On May 14, 1977, 26-year-old Kathlyn J. Blum, a commercial driver, was found dead in a residential neighborhood in Las Vegas, Nevada. Investigators determined she had been strangled and her body was left in a stranger’s backyard. The case went cold for several years with no immediate leads.

In December 1980 detectives in Las Vegas learned that Carroll Edward Cole, then arrested in Dallas, had confessed to multiple murders and included Kathlyn’s killing in his admissions. Cole said he met Kathlyn at a bar off the Las Vegas Strip, left with her in a taxi, had the driver drop them in front of an apartment building, then led her to an alley behind the building where he assaulted and strangled her.

Cole was later extradited to Nevada and tried; he was convicted for Kathlyn Blum’s murder and also for the 1979 Las Vegas killing of Marie Cushman. Because the death penalty was not in effect in Nevada in May 1977, Kathlyn’s murder did not carry a death sentence. Does anyone have memories of Kathlyn or information about her life in Las Vegas before May 1977?