In the Tall Grass

We discuss the details of Kathy’s crime scene and medical exam and talk about some similar murders from the same time period.

If you have any information on Kathy’s case, please contact Metro Nashville Police Department’s Cold Case Unit at 615-862-7329.

Flatrock was created in collaboration with Spreaker. Senior production provided by Kim Green. Executive producers are Olivia Lind and Greg Thornton. Co-produced by Dixie Bratton, Chris Chamberlain, Jamie R. Hollin, Cathy Lind, Betsy Phillips, Terry Quillen, and JJ Wright. Backed by Brandon Herrington. Music by Preston Garland - prestongarlandmusic.com. Additional voices provided by Matt Anderson, J.R. Lind, Steven Pacheco, and T.A. Sager. Additional audio from WKRN.

Additional music in this episode:
artist: XTaKeRuX / album: Illusion / track: Dark Room / license: Attribution / source: FMA / http://freemusicarchive.org/music/XTaKeRuX/2019073141810785/Dark_Room_

artist: Chris Zabriskie/ album: It’s a Wonderful Jaws / track: I Used to Need the Violence / license: attribution / source: FMA / http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Its_a_Wonderful_Jaws/ChrisZabriskie-ItsaWonderfulJaws-03-Violence

artist: Chris Zabriskie / album: Neptune Flux / track: That Hopeful Future is All I Have Ever Known / license: Attribution / source: FMA / http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Music_from_Neptune_Flux/ChrisZabriskie-MusicfromNeptuneFlux-08

artist: Chris Zabriskie / album: Neptune Flux / track: I Should Have Been More Human / license: Attribution / source: FMA / http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Music_from_Neptune_Flux/ChrisZabriskie-MusicfromNeptuneFlux-09

artist: Chris Zabriskie / album: Thoughtless / track: There’s a Special Place for Some People / license: Attribution / source: FMA / http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Thoughtless/Chris_Zabriskie_-_Thoughtless_-_03_-_Theres_a_Special_Place_for_Some_People

Special thank you to Lt. Patrick Taylor and Det. Curtis Hafley of the Metro Nashville Police Department and Chief Mickey Miller of the Hendersonville Police Department.

Promo: The Murder in My Family themurderinmyfamily.com

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Flat Rock contains disturbing subject matter whichmay not be suitable for all listeners.
Listener discretion is advised. Last weekon flat Rock, I'm standing in the
vacant lot behind the Crispy Kreme whereKathy Jones's body was found. I explored

(00:29):
the evidence uncovered at the crime scene, the events leading up to Kathy's disappearance,
and what little we know about Kathy'sshort life and the shadow her death
cast over her family. Everything onhome we saw each other. He spoke
of Patty and the event that tookplace in Yeah, he was still upset.

(00:50):
You could tell. From Nashville,Tennessee. I'm Olivia Lynde and in
collaboration with Spreaker, this is flatRock. After the break, we'll dig
into the details of Kathy's crime sceneand discuss some similar murders from the same
time period. Back in the vacantlot behind the Crispy Cream, searchers found

(01:21):
items with Kathy's body. Beyond thewhite boot skates She's so adored, the
dollars she'd earned doing housework was stilltucked in her jacket pocket. Her purse
was also left behind, and init was a copy of the new testament,
which she always carried. A deckof playing cards lay strewn in the
grass. Articles in both the Tennesseeanand the Nashville Banner from the time reported

(01:46):
police believed some sort of cosmetics containersmay have been missing from Kathy's purse,
but they never elaborated on what ledthem to believe the containers were there in
the first place, or what typeof cosmetics they were. Kathy's mother,
Nora, told the Banner that herdaughter wasn't to the nylons and lipstick age,
which makes this detail even more confusing. Also reportedly missing were five cards

(02:12):
from the playing card deck and aribbon from Cathy's hair. Police later said
they weren't sure whether or not Kathyeven had those five cards when she left
the house. There was no furtherdetail given on this, so my speculation
is that they may have ended upfinding the five cards after searching Cathy's home.

