Recent developments in the 1988 murder of Lisa Marie Kimmell

[Kane]

Below is a link from the Denver Channel site, featuring an August 2002 article on some of the recent developments in the 1988 murder of Lisa Marie Kimmel. As you might recall, Kimmel was on her way to visit her boyfriend when she disappeared, and turned up dead in a river. One significant thing about the case was her car because of the license plate that read LIL MISS.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/den/...02-090829.html

It mentions that they uncovered a car that may be her long-missing car. In addition, there's a potential suspect in the case. Click on to the link for more details.

Hope this helps.

[dynoguy88]

Interesting. Thanks for posting the article. I remember that case. Hopefully, the investigation can go further with this new evidence.

It's nice to hear a murder case can still be worked on so hard despite the case being over a decade old.

[Thracian]

Wow . . . this is one that I thought may never be solved. I hope it brings a resolution to the case.

[Awsi Dooger]

This is my first post, after being an UM devotee since the specials in '87, and locating this site a few nights ago. I was particularly pleased to find out about the potential resolvements of the Lisa Marie Kimmell, Maria Zapata and Music City Row murders.

But what's dragging with the DNA test info regarding the incarcerated suspect in the Lisa Marie Kimmell ("Lil Miss") case? I read at least a half dozen articles from last August, when her Honda CRX was unearthed and positively identified using the VIN number. But there has not been a follow-up, in either the Denver or Montana papers, other than the suspect going on trial late last fall for killing his jailhouse cellmate. The August articles indicated a DNA sample was available and would be compared to the suspect's DNA.

And I had no idea how horrific the Kimmell murder was until reading those articles. Authorities believe she was held captive for the bulk of eight days, brutally raped and sodomized, before being killed only hours before her body was discovered in the water. Based on the experimental pattern of her stab wounds, experts think it was likely a serial killer, perhaps one responsible for all of the so-called "Great Basin Murders" from 1984 to 1998. The suspect, interestingly, has been jailed since '98.

An elderly neighbor remembered the owner of the property (the jailed suspect) digging the massive hole where the car was eventually discovered, at least six feet deep and with no license plates but a badly damaged front end. The guy told her he was digging a well.

I wrote e-mails to The Denver Channel.com and newspapers in Colorado and Montana regarding the DNA delay, but have not received a response.

[TJ]

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index...l/30-lisa2.inc

http://www.casperstartribune.net/art...e26a9cf51b.txt

Part 2 of 3 parts

On July 3, 1989, Don Flickinger boarded a plane in Billings and flew to Portland, Ore., for his first official interview in the Lisa Marie Kimmell murder investigation.

It had been 15 months since the 18-year-old Billings woman was bludgeoned, stabbed and thrown off a bridge in Wyoming.

When the agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms landed, he met Dan Tholson, one of the lead investigators on the case for Natrona County, where Lisa's body was found in the North Platte River. Flickinger and Tholson had spoken many times on the phone, but it was the first time the two men met. They were in Oregon to speak with a county jail inmate who had been calling Kimmell's parents in Billings.

The interview was a bust. As Flickinger would find later, it was the first of many dead-end leads and disappointments in a case he spent six years on.

Some of the leads would take Flickinger as far away as Alaska and Texas. Others would have him questioning fellow law enforcement officers. He interviewed members of a cult, listened to psychics and sorted through thousands of tips from across the country after the case aired on prime-time television.

Flickinger followed every lead as far as it would go. Other cops called him "the vampire" because he took so many blood samples from potential suspects or people he wanted to rule out.

"Don was on a mission," said Sheila Kimmell, Lisa's mother.

"He was passionate about this case, and tenacious. He wouldn't give up."

Oregon rainout

The inmate in Oregon was doing time for a petty crime. In several collect calls from the county jail, he told Ron and Sheila Kimmell he had information about Lisa's murder. He wanted to make a deal with the cops before he would say more.

Flickinger and Tholson were hopeful. After more than a year, the murder investigation had stalled and now federal authorities were involved. Flickinger was officially assigned to assist the Natrona County Sheriff's Office a month before the trip to Oregon.

