Brutal case of teen murder finally solved after 40 years

Karen Stitt was raped and stabbed 59 times, but her crazed killer managed to slip away unnoticed for four decades

- WORDS: GAIL SHORTLAND

Teenager Karen Stitt had only been in Palo Alto, California, a few months, but she’d already settled into a new school and had made lots of friends. The 15-year-old was friendly and upbeat, with a big smile and an outgoing personality, so it wasn’t hard for people to like her.

Karen had moved thousands of miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the West Coast with her older sister and brother and her father, after her mother’s death. She was a student at the Palo Alto High School, where she had built a social circle and had a boyfriend, David Woods. He lived 10 miles away in Sunnyvale, but Karen had already confidently worked out the bus route.

On the evening of Thursday 2 September 1982, Karen took the bus to see David. They played some video games at a 7-Eleven then went on to a mini-golf course.

Last seen alive

Just after midnight, Karen’s boyfriend dropped her off at the bus stop where she was planning to get the route 22 back home. He was worried about getting into trouble with his parents for being late back, so he ran home and left Karen waiting.

It was a busy road with restaurants and bars. Karen was dressed in a leather jacket, striped shirt, trousers and her boyfriend’s baseball hat, which had a Rush rock band logo on. She was never seen alive again.

In the early hours, a delivery driver found Karen’s naked body 100 yards from the bus stop behind a bloodstained, four-foot high cinder block wall near a restaurant. Her wrists had been tied with her shirt and her jacket was tied around her left ankle. The hat lay nearby.