KIMBERLY KING - 12 yo (1979) - Warren MI

Girl, 12, vanished during 1979 sleepover
By Philip Rosenbaum, Nancy Grace Producer
April 5, 2010 8:14 a.m. EDT

Before she was laid to rest in 1995 in a cemetery in Clinton, Kentucky,
77-year-old Anna Laura King bought a plot next to her own.
The burial space, which remains empty, is reserved for her granddaughter,
Kimberly King, who disappeared 30 years ago. She was 12.
"That's all I can hope for that before I die I get to see her at least placed
there,'' said Kathie Lucas, one of Kimberly's two sisters.
Investigators have no clear evidence to tell them whether Kimberly is dead or
alive, but Lucas says she has faint hope that her sister is alive.


Kimberly King was 12 when she disappeared. She would be 43 now, and might look
like the photo on the right.
"Hasn't it
really reached a point almost in our society that it's impossible to hide who
you are?'' she said.
On September 15, 1979, Kimberly was staying at her grandparents' home in
Warren, Michigan, and planned to sleep over at the house of her friend, Annie,
who lived across the street from them.
Kimberly wanted to see a movie with her older sister, Kathie, that evening
but their father's car wasn't available to them.Another sister, Konnie, reported that she received a phone call from Kimberly
at 11 p.m., Lucas said. Kimberly said she was at an outdoor pay phone a short
walk from their grandparents' home.
Kimberly had sneaked out of Annie's house through a window in her bedroom,
and Konnie told her to go back because it was too late to be running around
outside.
Kimberly was reported missing the next day.
But strong clues or evidence have been lacking in this case. Investigators don't
even know the location of the pay phone Kimberly used.
Months later, a witness told police he had seen Kimberly using a phone at
about 11 p.m. that night, several miles from her grandparents' home.
No search warrants were sought to trace the phone call, said Detective Ken
Marsee of the Warren Police Department. The information could have developed
into a lead but it's impossible to know in hindsight, he added.
These days it would be a different story, he said, because public cameras and
private cell phones leave a constant electronic trail of a person's locations
and activities.
"Initially, from what I could tell, the detective assigned the case thought
she was a typical runaway and would be back in a couple of days,'' Marsee said.
"But obviously she met up with foul play because we never heard from her
again.''
The case is open, and Marsee said he is actively pursuing other leads, but
declined to disclose more.
Marsee took over the investigation a few years ago, and Kathie Lucas praises
his efforts, including a decision to take DNA samples from family members in
case remains are ever found. But she said the department handled the case badly
at the beginning.Lucas had run away and come back home several times as a child, she said.
"The police had the attitude that this was just the same thing happening again
with the next kid," Lucas added. "I think that they probably lost a lot of
valuable time by thinking that.''
The police case file indicates that Kimberly would occasionally stay out most
of the night but always came home, Marsee said. But he found nothing to indicate
she was a runaway.
The early years of the investigation also featured another distraction. There
were repeated false sightings of a girl who was about the same age as Kimberly,
hung out at the same places and, according to Marsee, "eerily looked like
Kim.''
She eventually came to the precinct, was photographed and police were able to
establish that she was not Kimberly, Marsee said.
Lucas said she "pestered every friend Kim ever had, every friend of a
friend'' as she conducted her own investigation. She thinks a stranger abducted
her sister.
Kathie Lucas was 16 when Kimberly disappeared. She remembers her sister as
physically active and enjoying the family dog. She keeps a papier mache turtle
that Kimberly made in elementary school.
Lucas, who has two grown children, says what happened to her sister shaped
her own parenting methods. She never let her kids out of her sight, she said,
and pushed back when people told her she was overprotective because kids "do
disappear.''
Even today, Lucas gets angry when she sees parents let their toddlers roam
freely in restaurants.
"They're over by the men's room or by the exit door and I just want to shake
the parents and say, 'In a second that baby could be gone,' '' she said.
Kimberly, who would be 43, was 5 feet 5 inches tall and 105 pounds when she
vanished. She had brown hair at the time and was wearing a blue sweater and
Levi's jeans.