(02:34):
There was potential evidence found on Cathy'sbody. Most notably, an unidentified
black substance was found on one ofher hands. Authorities thought the material might
have come from a tar paper building, and the Tennessee And reported police looked
into a shack that was located offof Thompson Lane that fit the description,

(02:54):
but they found it burned a weakprior. No information was provided as to
how that particular structure made it ontotheir radar, but obviously it didn't matter
in the end. Foreign fibers describedin the papers as fuzz were found on
Cathy's blue coat. Keep in mindthat crime scene processing and evidence handling standards

(03:19):
in nineteen sixty nine were vastly differentfrom what they are today. As I
discussed with Metro cold case investigators LieutenantPatrick Taylor and Detective Curtis Hafley, Taylor's
is the first voice you'll hear,and you have to understand what they knew
back then. See, DNA didn'tcome into existence town nineteen eighty six,

(03:40):
when that when it first hit America. So I think prior to that they
did have some other lugenal light toLondon and all stuff like that, But
so DNA didn't come in. Howwe process a say nowadays is just unbelievable
compared to what they did back then. You know, they didn't know the

(04:00):
bag hands and and thinging lle scrapingsand uh, you know, we we
do so much nowadays. This thatcrime scene right there this case, what
have easily been solved for the mostpart from what we know or how we
process today compared to what they didback then. M Yeah, so,

(04:25):
and not only that, just theway things were preserved. I think stuff
was stuffed in plastic bags and all, and we know that causes moisture and
mold and all. You know,we put everything in paperbags down and we've
got stuff stored. I mean,we still have this property as far as
I know. Don't think it.Yeah. An attendant from the nearby Ellis

(04:46):
Funeral Home retrieved Cathy's body once investigatorswith the police and District Attorney's office gave
the ok Mickey Miller, former homicideinvestigator, told me what happened next,
or more accurately, would didn't happen. The problem was is that back in
nineteen sixty nine, we didn't doautopsies in Davidson, Kenny. They just

(05:13):
wasn't done. The practice wasn't pickedup here until after the infamous nineteen seventy
five murder of nine year old MarshaTremble. Medical examiners in town only did
the work part time, working dayjobs in their own medical practices and other
fields. Taylor explained a little aboutthe process to me. I want to
say they had a corner and Iactually took them to the funeral homes,

(05:35):
and the corner would actually come tothe funeral homes. But I think what
was done on most of those waspretty limited. Doctor Michael A. Patrone
was a general surgeon who maintained aprivate practice when he wasn't carrying out his
duties as medical examiner. He performedthe examination of Cathy's body at Ellis Funeral

(05:58):
Home, a building so close toKathy's home she would have passed it on
her walk the night she disappeared.Doctor Petrone determined that the superficial lacerations to
Kathy's neck were made with a sharpinstrument like a knife. The abdominal stab
wound was made just below her leftbreast, evidently striking a rib, which
sounds serious until you think about howclose to the surface of the skin ribs

(06:23):
are. Mickey Miller gave some moredetails about Kathy's time in Ella's funeral home.
Like I said, her family waspoor and so the local funeral home
offered to take care of everybody.It was the funeral home guy who found
something in her throat called the policeback out there and they discovered it was

(06:46):
that side that was not found originally. And of course her part of her
cycle was cut off, stepped inher mouth as a gag, I'm sure,
and there was another article and tiedaround it to hold it in place,
and we believe she probably swallowed herand suffocate. Doctor Petrone estimated that

(07:10):
Kathy probably died within five minutes ofthe sock being put in her mouth.
Kathy was found nude and her buttockswere blackened with bruises, suggesting she was
brutally raped and sodomized. In nineteenninety eight, Mickey Miller told a Nashville
Scene reporter it was one of themost brutal child murders he'd ever seen.

(07:32):
But it's important to note that thedeterminations made by the medical examiner are really
just educated guesses. Without a fullautopsy or the more stringent procedures that are
in place today, the cause ofdeath and the sexual assault aren't a certainty,
and you have to be careful whenyou review the medical examiner report about

(07:54):
the cause of death because you're guessing. You're guessing from pictures, You are
guessing that a sexual assault took place. None of that was verified. It
could have been, but it justwasn't done. That's the tragic part,
because I think had the evidence havebeen collected in the proper way, maybe
we would have had the same successlike wed in a tremble case later on,

(08:18):
where it was one in six trillion, we might have had a chance
of getting some downe And again,we assumed that there was a violent physical
assault of sexual assault because of thepicture, particularly of her backside, but
you can't really tell from that thatpicture. It could be a multiple other

(08:39):
things. It could be ware ofthe body releases itself. It does not
appear to be that. It appearsthat she was she was raped and then
the superficial cuts on her body,but we can't really say for sure.
We're assuming that she suffocated, butthere's no way to really know. In
episode one, I told you aboutNorah's boyfriend Darryl Steinback and mentioned his friend

(09:03):
Tim, you know, the onewho asked me not to use his real
name, while he gave another detailabout Kathy's body I'd never heard. Also,
I was told that there were bruiseson her hand, but it looked
like that possibly someone had closed atrunk lid on her fingers, and she
was trying to get out and someoneclosed trunk lid on her fingers. That

