In the summer of 1995, a 28-year-old woman named Kathleen Dennis, also known as Cathleen or Cathy, vanished from the streets of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, she had traveled to Grand Rapids with her sister, Deanna, just a few days before her disappearance on July 10, 1995. Remembered by her family as goofy, a joy to be around, and the life of the party, Kathleen was a mother of two children.
The sisters, who were both involved in sex work, had come to the city to work outside of their hometown. On the night she was last seen, Kathleen and her sister had drinks at a club before heading to an area known as the 'Division' to find clients.
The last known sighting of Kathleen was by her sister, who saw her getting into a light-colored Chevrolet, possibly a model from the years 1965 to 1968, at the intersection of Division and Putnam Street. This was the same location where another woman had disappeared six months earlier. By 4 a.m., when Deanna was ready to return to their hotel, Kathleen was nowhere to be found. Deanna's attempts to report her sister missing to the police were initially met with disinterest, a reaction she attributed to their profession. Despite this, an official report was filed, and Kathleen's mother and another sister traveled to Grand Rapids to aid in the search.
For years, Kathleen's case remained cold, one of over a dozen unsolved disappearances or murders of women in the Grand Rapids area between late 1993 and late 1996. Many of these women were also involved in sex work and struggled with drug addiction. A significant breakthrough in the case came in December 2023, when a former long-haul trucker named Garry Artman, while on his deathbed suffering from lung cancer, confessed to the murders of eleven women. Artman, who had been convicted in 2023 for a 1996 murder, provided details that matched Kathleen's case. He admitted to killing a Black woman he saw leaving a bar on Division Avenue who had a cast or sling on her arm, a detail mentioned in Kathleen's missing person report. He claimed to have disposed of her remains in a dumpster. While investigators believe Artman was responsible for Kathleen's death, her body has never been recovered, leaving her loved ones with a painful sense of incomplete closure.Last Seen: Jul 10, 1995
