CA CA - Kym Morgan, 24, Santa Barbara, 28 April 1985

Marilynilpa

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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
 
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.

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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....
 
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-12-16/local/me-14706_1_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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
FBI Most Wanted • Seeking Information
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info

image_thumb
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Murder Victim
Santa Barbara, California
April 28, 1985
KYM MORGAN

DESCRIPTION
Date(s) of Birth Used: May 24, 1960
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 160 pounds
Occupation: Student
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Green
Sex: Female
Race: White

Remarks: Morgan drove a 1962 white Chevy Corvair. She was a photography student at the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California.

DETAILS
Kym Morgan disappeared on April 28, 1985, after telling her roommate that she was going to meet a man who had called her about a newspaper ad Morgan had placed trying to find a new place to live. The ad stated that Morgan would babysit, garden, or do chores in exchange for rent and board. Morgan told her roommate that she was going to meet the man and his children at the County Lumber store on the mesa in Santa Barbara, California.
Morgan was reported missing the next day, April 29, 1985, after she had not returned and her roommate and landlord found Morgan's vehicle abandoned and unlocked in the lumber store parking lot. Four days later, Morgan's partial remains were found strewn along the side of East Camino Cielo Road in the Los Padres National Forest above Santa Barbara, California. Her thighs had been placed alongside each other in a culvert. Her torso, right arm and lower left leg are still missing.

REWARD
The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for Kym Morgan's murder.

Anyone with information concerning this case should contact the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office at (310) 477-6565 or the Santa Barbara Police Department at (805) 897-2300. You may also contact your local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate.

Field Office: Los Angeles

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/kym-morgan
 
Is it possible to find the rest of the article Marilyn linked and post it?
 
http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?nid=50907

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

I also tried looking through this guy's site, but I could not for the life of me figure out what he is talking about. The fact that her news article was even on his site baffles me because I did not see what he means by posting it. Some nonsense about the secret society and he has posted a ton of his own personal paperwork with items like an article where he was fired from his job, past due bills, child support wage garnishment and it goes on and on without any rhyme or reason. Odd, very odd.
 
There are a lot of weirdos out there and Kym ran into one. I will say this-I think this killer def was not a newbie and has killed before and after Kym.
 
Curious, there's a cold case in the San Bernardino's County Sheriff webpage concerning one Diane Brown that was murdered and dismembered in Rancho Cucamonga, a suburban city situated at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Her body parts were found miles apart around San Bernardino County. Police think she was killed around mid January 1981... Could this case be linked and the perpetrator the same murderer of Kym Morgan?

http://cms.sbcounty.gov/Portals/34/HomicideColdCase/1981/Diane_Brown.pdf?ver=2009-12-29-092104-630
 
Did she and Kym look alike? Had this girl answered a newspaper ad as well? Also, the ad that was placed that Kym answered-did the cops ever try to place who put the ad in the paper?
 
Did she and Kym look alike? Had this girl answered a newspaper ad as well? Also, the ad that was placed that Kym answered-did the cops ever try to place who put the ad in the paper?

I think it doesn't matter if this girl had put or not an ad. Some killers doesn't follow the same pattern to achieve their goals.
And I think Kym Morgan was the person to place an ad. Her killer just had to phone her and arrange things to meet her.
 
This is another case I would like to give a bump to as again it was a very nasty crime. If I remember rightly Kym had suffered another serious attack on her before her murder so really she had a terrible run of it in in this world through no fault of her own:

Santa Barbara's notorious hatchet murder case
 
This is another case I would like to give a bump to as again it was a very nasty crime. If I remember rightly Kym had suffered another serious attack on her before her murder so really she had a terrible run of it in in this world through no fault of her own:

Santa Barbara's notorious hatchet murder case


The link to a site in the post I am quoting no longer appears to be working and this is a shame as it has some good information about this case there. The thing that struck me is that like Janelle Cruz in the recently solved Golden State Killer case the victim had been assaulted before they met a violent death at the hands of a mad man. Here is a link to a reddit thread about this case:

The Murder of Kym Morgan : UnresolvedMysteries
 
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


I agree with you also a feel it was likely the work of a Serial Killer.
 

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