(09:26):
tells me that somebody held her fora while. Well, a lot was
done to the child. I understandthat she had been tortured and raped and
tortured and just you know, tradedbrutally and then killed. Did you notice
how Tim mentioned that Kathy must havebeen held before being killed. Kathy's time

(09:50):
and place of death have always beena subject of debate. Kathy went missing
on a Saturday night and was foundmidday the following Tuesday. Papers in nineteen
sixty nine noted disagreement among police asto whether Kathy was killed in the vacant
lot or if she'd been held fora time elsewhere. However, the prevailing

(10:11):
thought, at least at that time, seemed to be that she was held
and killed elsewhere. In fact,the medical examiner estimated that she had been
murdered midday on Monday, December first, about twenty four hours before her body
was found. This would mean thatshe'd been held captive for about a day
and a half before her murder.Doctor Petrone also told police he believed Cathy

(10:37):
had been sexually assaulted, possibly twentyfour hours before her death. According to
a nineteen sixty nine Nashville Banner article, I'm not even sure what to make
of that. From these guesses bythe medical examiner, police theorized that Kathy
was snatched on her way to therink, then held captive in a vacant
structure until she was murdered. Onthe other hand, Banner reported on December

(11:01):
fifth that doctor Petrone hadn't definitively ruledout the possibility that Kathy's death had occurred
earlier. Temperatures ranged from twenty fourdegrees to fifty three degrees fahrenheit during the
time she was missing. The coldmay have preserved her body. Some officers
believe Kathy had been killed closer tothe time she went missing, which almost

(11:24):
certainly would have happened right there inthe lot where she was found. Their
explanation was that it would have beena major risk for the killer to return
to the area to dump the body, knowing a search was going on.
Had she been killed elsewhere, theassailant probably would have avoided the risk of
being caught and disposed of hers somewherewhere he wasn't likely to be seen.

(11:48):
An officer at the time, whoasked to remain anonymous, told the Banner,
there's so many questions to be answered, but if we can definitely establish
when and where, then many otheranswers will probably come much easier. Adding

(12:09):
to the confusion as to whether ornot Kathy had been there all along was
the fact that the area had beensearched. In addition to that, the
woman living next door to the property, Margaret mcspeddon, hadn't seen or heard
anything out of the ordinary on thenight Kathy disappeared. She also had dogs,
who she said, barked anytime anyonecame near her home, and they

(12:33):
hadn't made any noise. However,mcspeddon was away all day Sunday, so
if anything happened then she would havemissed it. Incredibly, mcspeddon burned trash
in a barrel about fifteen feet fromthe body on the morning of December second,
just hours before Kathy was found.She didn't notice anything, but not

(12:54):
only were the weeds in that vacantlot high, they were also incredible dents.
Even if searchers had gone into thelot, and the two searches conducted
before Kathy was found, there's agood chance they still could have missed her
body. You could drive right byan alley and there no way you'd see
her. I mean, it wasthat thick. In recent years, it

(13:16):
seems investigators have settled on the ideathat it was more likely that Cathy was
killed relatively close to the time shedisappeared, and that her body was in
that vacant lot all along. Intwenty sixteen, former detective Sergeant Pat Postiglione
talked with local ABC affiliate wkr innplaced here, but Postiglione doesn't buy it.

(13:39):
She wasn't placed there three or fourdays later. She was there the
whole time, and because he wasin kind of high weeds, it's a
real possibility that civil defense you simplymissed. A Lieutenant Patrick Taylor shares that
opinion. She was probably there thewhole time. Nowadays, when we look
at it, we have lividity thatgoes into an individual. So a lot

(14:01):
of times if they're moved sometime afterthat, you can tell that they've been
moved due to the lividity. Noneof that is documented in the stuff that
we find, so you know,it would be a guess on us,
but I would highly doubt that you'removing an individual around. It was never

(14:22):
established whether or not Kathy made itinto Krispy Kreme or the roller Drome,
but the fact that the dollars sheearned from her chores was still in her
pocket probably tells us that she didn't. Now there's a big question as to
whether she made it to the skatingrate and then disappeared, or if she

(14:43):
never made it to the skating rate. We had one witness who said absolutely
she was standing in line but lookingreal nervous. We had another witness they
said that was another night she wasn'teven there in the line. So you
know, when you try to goback, you have problems with that that

(15:05):
you're getting people's recollection and sometimes it'snot correct. The day after Kathy was
found, police officers and detectives weresent back to the scene to search any
vacant houses or structures where Kathy couldhave been held. On the fourth,
police and the District Attorney's investigators wentto a brick house located on Brookside Drive
North. The home was vacant becauseit was slated for demolition to make room

