On a warm summer afternoon, Sunday, August 3, 1969, 14-year-old Debra Gaye Furlong and her best friend, 15-year-old Kathie Reyne Snoozy, set out from their homes in San Jose, California, for a picnic. The two girls, students at Oak Grove High School, chose a familiar wooded knoll in the southern Almaden Valley, a sun-drenched hillside that overlooked their own houses. It was a place where local children often played, considered a safe and open area close to home.
But the idyllic afternoon turned into a scene of unimaginable horror that would haunt the community for years.
When Debra and Kathie didn't return home for dinner, Debra's father, Glen Furlong, began to search the woods. He soon came upon a devastating sight: police and onlookers gathered where the bodies of his daughter and her friend had been discovered. The girls were fully clothed and had not been sexually assaulted, but they had been subjected to a brutal and frenzied knife attack. The sheer violence of the crime was shocking. The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner, Dr. John E. Hauser, reported that Debra had sustained over 100 stab wounds, while Kathie had more than 200. Dr. Hauser, shaken by the brutality, stated he had never encountered a case with so many knife wounds in his career. The wounds were concentrated on the upper parts of their bodies, and there were no signs that the girls had been able to fight back against their attacker.
The senseless murders of two young girls in their own neighborhood sparked fear and outrage. In the immediate aftermath, investigators had few solid clues. The lack of significant blood at the scene led them to initially theorize the attack may have occurred elsewhere. The case was so shocking that it attracted widespread publicity. Debra's grieving father spoke to the press, hoping that keeping the story in the public eye "would trigger something in someone's mind and we can solve this crime." For a time, the murders were even erroneously claimed by the notorious Zodiac Killer, who was active in Northern California during that period, adding another layer of terror and confusion to the investigation.
For nearly two years, the case remained unsolved, leaving the Furlong and Snoozy families without answers. The break came after another, chillingly similar crime. On April 11, 1971, 18-year-old Kathy Bilek was stabbed to death in Villa Montalvo park in nearby Saratoga. Investigators noted the similarities between the cases, calling it a "carbon-copy killing." This time, however, there was a witness. A park maintenance worker had seen a young man he described as "a little odd" near the scene. He identified him as Karl Francis Werner, a graduate of Oak Grove High School and a student at San Jose City College—the same high school Debra and Kathie had attended.
Werner had previously been a suspect in another, non-fatal knife assault. Police obtained a search warrant for his home and discovered the knife used to murder Kathy Bilek. In September 1971, Karl Francis Werner confessed to the murders of Debra Furlong, Kathie Snoozy, and Kathy Bilek. He was a serial killer who had been living undetected in their midst.
Werner was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was incarcerated at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. The resolution of the case brought a measure of justice, but it could never erase the profound loss suffered by the families of his victims. Karl Francis Werner died in prison in 2015. The brutal slayings on that San Jose hillside in 1969 remain a stark reminder of the day innocence was shattered and two young lives, full of promise, were cruelly extinguished.
