A teen was found dead on a rural road in 1994. Now, cops plan to exhume her body in hunt for possible serial killer
The body of a 17-year-old girl who was murdered along a rural Ohio road 30 years ago is expected to be exhumed so police can hunt for new clues to identify the killer in the cold-case murder.
In August 1994, a person along an “oil road” near Berlin Lake in Deerfield Township stumbled upon the remains of Kathryn “Kathy” Menendez. Authorities determined that the teen had been beaten, stabbed and strangled to death. However, there was never an arrest for her murder.
Portage County Sheriff’s Office Detective Ed Kennedy told Fox 8 that authorities planned on exhuming Menendez’s remains on Tuesday: “This case has been unsolved for 30 years. Somebody has been going to bed every night for 30 years, knowing that they brought the death of this young lady.”
Investigators obtained a court order to unearth her body in the hope that advances in DNA technology will provide answers.
“If we can get in there and we can get something usable and if we are able to identify that individual as the killer, then it was worth it,” Kennedy said.
Despite being classified as a cold case, there have been developments in the investigation. Months after Menendez’s body was found, in November 1994, another body was found half a mile away, belonging to 14-year-old Sarah Boehm. That led police to believe that the girls were linked to the same killer.
“If this person did this 30 years ago and can still sleep at night, they can do it again,” Kennedy said.
Menendez’s mother, Janet Menendez, died not knowing who killed her 17-year-old, the detective said.
He attributed the late mother as a motivating factor for the renewed probe: “Not knowing, not knowing at all who took her daughter’s life, you know and that even motivated us even more, so we’re doing this for Janet now also.”
The detective also urged the public to come forward if they have any knowledge about the “heinous crime” against Menendez. “We know there are other people out there who know what happened, not just the murderer, but there’s other people that have to know what happened,” he said.