(15:30):
for the construction of a major ringroad project in Nashville. In the late
sixties. There were drops of bloodbeginning at the front door, leading into
a hallway, then to a frontbedroom, where a large smear of blood
was found. The blood then ledback into the hall, to a dining
room and finally the kitchen. Investigatorstook scrapings of the dried blood and collected

(15:54):
a burned razor blade from the fireplaceand some pillow stuffing found on the floor
of one of the bedrooms. Thepillow stuffing appeared to be similar to the
fuzzy substance that was found on Cathy'scoat. In spite of the evidence collected,
police thought it wasn't likely the househad any connection to Cathy's murder.

(16:14):
One officer told the Banner, whywould the killer, after slaying the child,
risk being caught removing the body froma vacant house and returning it to
the Thompson Lane search area to disposeof it. But on the other hand,
we do not believe we are dealingwith a normal person, and there
was definitely blood in the house,and quite frankly, we cannot afford to
overlook anything that could be the remotestclue if we plan to solve this case.

(16:36):
Metro Police sent the evidence collected atthe vacant house to the FBI lab
in Washington. In early December,another search yielded major evidence. The police
collected what was presumably the other halfof the sock found in Cathy's throat,
as well as a knife that mayhave been used to make the cuts to
her body. At the time,police wouldn't tell the media exactly where the

(17:02):
items were located, beyond saying theywere in the area where the body had
been found. Captain Wa McDaniel,head of the Metro Criminal Investigation Division in
nineteen sixty nine, told the Banner, if anyone ever does want to confess
to the crime, this is oneof the times that we want him to
tell us about it in detail,including exactly where he left it. In

(17:25):
other words, we don't want someoneto be able to read the newspaper or
here on television all of our evidenceand not be able to tell us anything
about the crime that everyone else doesnot know. This is what's sometimes called
holdback evidence. Police keeps certain detailsof a crime secret in case it's later
needed to corroborate a confession or otherwitness statements. However, when I interviewed

(17:48):
him, this March. Chief MickeyMiller said the soak and knife had been
tossed onto the low hanging roof ofa building across the alley from the vacant
lot where Cathy was found. Thenine and see part of her sock,
and I believe the knife was foundon the roof of Cheek and Jones Roofing
company, so directly opposite her body. You know, Ali ran behind those

(18:12):
buildings facing nons Row, and thosebuildings were very low, so you could
almost crawl up on top of thosebuildings from the alley side. The front
side was a lot higher. Whyoffer up this information now? Maybe it's
because the top suspects are dead,so no confessions will be forthcoming. In

(18:33):
any case, the items would beadded to the evidence sent to the FBI
for analysis. Also sent were Cathy'sclothing and skates from the crime scene,
including the bottom half of the sockwhich had been lodged in her throat,
the fuzzy fibers found on her coat, her purse and playing cards and fingernails.
Scrapings, pants, a shirt,and other clothing from a man police

(18:56):
identified as a good suspect were sentalong too. The man's clothes reportedly contained
blood and other unknown stains. Policesent the evidence to Washington just over a
week after Kathy's death. They receiveda preliminary lab report from the FBI in
late December. The examination confirmed thatthe two halves of the sock, the

(19:21):
top bound on the roof of cheekand Jones roofing in the bottom found in
Kathy's throat, were a match toeach other. The lab wasn't able to
type the blood found on the suspect'spants. DNA testing, of course,
wasn't possible at the time, otherthan that, the lab report didn't contain
significant information. As for the vacanthouse on Brookside Drive that was searched,

(19:45):
authorities ruled it was unconnected to Cathy'smurder. It turned out that a teenager
had been there and accidentally cut hishand on broken glass, leaving the blood
behind before he went to a nearbyservice station to get help. Police had

(20:06):
to consider the possibility that Kathy's murderwas connected to other killings of young girls
during the same time period. Thetwo names mentioned most frequently along with Kathy's
Rwanda June Anderson and Reba kay Green. On a summer night in nineteen sixty
five, eleven year old Wanda JuneAnderson was babysitting her sister's six children in

(20:29):
their Nashville apartment. When her sisterand brother in law returned, they found
her unconscious in the backyard. She'dbeen struck while she slept, dragged into
the yard, and sexually assaulted.She later died from those injuries without ever
regaining consciousness. Six months later,fourteen year old Reba kay Green was stabbed

