Episode Transcript
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The last time that more than oneperson saw her in the same place at
the same time was November third,nineteen eighty one, forty two years ago
this week, but to the familyof Catherine Kathy Ray Gregory, it may
as well have been yesterday. Andwe were told by the detectives who did
her murder investigation that they had interviewedevery single person at Dicknus where she was
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working, and they could not findone single person to say, yeah,
Kathy was a flake. She justwould have taken off. She just would
have gone, you never know whatyou might do next. They couldn't find
one person to say that. Onthe contrary, they all said she was
very responsible. She already got towork early. They trusted her with premature
infants. No. My name isHaley Dunster. I'm an anchor and reporter
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for KHQ in Spokane, Washington.My passion is covering cold cases, ensuring
our community never forgets Kathy's disappearance isas heartbreaking as it is baffling. For
decades, whatever happened to the twentyfour year old nurse has remained a mystery.
Her body has never been found,but her family and Spokane police do
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believe she was murdered. I interviewedher sister via zoom, with a proud
family photo prominently in the background.Yeah, there's Kathy right there in nineteen
eighty one, just about six monthsbefore she died. Is that all of
your siblings or who all is inthe photo? That's me right before I
was married. It's my sister Diane, that's Kathy, and our brother Paul.
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What was Kathy like? Kathy wasa real character. She had a
very strong personality. She was verywilful, She had a great sense of
humor, and she was just reallya fun person most of the time,
and some of the time she wasjust busy being wilful. Was she older
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or younger? No, she wasfour years younger than I am. So
were you kind of the typical protectivebig sister? No, I wouldn't say
so. I was anxious for allof us to proceed with our lives and
become independent and you know, livethe life we all aspired to in the
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nineteen seventies, which was going tobe a lot different than our mother's in
the nineteen fifties. And that's whatI was hoping for for her. What
brought your sister to Spokane. Shewanted to go to nursing school, and
she looked all over California, didn'tsee a class set up at a school
that she liked, and somehow becameaware of the inner campus nursing program up
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and Spokane. And once she gothere, she just loved it. I
mean, she loved the snow,she loved the skiing, she loved a
small town. She just loves Spokane. Did she move up here with her
husband or did she meet him here? No, she met him there.
She came up. She was single, and she came up, finished her
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last two years of nursing school,and then started working in the hospitals there.
When she told you I'm moving toSpokane, I'm you know, doing
this, and then saying I metsomeone, I'm getting married, I mean,
what did you think of all ofher super exciting life choices. Well,
I thought her life was going exactby the way I had hoped for
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her, and for all my girlfriendstoo. I did think she was a
little bit too young to get married. She was only twenty one when she's
got married. I think that's tooyoung. But there was enough to me
to make that decision, and shehad a good job and her degree,
and he had a good job,and he owned property, and you know,
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there was really nothing to object to. She says. Things seemed to
be just about perfect for her littlesister until they weren't. She got a
phone call. How did you findout your sister was missing? At that
time, I had gotten married,that's when this photo was taken, and
my husband was in the Navy,and we had come out to Virginia for
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him to you know, he wasgoing to be stationed out here, so
we were far far away, andmy father called me up, which he
never did, and I almost saidto him, Dad, you're calling.
You only call when someone dies,Thank goodness, I didn't say that.
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So that's how I found out,and it was very mystifying. I couldn't
understand how that could possibly be happening. And you know, when when he's
when he says she's missing, didyou at all think maybe she took off?
Or did you guys just know Inot for one second. Kathy wasn't
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the type just twenty four. Shewas extremely responsible, hard working, trustworthy.
She was goal oriented and loved chasingafter those goals. The final suspected
days of her life were spent doingwhat she loved, taking care of patients
and furthering her education. November threewas Tuesday. She and her best friend
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Jeanie were taking a statistics class,a graduate level statistics class, and she
was going to be starting working onher masters. So that class in the
evening was the last time that morethan one person saw her in the same
place in the same time, sothat that could be verified. Everyone agrees
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the class she was there, shestayed the whole class. Class was over,
she left with Genie. Jeannie saysshe took her to her house and
dropped her off. Her husband saysthat the next morning they went out shopping
and they had a great time shopping, and then he dropped her back off
at the house at eleven for herto get dressed to go to work.
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She would have done the one o'clockto probably eleven o'clock twelve o'clock shift.
And he went back to a businessmeeting and told the people there that he'd
been shopping with him. Her carwas mysteriously gone. No one knew where
it was. It was a coupleof days later that they found it parked
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around the corner from where the nursesand doctors' parking lots were, and most
everybody who knew her said there's noway she would have parked there. If
the nurse's lot were full. Theyhad permission to park in the doctor's lot.
And Kathy had always been very,very careful with her safety. Previously,
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when we'd been at home and she'dworked at the local hospital, she
made the secure to guard and walkher out to her car, for example.