Flickinger and Tholson quickly determined the Oregon convict didn't have a clue about Lisa's murder.

"We flew all the way out there, went in and talked to him and were there maybe 20 minutes," Tholson said. "He didn't know a thing. He was looking for a deal. But that was typical."

Flickinger and Tholson stayed up late that evening at a Portland hotel talking about evidence and possible suspects. The investigators found they shared a common focus, and they agreed not to let interagency politics derail their efforts to catch Lisa's killer.

"There was a lot of ill feelings at the top between the federal agencies and the sheriff," Flickinger said. "It was never at our level."

Occultism

Shortly after joining the investigation full time, Flickinger met two FBI agents who gained some fame on the case of Arthur Shawcross, a serial killer who preyed on New York prostitutes. The agents were in Billings to give a seminar, and Flickinger cornered them for advice on the Lil Miss murder.

The FBI agents said the unusual knife wounds -- five in a pentagram pattern on the chest and a sixth under the sternum -- indicated a possible cult connection. The agents had seen ritualistic murders before, and told Flickinger not to ignore the occult.

Flickinger was willing to turn over any rock to catch the killer. During the next six months he interviewed about 20 people in the Casper area who said they were members of a cult. Some wore robes with a symbol similar to the pattern of knife wounds found on Lisa's body.

The cult members, including professionals and housewives, said they held meetings outside of town where unusual rock formations jutted up from the central Wyoming plains.

Rumors of the bizarre stab wounds on Lisa's body had spread. The story changed and grew with each telling.

"The biggest rumor was that her heart was cut out," Tholson said. "I don't think we could ever track how that started, but it just went all over, to everybody. We got phone calls and tips on that all the time."

Jack the dealer

Another crowd was spreading a different story about Lisa's murder, and they were more than willing to share their theory with investigators.

Flickinger and the Natrona County detectives received tips that a drug dealer named Jack was connected to Lisa's murder. Flickinger learned that Jack was in the Casper area when Lisa disappeared.

When he found Jack, the man told a story that had Flickinger wondering if the tips were true.

Jack said he was in Casper at the time to pick up a stolen snowmobile and haul it back to Montana. Jack said he met several people at a remote cabin and noticed a suitcase and two stuffed animals among their belongings.

Jack's description of the items matched what Lisa was known to have with her when she left Denver for the drive to Billings.

After numerous interviews, polygraphs and DNA analysis, Jack and several of his pals were cleared of having any part in Lisa's death. Flickinger learned later that the description of Lisa's belongings had been leaked outside the circle of investigators. Jack was telling a long story based on a few specific details.

Flickinger believes Jack was fingered by rivals who saw an opportunity to hurt the competition. Jack responded by implicating other drug dealers. The false leads occupied investigators for months, and came to nothing.

Vegas CRX

Rumors were plentiful, but solid suspects were hard to come by. So Flickinger wasted no time tracking down people whose names came up in connection to Lisa's murder.

When Ron and Sheila Kimmell received a strange letter from a Las Vegas man they didn't know, they gave it to Flickinger. The unsigned letter lamented Lisa's death, and included a return address on the envelope.

Flickinger called the ATF office in Las Vegas, and agents there agreed to drive by the address. The next day, a breathless agent called Flickinger and said there was a black Honda CRX parked in the driveway. It was the same model year as Lisa's car, and had the same sun roof.

Flickinger asked the agent to check the car's identification number and find the owner. Then he called Tholson with the news. Tholson alerted the crime lab team and arranged a flight.

But before they could board the plane, the federal agent in Las Vegas called back. The vehicle identification number didn't match. It wasn't Lisa's car.

Flickinger flew to Las Vegas anyway. The man who wrote the letter told Flickinger that he used to live in Cody and often went to Billings. He met Lisa at the fast-food restaurant in the Heights where she worked. He had a crush on her but never got up the nerve to ask her for a date.

Smitten, he bought a car just like hers.

