High and is found dead nine days later
1980 - Holly Ann Campiglia found dead in Dixon
1994 - Brenda Tucker goes missing from Thermalito, Butte County
2000 - Hobbs is convicted in the rape of a girl, 15, in Yuba County
2001 - Brenda Tucker's skull is found in Yuba County
2002 - The Tucker murder case is dismissed due to lack of evidence
2004 - DNA connects Hobbs to the Pata murder. He pleads no contest and is sentenced to 25 years to life.
2023 - Police say DNA connected Hobbs to the unsolved murder of Campiglia