Anyone with information on this case is asked to call The
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE LOST or the
Warren Police Department at 1-586-574-4705.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/04/05/grace.coldcase.king/index.html

Kimberly Alice King

Excerpt:

Kimberly spent the night of September 15, 1979 at a friend's residence across the street from her grandparent's home in Warren, MI. At 11:00 PM she called her sister and said she sneaked out of her friend's home and was calling from an outdoor phone booth not far away. Her sister told her to go back inside. Kimberly never returned to her friend's home, however, and has never been heard from again.

Authorities are uncertain what pay phone Kimberly was calling her sister from. She said it was a short walk from her grandparent's home, but one witness said he saw her using the phone several miles away. Her case was originally classified as a possible runaway. There are few clues as to Kimberly's whereabouts, but her case is classified as a non-family abduction with probable foul play involved in her disappearance. Investigators learned that Kimberly may have traveled to Grand Rapids, MI after her disappearance, but the leads did not pan out. Although one of Kimberly's sisters had run away from home several times and Kimberly herself was known to occasionally stay out until late at night, she does not have a history of runaway behavior and authorities no longer believe she left of her won accord.

Authorities theorize that Kimberly may have been a victim of a serial killer of children in Oakland County, MI. The killer, nicknamed "The Babysitter" because he bathed and fed the children prior to their deaths is believed to be responsible for the abductions and homicides of two boys and two girls around King's age in 1976 and 1977. The children were all held captive for several days before being slain. No one has ever been charged in connection with any of the murders. If Kimberly was a victim, her case is atypical; in the other cases, the victim's bodies were left out in plain view by roadways and were found fairly quickly, but Kimberly's remains have never been located.

David Norberg was considered a suspect in the case for many years. He was employed in Warren at the time of Kimberly's 1979 disappearance, and lived just two streets away from her home. He was killed in an automobile accident near Recluse, Wyoming in 1981. After his death, jewelry allegedly belonging to several of the Oakland County child victims was found among his belongings. Norberg was never charged in connection with any of Kimberly's disappearance or any of the murders however.

Norberg's body was exhumed in September 1999and his DNA was compared to a single strand of unidentified hair discovered on the final murder victim, Timothy King (no relation to Kimberly). In November 2002, Authorities announced that Norberg's DNA did not match the hair found on Timothy, but that they were not ruling him out entirely as a suspect. He fits the serial killer's profile very well and there is circumstantial evidence linking him to the murders. Investigators still think he might have been involved in Kimberly's apparent abduction if not the murders. The Oakland County serial killer has never been identified, but one male victim's family sued a suspect, Ted Lamborgine, for wrongful death in 2007. It is not clear whether Kimberly was a victim of the sma person who killed the others.

Kimberly's grandmother died in 1995. Prior to death, she purchased a cemetary plot for her granddaughter. Kimberly's two sisters still hope she may be located. Her case remains unsolved.

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/k/king_kimberly.html

Kimberly King

At 11:00 PM on September 16, 1979, the sister of 12-year-old Warren, Michigan resident Kimberly King received a call from her. Kimberly had been spending the night at a friend’s house, but told her sister she had snuck out and was calling from a phone booth. After Kimberly hung up, she was never heard from again. Authorities could not determine which phone booth she called from, but a witness claimed to have seen her talking on a phone that was several miles away.

It has been theorized that Kimberly may have been a victim of an unidentified serial killer known as “The Babysitter.” From 1976 to 1977, The Babysitter abducted four prepubescent children from Oakland County, Michigan, holding each of them captive for several days. He would bathe and feed each victim before murdering them and laying their bodies out by roadways to be found. One possible suspect was a man named David Norberg, who was killed in an accident in 1981. While DNA from a strand of hair found on one of The Babysitter’s victims did not match Norberg, there is still some circumstantial evidence linking him to the murders, so he has not been completely ruled out. While Warren is not located in Oakland County, Norberg happened to live two streets away from Kimberly King at the time she went missing. Even if David Norberg was not The Babysitter, authorities have not discounted the possibility that he still may have been responsible for Kimberly’s disappearance.

http://listverse.com/2013/08/13/10-potentially-unconfirmed-victims-of-famous-murderers/