The man was embarrassed, but he was no murderer, Flickinger said. Flickinger made sure by taking a blood sample. DNA from the man with a crush on Lisa Kimmell did not match the foreign DNA found with her body.

The sheriff

Other names were not as easy to rule out, or even to investigate.

There was a police officer in Texas who used to drive a taxi in Casper. The man's name was added to the suspect list when several people said he had acted strangely with women fares, sometimes taking a long route so he had more time with them in the cab. He was living in Casper when Lisa was killed.

Flickinger flew to Houston and met with the officer. Aghast to be suspected, the man quickly agreed to give a blood sample. The DNA comparison ruled him out.

Ron Ketchum was not as cooperative.

A powerful political figure in Casper, Ketchum had served as the county sheriff from 1987 to 1991. After leaving the sheriff's office, Ketchum taught criminal justice at the University of Wyoming and worked as a polygraph examiner.

He was elected to the Natrona County Board of Commissioners in 1999, and the next year was named chairman. Ketchum had made it clear from the start that he resented Flickinger's involvement in the case. Later, his resentment boiled into outrage when Flickinger asked him to account for his whereabouts the night Lisa disappeared.

Flickinger had reason to ask. A credible witness reported seeing Ketchum in a sheriff's patrol car on the night of March 25, 1988. The witness said Ketchum had a small black car with a young woman driver pulled over at the side of the road. Ketchum denied working that night, but dispatch records showed that he was.

No one in Wyoming law enforcement would criticize Ketchum publicly, but in private many cops told Flickinger of their gut feeling that the sheriff should be investigated.

Some of the speculation was tied to Ketchum's attempted suicide on the two-year anniversary of Lisa's disappearance.

In March 1990, Ketchum was found unconscious in his home from a drug overdose. He returned to work three weeks later and said he was being treated for depression. He left the sheriff's office the next year.

The timing of the suicide attempt, along with the other information, raised Flickinger's interest in Ketchum. He asked Ketchum for a blood sample and was met with a hostile rebuke. The investigation became mired in a political battle, which ended only after two other top officials in the sheriff's office volunteered to provide blood samples.

All three, including Ketchum, were ruled out as suspects.

In May of 2000, Ketchum drove to a remote area outside Casper and shot himself in the chest.

"Unsolved Mysteries"

One year after Lisa's body was found, the Wyoming murder case went on national television when "Unsolved Mysteries" aired a segment on the Lil Miss murder. The show received what was then a record number of calls from viewers, and the segment was rebroadcast several times in the years that followed.

Most callers reported seeing Lisa's black Honda with its Montana personalized license plates LILMISS. The calls came in from across the country, and a few from Canada.

"They flooded us, literally flooded us with thousands of phone calls," Tholson said.

Investigators spent weeks looking for solid clues from among the many reports, but only a few seemed worth following. There wasn't enough manpower or money to check on every sighting of a black sports car with personalized plates.

"We just tried to sort them out and somehow pick the ones that were most likely," Flickinger said.

Tholson believes that most of the callers really thought they had seen Lisa's car, or were so horrified by the story they were desperate to help.

Even police officers called. Flickinger flew to Anchorage, Alaska, to check out a cop's sighting of Lisa's black Honda. When he got there, the officer said he was sure at the time that he saw the car, but was probably mistaken. No one else there had reported seeing the missing car.

Flickinger caught the next plane back to Billings.

"They were legitimately nice people trying to help," Tholson said. "But I don't have a lot of faith in eyewitnesses any more. Virtually none."

The psychics

One of Flickinger's last attempts to crack the case came in 1994, when sisters from Great Falls who worked as psychics were brought in by the Kimmell family.

Flickinger and Tholson met the psychic sisters at the scene of the murder on Government Bridge.

The investigators were skeptical, but open to anything that could help. It had been six years since Lisa's death, and they were no closer to an arrest now than when her body was found in the North Platte below.

"At that point, I think we were looking at anything we could try," Tholson said.

