MD MD - Keri Sirbaugh, 21, Baltimore, 21 June 1995

it's really sad that the world, it seems, has forgotten about keri ann sirbaugh... who at 21-year old, was a young, intelligent, beautiful, promising, well-liked college student... and in 1995 was mysteriously and brutally murdered in or near her home. her body was dumped in the woods nearby... the investigation was apparently botched, and the killer never found. even her website with the reward was taken down a few years ago. we waited tables at the same restaurant.. although not at the same time, so i never knew her.. but, i will never forget you, keri..... RIP.


incredible, well-done articles from the B-more city paper:

A Year After Keri Sirbaugh's Murder, Her Mother, Father, Brother, Uncle, and Best Friend Struggle With Life After Death

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=3620



Five Years After Keri Sirbaugh's Murder, Her Parents and the Police Grapple With the Frustration of a Trail Gone Cold

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=3619

Wow. I grew up just outside of Baltimore, so this sort of hits home for me.

So many things don't add up. The story that the date gives is just lame. That he gave correct information for an accident he was stuck in coming back from Baltimore County to AA Co. and his buddy just happened to be in the same traffic jam, thereby giving him an alibi??? Sounds to me like it was the date. The time line is just so close. Unless it happened right when he dropped her off. Plus, how awful that 911 didn't even respond to the first call other than do a drive by of the block. This guy could have been caught in the act.

WOW!!! This is so sad!!!! I graduated in 1995 in AA Co and I don't remember this case but its another example of the Maryland Justice System gone wrong. I wonder if this "date" of hers has any arrest record now???? I mean as young as he was...how did he have a lawyer? I wonder if he came from money and his family helped him cover his tracks...he sure sounds like his buddy had a convienent alibi for him. Reb, do you have any information on the "date" name? I have to look but I have a website somewhere (I think I have it saved at work) that you can look for court records for MD. Also, I wonder if now that Martin O'Malley is Governor...if it wouldn't be a good time to try to enlist his support again???? Its sickening that Baltimore City (who always is overwhelmed) wouldn't accept any outside help! :furious:

Thinking of Keri... and as always, the same questions... was the guy ever checked out? Hello.......??? Does anyone really care...???
Sometimes I get the feeling that LE is just one big 'boys club'...

I really feel for her parents.. hope they are doing okay...

I wish nothing but the worst plagues on the scum that killed this young woman. I don't remember hearing about her, reb. Thanks for bringing it here. Maybe we can find something out about the case. Does she have a website to help explain the circumstances, etc? Does she have active family members trying to get attention for the case?

Of course, after 12 years I can see why they might have given up after all this time. I wish NG or Greta would take a look at real cold cases like this.

I wish they would too. She used to have a very simple website (not sure if it was put up by her family or by investigators).. but it was taken down years ago. The sad fact is.. when you are living in one of the murder capitals of the country,, a place where there's at least one (and often more) killing a day... LE can't keep up,, they are running ragged. You have a police force that is at war, day after day, and stretched thin. Things are so rough there, the line netween cops & criminals often gets blurred. And sadly,, the investigation of one person's murder usually gets lost in the shuffle.

Not sure what the latest is.. maybe one of her family members or friends will find this and fill us in. But I guess what often happens is that it's too painful and people just want to move on.

True about the line getting blurred. I understand that in Howard County, where I grew up, they will no longer hire officers from Baltimore City. I was told that they brought a corruption problem into the county with them. This in a county that went decades without a single scandal.

In this case, it sounds like there is a world of bitterness between the family and the detectives. Has anyone spoken with the neighbor again? Maybe she saw or heard more than she would admit. It certainly sounds like the encounter, whatever it was, between Keri and her killer went on for quite some time - over an hour? I guess my question would be why they thought that this meant that it was one of her acquaintances instead of just meaning that the sexual assault took that long. Maybe she had almost talked her way into being let go and he changed his mind.

I lived in Columbia back in the 80's. Every time I go back, I see it's turning more and more into a strange mixture of run-down project/ghetto suburbia and chain-store corporate suburbia. Sad!!! It started out such an idealistic place... and Howard County is (...was??) such a beautiful area. Of course unbridled sprawl is destroying all that pristine beautiful farmland and countryside. But I can see why HC cut themselves off from Baltimore... it's a sinking ship and people don't want to be dragged down by it. Anything closeby is going to be contaminated by the Baltimore virus.