(20:51):
once in the heart in her NorthNashville home. Believe it or not,
the murder happened as nine other peoplewere sleeping in the small house. Both
of these killings remain unsolved, thoughpolice had suspects in each. Police had
to contemplate the possible connection in killingsof young girls in Nashville during the same
period. Wanda's murder and Cathy's feelsomewhat similar. Rebo's, on the other

(21:18):
hand, seems like an outlier.The newspapers made a lot about whether or
not they could be connected, butthere really was no evidence to show it.
There's a strong but frightening possibility.All three murders were committed by three
different people. There are two moremurders of young girls that we need to

(21:40):
talk about. The media mentioned themas possibly related to Cathy's murder at the
time, and citizen detectives still wonderif they're connected to this day. Glenda
Marie Sermons, who was thirteen,disappeared in East Tennessee while walking to a
friend's house. Her remains were foundin poor condition two weeks later, relatively

(22:03):
close by. The medical examiner wasonly able to determine that she was murdered
and probably died the day she disappeared. One of the most striking things about
this killing is also the reason whyit's probably unrelated to Kathy's. Glinda disappeared
on the same day as Kathy,about four hours before Kathy left home to

(22:29):
skate. Yes, technically the killercould have gotten from the Knoxville area to
Nashville in time to grab Kathy,but the timeline would be so tight that
it's incredibly unlikely. The other caseoften thrown in the mix is possibly related
to Kathy's by amateur sleuth's is themurder of twelve year old Betty Jane Necessary,

(22:51):
also in East Tennessee. She disappearedwhile walking home about three months after
Kathy was killed. Her body wassoon located nude and tied up similar to
the way Kathy was bound. Itwasn't long before a man named Fred J.
Bowen was arrested. Bowen was latertried and convicted for the killing.

(23:14):
Detectives traveled from Nashville to East Tennesseeto question Bowen about Kathy's murder, but
never made their conclusions public. Bowenlived in Indianapolis, and the papers reported
that police found no indication he'd beenin Nashville when Kathy was killed. People

(23:37):
want to make sense of crimes likethese. They want to tie up loose
ends and put them in a neatlittle package. Sure, these four girls
were all around Kathy's age. Yes, there was evidence of sexual assault in
at least two of the other cases. But were they related to Cathy's death
or each other? Probably not.The fact is that there are a lot

(24:00):
of bad people out there, notjust one evil serial killer. We can
lock up and end the nightmares.Sometimes the simplest answer is the right one.
Sometimes the villain is much closer tohome. Flat Rock was created in

(24:22):
collaboration with Spreeker. Senior production providedby Kim Greene. Executive producers are Olivia
Lynde and Greg Thornton. Co producedby Dixie Bratton, Chris Chamberlain, Jamie
R. Holland, Kathy Lynde,Betsy Phillips, Terry Quillan, and JJ
Wright. Backed by Brandon Harrington.Music by Preston Garland. Additional music provided

(24:48):
by artists x Takaroo X and ChrisZabriski. Additional voices provided by Matt Anderson,
JR. Lynde, Stephen Pacheco andTace Sager. Additional audio from w
k r N. Special thank youto Lieutenant Patrick Taylor and Detective Curtis Hafley
of the Metro Nashville Police Department,in Chief Mickey Miller of the Hendersonville Police

(25:12):
Department. If you have any informationon Kathy's case, please contact Metro Nashville
Police Department's Cold Case Unit at sixone five eight six two seven three two
nine. This is Mike Morford.You may know me as co host of
the true crime podcast Criminology. I'dlike to invite you to listen to my

(25:33):
podcast, The Murder of My Family. In each episode, I discussed a
murder case and include an interview witha family member of the victim to discuss
the aftermath of the murder. Someof the cases I cover well known and
others you probably haven't heard of,and I have several episodes currently available for
you to Benjon, including episodes aboutthe Delphi murders, the Golden State Killer,

(25:56):
and the Colonial Parkway murders, justto name few. Here's a small
sample. Bill Thomas is the brotherof Kathy Thomas, and he agreed to
talk with me about the murder andhis family. Well, Mike, at
the risk of sounding like every otherproud big brother around the world, Cathy

(26:18):
was an amazing person and one thingI wanted to get across is how important
it is that the victims that I'llbe talking about in these cases aren't just
statistics. You know, they werereal people. They're more than just murder
victims. For me, knowing thathe has a family, and that he

(26:41):
gets to see his kids every day, and that he gets to be there
for his kids growing up like it'sjust it's not fair. He was the
most funniest man I've ever met.He was everybody's friend. New episodes come

(27:03):
out on Saturday's and you can findThe Murder of My Family wherever you listen
to podcasts. Subscribe today so youdon't miss an episode