In the spring of 1973, 15-year-old Kathy Sue Miller, a young female from Seattle, Washington, was looking forward to the future. On May 1st of that year, she responded to a "help wanted" ad in the local newspaper for a position at a service station. After a phone call, she set off for a job interview, a seemingly ordinary step into the world of work. Tragically, it was a step that would lead to her untimely and violent death. When Kathy did not return home, her family grew increasingly worried.
Their fears were realized about a month later when her body was discovered in a wooded area near Tulalip, north of Everett. The cause of death was determined to be multiple skull fractures, the result of a brutal beating with a hammer.
The investigation into Kathy's murder quickly focused on one man: Harvey Carignan, the individual who had placed the newspaper advertisement and leased the gas station where Kathy was supposed to be interviewed. Carignan, who would later become known as "The Want-Ad Killer," had a history of violence against women. The evidence against him in Kathy's case, however, was circumstantial. Law enforcement knew that Kathy's last known destination was her interview with Carignan, and his criminal past made him a prime suspect. Despite intense scrutiny and what police believed was a strong, albeit indirect, case, they lacked the direct physical evidence needed to secure a murder charge against him in court.
Although Harvey Carignan was never formally charged or convicted for the murder of Kathy Sue Miller, his life of crime did not go unpunished. He was subsequently convicted for other brutal attacks and murders of women and spent the remainder of his life in prison. For the family of Kathy Sue Miller, the lack of a specific conviction in her case was a source of profound and lasting pain. The story of her death serves as a chilling reminder of a predator who used the guise of a legitimate job opportunity to lure an unsuspecting teenager to her doom. The case remains a somber chapter in the history of crime in the Pacific Northwest, an officially unsolved murder where the prime suspect was widely known but never brought to justice for this specific crime.