I never did that, but youdon't do that, but she did
so. I think the chances thatshe parked that car over there are very
slim. I just don't see herdoing that. But once they found on
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the car, they took pictures.They didn't do the kind of processing that
we would do. Now. Yeah, there was no visible blood, I
guess, but there was. Youknow, they wouldn't have been looking for
DNA at that point. It wason a test and you're bio one class
in high school. That's what DNAwas, you know. That's pretty much
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it. And over the years they'verun down different leads, and I have
to give real kudos to the SpokanePolice Department because they told me at the
time that they would never stop thatif they ever got another lead. No
matter how far in the future,sure they would run it down. And
they lived up to that because acouple of years ago they found me here
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in Virginia and said, oh,by the way, can you give us
your DNA, and you have anyother siblings who might be able to give
us your DNA and we'll put itin a national base database. Well,
amazingly enough, my parents were stillalive. They were both in their eighties,
so we kind of had to actfast, but we got their DNA,
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so you know in various places,if her bones are found anywhere on
the planet, they will be ableto be matched to her, something spoken
police still believe could one day happen, but likely not without help from a
witness or witnesses corporal brigs. Ifsomebody is listening to this, the family
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is confident someone out there has toknow critical information. If you, as
an agency could reach that person directlytoo through this, what would you say
to them? I would say thatwe haven't given up on finding out what
happened to Kathy, and we don'twant the community to give up either.
Even after decades, we still wantto know what happened. And it's not
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just about holding a person accountable.It's about getting closure for family members,
and it's about getting some answers forKathy and for the people that care about
her. So if you have thatinformation, it's never too late. We
still care and we can still usethat information to fill in some of the
gaps that we don't have, eventhough it's been you know, forty two
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years. Do you think this caseis solvable? What I will say is
it is remarkable the types of casesthat we are able to solve decades later.
And while time in this case iscertainly not on our side. This
case is very cold, it doesnot mean that it's impossible to solve.
And often these cases hinge on thatone critical piece of information that somebody in
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the community has that they might notthink is significant, but it ties a
variety of different leads together. Sothat's why I would urge folks that if
they know anything about Kathy's disappearance,to please reach out to investigators, because
they might hold the key to solvingthis whole case. The family agrees and
even references other decades old cold casesthat the Spokane Police Department has cracked.
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I think they're very professional and theydid what they could do in nineteen eighty
one. Now today it might bevery different, But I'm seeing a lot
of very old, old cases beingsolved with very dogged detective I couldn't believe
they solved the Candy Rogers case.I thought I would never have an answer
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to that. I was amazed.I still am me too. But that's
why I truly think you have everyreason in the world. And I hope
it's okay for me to even saythat, but for you to have hope
that answers will one day find you, that is possible. I certainly haven't
given up all hope that that mighthappen. But look at the old cold
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cases. They have a body andthey have DNA. We don't have a
body and we don't have DNA.So the chances that it would be solved
through the methods they are being usednow, I think are extremely slim.
But if they find her, well, wouldn't that be wonderful? Teresa says
they haven't kept in close contact withKathy's husbands. Yeah, we stayed in
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touch for a while. My fatherreally wanted to stay in touch with him,
but over the years, and hewas a young man, he went
on with his life. They didtoo, at least the best they could
with this incredible loss and pain.It's like having your hand amputated and saying,
gee, do you miss your hand? Your whole life is different.
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You know, she didn't get togo on and have children and you know,
have her career and get a master'sdegree and do all the things that
she wanted to do. Kathy wasrobbed at that robbed of the future.
So were they, and the cruelestway possible. You know, everyone who
knew her, we still, youknow, we're still in touch with her
best friend Jeanie, and still contactedout of the blue sometimes by others of
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her friends who forty years later,for some reason, were reminded of this
is happening. So we weren't theonly ones impacted by this. And I
think of all the people she mighthave helped as a nurse or just as
a person in her life, andwhat happened when she wasn't there to do
that, I don't know, butit never Whatever it was, it never
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should have happened. The world wouldhave been a better place, I think,
so. I think so Kathy deservesjustice. She deserves a proper burial,
and to anyone who could provide that. Her sister says this, somebody
knows something. If it's you,please go to the police and tell them
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whatever you know, big or small, a scrap, maybe something you've only
recently remembered. Maybe you've been afraidto do that because you were committing some
kind of minor crime way back ineighty one, and you don't know if
you could be dragged into that again. Maybe you're afraid that you will hurt
the family and reopen those wounds.You won't. I promise you. None
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of us have forgotten Kathy. Noneof us are going to forget Kathy.
She comes up in my mind allthe time. There's no way you're going
to hurt us by doing that,I promise you. And the only crime
that you can still be prosecuted fromnineteen eight eighty one to today is murder.
Everything else has run out the statuteof limitations, as you heard her
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say earlier. Both of their parentshave since passed away, but before they
did, they started a scholarship andtheir beloved daughter's memory. They wrote on
the site for it that nothing wouldhave made Kathy happier than knowing she was
helping a worthy student in need.You can help support the annual scholarship too.
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Easiest way is to go to herwebsite, which is Kathyay Scholarship dot
org. It's k a t hy r a h e Scholarship dot org.
It has a lot of pictures ofKathy and our family. It has
a story of her life and myparents' lives, and you know, you
can donate right there. That's theeasiest way right there. And how does
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it work? Do you pick adifferent student every year or how how does
the money get distributed? It's it'ssitting in a pocket of money earning interest,
and then every year there is oneor two students who are picked to
receive the scholarship. It's administered bythe San Diego State University Nursing Program,
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which coincidentally, my niece also graduatedfrom. So it's it's just it's a
wonderful thing and it's a way tomake something good, no matter how small,
come out of something really bad.If you can help in any way,
if you know anything about what happenedto Kathy in November of nineteen eighty
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one in Spokane, Washington, pleasecall SPD their number five oh nine four
five six two two three three untilthe next one, I'm Haley Gumph, the