The sisters walked around on the bridge, one holding a glass of water, the other a crucifix that had been given to Lisa by her father. They said they received images of a rural setting, and something about the number 2. They had a sense of something buried, but could offer nothing more.

Flickinger reached mandatory retirement age the next year.

Ron and Sheila Kimmell, who had since moved to Littleton, Colo., came to his retirement party. Flickinger and his wife, Linda, had grown close to the Kimmells, sharing the ups and downs of the investigation and the painful knowledge that Lisa's killer was out there somewhere.

Flickinger tried to share some hope. The foreign DNA found with Lisa's body could one day point to her killer. He urged the Kimmells to have faith and patience.

[Awsi Dooger]

As I indicated in a previous post in this thread, I contacted the Montana and Colorado papers many times regarding the Kimmell case. I now understand why they did not reply with news of the DNA info: the match to suspect Dale Wayne Eaton had already been made, but kept secret from the public.

TJ's post, as indicated, is Part 2 of a lengthy and very detailed series from the Billings Gazette. Here are direct links to parts one and three (also available at the bottom of the page after going to TJ's first link):

Part 1: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index...al/30-lisa.inc
Part 3: http://www.billingsgazette.com/index...rustration.inc

This case demonstrates that DNA matching and databases, while invaluable, are still in their infancy. Eaton was jailed after a roadside assault in '98 and had his DNA taken, but the sample was not compared to the DNA evidence in the Kimmell case until 2002.

[#1 Stack Fan]

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...898242,00.html

Wyoming man charged in 1988 rape, murder

Lisa Marie Kimmell of Denver disappeared on trip to visit friends

By Brian D. Crecente And Hector Gutierrez, Rocky Mountain News
April 18, 2003

A man Wyoming officials say is responsible for kidnapping, raping and killing a Denver woman 15 years ago was arrested and charged in the crime Thursday.

A routine check of Wyoming's DNA database and subsequent investigation led to Dale Wayne Eaton's arrest, according to court documents.

Lisa Marie Kimmell, 18, disappeared in March 1988 while driving from her job in Denver to Montana to meet some friends. Her body was found April 2, 1988, near Casper.

Eaton, 58, was charged with four counts of murder, two counts of sex assault, a count of kidnapping and a count of robbery.

"This has been a day that we have long waited for," said Sheila Kimmell, Lisa Marie's mom, who lives in Littleton.

She found out at 2:15 p.m. Thursday, and soon after the Natrona County (Wyo.) District Attorney's office faxed her a copy of the 12 pages of charges.

"It was difficult to go over and review that information, but when we actually read the charges, all eight of them, and read some of the information that hasn't been shared with us before, it was difficult," she said.

The case has long haunted the deputies of Natrona County.

Kimmell disappeared while driving a desolate stretch of Interstate 25 near Casper.

Her body was discovered days later in the North Platte River about two miles downstream from Casper.

According to the autopsy report, Kimmell had been bound, raped, beaten and then stabbed six times in the chest and abdomen.

Her car, a Honda CRX with plates that read LilMiss, remained missing.

It took 14 more years for officials to get the break they needed to find that car and apparently solve the case.

On July 5, the Wyoming State Crime Lab found a match between DNA samples taken from Kimmell's body in 1988 and samples taken from Eaton when he was convicted of a felony years later, Thursday's court papers revealed.

The match came during a check of the state's database of DNA samples taken of all felons.

After getting the DNA hit, detectives began investigating Eaton, who was being held at the federal prison in Jefferson County on unrelated gun charges.

On July 29, deputies searched Eaton's property about 75 miles west of Casper in the unincorporated hamlet of Moneta. They found hub caps and taillight pieces of Kimmell's missing car in a well.

The next day investigators began digging around a mound that appeared to be a septic tank; buried 8 feet down was Kimmell's car nearly intact. According to court records, its wheels, seats, stereo and gear-shift knob were missing.

Eaton's son told investigators in 2002 that he remembers helping his father in 1988 melt down four Honda wheels to sell as scrap and that he helped install a stereo and Honda seats in a pickup, the new records reveal.