I grew up in Columbia, one of the 1st generation of native Columbians . I would have agreed with you about rampant development except that Jim Rouse at least had the foresight to set aside all of the public land and trail areas in trust. I live in Prince William County, Virginia, now and I have to say that the rate of development now in Prince William and Loudon counties is worse than Howard County ever went through. In 10 years Prince William County had as much development as Howard County had in 30 years, and they are similar in size. The good news is that the Columbia experiment, although essentially over since the suburbs closed in, was successful in the positive effect it had on the county overall. The integration of different economic classes was always planned but really did not start to happen until the 80s. I think that the fact that a lower socioeconomic class moved in (and de-yuppified Columbia to some degree) points to the success of the overall experiment since the commitment to life in an integrated and multicultural society still held up. Whew! That was long-winded, my apologies.

I'm going to see if I can do some more digging, see if I can come up with any more coverage of this - the Baltimore Sun should have had some info, and maybe even the Washington Post if it was a slow news day.

just bumping for keri again. here's hoping that someday her family will get the answers they deserve!!!

Bumping again for Keri

Hoping that the new year brings justice for Keri.

A 2010 WMAR article and video interview with Keri's parents and Det Art Brummers who's looking into the case.

New Technology for Unsolved Murders

Posted: 05/06/2010
snipped
"We wound up going outside, we were standing on her porch by her door, and I just found myself staring at this path that went into the woods. For some reason I just walked over and that's when I found her," said Bill Sirbaugh fighting back tears, "I can't describe what I was going through."

“Then everything starts going through your mind, like why? The biggest question, why would anyone want to hurt her?” asked her mother.

snipped
"We've always said through the years that we've looked at it for so long fresh eyes would be wonderful so we're very appreciative of fresh eyes to look at it."

Those eyes are Detective Art Brummer's...

snipped
DNA is how Brummer feels he'll finally solve this case.

Click to expand...

I have read everything here and watched couple of videos.
And after all that, I still cant find if they think she was killed inside her apartment or outside after 3am...There was 200 dollars in cash laying in side so it seems robbery was not a motive...There is just nothing released to help investigate this murder. They should release some information.

And visual aids? Other than the couple of videos I have not seen any visual aids to help put some pieces together.

If we could get the mother here, whom kept incredible notes about the case that would be WONDERFUL.
They released the autopsy report i read, but seen no information about what was contained inside.

Someone out there knows something after all this time. Maybe it's not someone from 1995, but someone who has been in contact with the killer(s) since then.
The person(s) capable of doing this have had to show some sort of deviant behavior toward someone else through the years. You don't just commit a horrific act like this and go on your merry way, never showing a hint of insanity, aggression and serious issues with women the rest of your life. There has got to be a girlfriend, spouse, friend, co-worker, employer or neighbor who suspects something and/or who knows something. Someone had to have heard or received hints about this case and they for some reason have not come forward.

As we approach the 20th anniversary in 2015 of the savage murder of college student Keri Sirbaugh outside of her Baltimore home in the early hours of June 21, 1995, we hope word will spread that we continue to seek justice for Keri, and hope that someone will come forward: JusticeforKeri@hotmail.com.

There is a Facebook page as well as a Twitter account called Justice for Keri.

Below is an excerpt from a Baltimore Sun article published shortly after her murder. No one has ever been charged.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-07-16/news/1995197003_1_keri-dangerous-proposition-tangled

It has been three weeks since Bill Sirbaugh drove in a panic to his daughter's apartment at the end of a dead-end street in Northeast Baltimore and found her body dumped in a gloomy gulch of woods 40 footsteps from her door.

His only daughter had been strangled and beaten to death.

Police have no suspects, no leads. As they have delved into Keri's private life looking for her killer, the trails have become as tangled as the maze of footpaths weaving through the overgrown woods where her body was found.

What looked like a textbook case of murder that would be solved easily has plunged city police homicide investigators into a bramble of contradictions.

"It looked personal to us -- personal as hell," says Detective David Neverdon as he works the crime scene for the umpteenth time with his partner, Detective Robert Patton. "It was up close and very violent. That usually means somebody had a grudge. Find the guy who hated the victim and you have your man.

"But it seems that a lot of men had problems with Keri."

Through no apparent fault of her own.

In most ways, Keri Sirbaugh was like thousands of other young women in Baltimore. At 21, she was working hard to find her path into adulthood and shed the remnants of childhood awkwardness. But she was not easily overlooked in a crowd.

Friends describe her as a "superwoman," an "amazon," an "exotic beauty."

