A woman's body is discovered in Parley's Canyon In the early spring of 1976, the life of 22-year-old Caucasian female Joy Kathleen "Kathy" Harmon, a newlywed from Salt Lake City, Utah, was tragically cut short. On the evening of March 2, 1976, Kathy was at the Better Days Bar on State Street with a friend. She left the bar alone around midnight for the short walk home. A coat she had been wearing was later found at her apartment, suggesting she made it back safely that night.
However, when she failed to show up for work and couldn't be reached, her parents reported her missing.
The search for Kathy ended in heartbreak on March 6, 1976, when a hiker discovered her body in a desolate area between Emigration and Parley's Canyon. Her partially clothed body was found about 300 yards off a lookout point. The scene indicated a violent struggle had taken place before her death. An autopsy later confirmed that she had been beaten and died from strangulation. The brutality of the crime was evident, yet robbery did not appear to be a motive as cash and her jewelry, including her wedding ring, were left untouched.
The investigation into Kathy Harmon's murder explored several avenues, but a definitive suspect has never been officially named, and no arrests have been made in her case. Her husband was quickly cleared as a suspect as he was out of town for work at the time of her death. Over the years, investigators have considered several potential suspects. Due to the nature of the crime and the time period, serial killer Ted Bundy, who was active in Utah, was considered a person of interest in her murder.
Decades later, the case remains cold, a lingering mystery for law enforcement and a source of unending grief for her family. The murder of another woman, Carolyn Sarkessian, around the same time initially led investigators to believe the cases might be connected. However, a DNA hit in 2004 led to an arrest in the Sarkessian case, and that suspect was eventually ruled out as being involved in Kathy's death. In 2009, a tip emerged about a man with scratches on his face around the time of the murder, but this lead also did not result in an arrest. The case of who killed Kathy Harmon is still an open and unsolved homicide.