Dale Eaton was questioned last year. Earlier this month he was transferred from Colorado to the Natrona County jail to face unrelated charges.

Last year investigators said that there were two other "priority cases," one homicide and one missing person, that they were studying for possible links to the Kimmell case.

Greg Cooper, the former head of the FBI's behavioral science unit, said at that time that Kimmell's death "was definitely the work of a serial killer."

Reached at his home Thursday night, Natrona County District Attorney Kevin Meenan verified the charges but declined to comment further on the case.

Eaton's initial hearing on the charges will be Monday, he said.

Shirley Widmer, a friend of Eaton's who lives 30 miles east of Moneta, was shocked to hear of the charges.

"Surprised is the understatement," she said. "I just can't believe it - we've known the man. We just didn't think he was capable of doing something like this."

Sheila Kimmell remains cautious about the new developments.

"Regardless of our opinions . . . Mr. Eaton is still entitled to a fair trial," she said. "We (will) try to keep some balance, and that's a hard thing to do, and we're having a hard time."





crecenteb@RockyMountainNews.com or (303) 892-2811

[angiev]

The man Dale Eaton 58 has been charged with Lisa Marie Kimell's murder. The DNA matched from him and her rape test kit sample. The death penalty is being sought in this case. He is also being charges on 3 other murder counts. They think he might have been involved in the disappearance of Amy Bectol in 1997 while jogging. They said that her stab wounds were unique and long and deep in the pattern of a hand. She also had a fractured skullas well. It think it is horrible how she died and the fact that she might have been held captive for 1 week and severely sexaully assaulted. This man will get a humane death compared to what she had to go through. I just hope that there will be justice on the other side and he will pay for what he did to her and her family. And I hope that she is at peace and happy whereever she is.

[Allierain]

What a jerk. I am glad to know he's been caught. It just goes to show that time doesn't erase crime.

[Or So It Seems]

Thank you all for the updates. I didn't think this case would ever be solved. The online community has been great about taking over the job Lifetime should be doing.

[shek]

I would like to thank everyone for not forgetting Lisa. It has been a long hard journey to have finally come to this point and we know that we will have many more difficult roads to travel ahead. We will never have closure (I hate term) because we will never get over what happened to her but this is another part of this tragedy we must get past. The support of so many wonderful, caring and concerned people have helped carry us through these difficult years and will give us the strength to deal with the hard roads we must face ahead.

My Sincerest Thanx,
Lisa's Mother - Sheila Kimmell

[angiev]

Does anyone have any recorded unsolved mysteries episodes of the lisa marie kimmell case or of dorothy allison. I never seem to ever get to record any of these episodes.

[Dilly]

I've been wondering about this case for years. Lisa was too sweet to have died so tragically.
I wonder how the abduction came about? I know that it was a very lonely stretch of road.
Also, why hasn't Lifetime updated this case? Thank goodness we have such great members here who are keeping track of these tragic stories.

[shek]

Angiev: I have recorded copies of Lisa's episode and if you would like to e-mail me with your mailing instructions, I can send you a copy.

Dilly: We still don't know "how" he got her and I don't know that we will ever know all the answers. They "theorize" that her car was disabled about 7-10 miles from his place. Did she hit a deer? Did he run her off the road? Maybe we will learn more during the trial, but I doubt we will ever have the answer to that question.

General update: The trial is scheduled for Feb 23rd and they have set aside 5 weeks for it. Two weeks for jury selection, 2 weeks for the tiral and 1 week for the sentencing phase. Then, even though Lifetime did not do an update on her case, Cold Case Files (CCF) on the A&E network have been in touch with us and plan on doing a segment on her story. For those who are not familiar with CCF, their format focus is on the dedication of investigators who anguish over cold cases for so many years and the technology that exists today to solve cold cases. They won't start working on it until the trial and it won't air until after the trial is over. I can keep everyone updated if they would like.

Thanx again for everyone's caring kindness,
Sheila Kimmell

[Brent88]

This story was the first one on the 8pm UM last night...