She stood nearly 6 feet tall from the soles of her combat boots to the peak of her flaming red tangle of hair. She weighed 160 pounds. And she moved like a force of nature, emitting gales of laughter and girlish chatter wherever she went.

Generous to strangers, loyal to friends, she was someone people noticed. And being noticed in certain quarters of Baltimore in 1995 can be a dangerous proposition -- especially at night. Especially for women.

"It got her a lot of unwanted attention," says Mark Bell, 30, a friend. "She was a big girl -- with big hair, big lips and big breasts. Unfortunately, there's a lot of men in this day and age who see a woman like that and forget that there's a person inside that exotic body."

Dreams of writing career

Behind the 500-watt smile and striking looks was an aspiring journalist who had just completed her junior year at American University in Washington after beginning her college education at Essex Community College.

She has not been forgotten. There is now a Facebook page entitled "Justice for Keri" as well as a Twitter account under the same name. It has been 19 years since her brutal murder on June 21, 1995. Our goal is to spread the word well enough that by the 20th anniversary of this tragedy, someone will finally be held accountable.

Absolutely: Someone out there knows something. They can e-mail JusticeforKeri@hotmail.com anonymously (using temporary anonymous e-mail accounts, which can be found through Googling) or they can contact Detective Todd Corriveau at (410) 396-2121 (todd.corriveau@baltimorepolice.org).

Someone knows something! Help us spread the word! Thank you.

The family absolutely did the right thing in consulting Roy Hazelwood, Hazelwood is one of the best there is bar none.

I find it odd that BPD wouldn't allow him to examine the case especially with all the media attention it garnered, also if I recall Roy lives, in the DC area, not too far from Baltimore, its not like they'd have to fly him in or even fax him a bunch of stuff

But BPD is an extremely busy and a quite competent department, and its not like this isn't something their detectives have seen before .

Those guys handle a ton of cases, yearly... so if they're lagging on this case, I would tend to believe its because they are really at a standstill, and have exhausted most leads.

With BPD not willing to give much info theres not much anyone can do.

the only source, could be her father, but I don't know if hed be willing to disclose, what he saw that night .

reb said:

it's really sad that the world, it seems, has forgotten about keri ann sirbaugh... who at 21-year old, was a young, intelligent, beautiful, promising, well-liked college student... and in 1995 was mysteriously and brutally murdered in or near her home. her body was dumped in the woods nearby... the investigation was apparently botched, and the killer never found. even her website with the reward was taken down a few years ago. we waited tables at the same restaurant.. although not at the same time, so i never knew her.. but, i will never forget you, keri..... RIP.


incredible, well-done articles from the B-more city paper:

A Year After Keri Sirbaugh's Murder, Her Mother, Father, Brother, Uncle, and Best Friend Struggle With Life After Death

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=3620



Five Years After Keri Sirbaugh's Murder, Her Parents and the Police Grapple With the Frustration of a Trail Gone Cold

Baltimore Sun: Baltimore breaking news, sports, business, entertainment, weather and traffic

Click to expand...

Hi,
I'm a fellow former BC person, and I'm writing about this case. I've tried to locate these articles, and reached out to Molly Rath etc to get a copy. I'm interested in the story because I knew Keri through friends and her family, cause everyone knows how Baltimore is really Smalltimore! I'd love to know any of your thoughts about the murder? I had a close friend that was somewhat considered a suspect, but because of lack of internet at the time, I really didn't know much about the case until much much later.

:+:MrTT:+: said:

I have read everything here and watched couple of videos.
And after all that, I still cant find if they think she was killed inside her apartment or outside after 3am...There was 200 dollars in cash laying in side so it seems robbery was not a motive...There is just nothing released to help investigate this murder. They should release some information.

And visual aids? Other than the couple of videos I have not seen any visual aids to help put some pieces together.

If we could get the mother here, whom kept incredible notes about the case that would be WONDERFUL.
They released the autopsy report i read, but seen no information about what was contained inside.

Click to expand...

Hi,
I'm OG from BC, and I'm reaching out to find out more about this murder. I had a friend, who is dead now, that was very close to Keri, and it's really bothered me about the way he loved getting attention by talking about this crime....
I'm also wondering how you were able to have access to the autopsy? I agree having her mother's input would be SO helpful. I'm writing about this case, and conducting a lot of interviews with friends and family of Keri's, some of which I know too. Recently, her Uncle recommended that I reach out to you guys here at WS, and so here I am! Looking forward to perhaps discussing more!