The Murders of Kathy Perry and Rhonda Travers (Rhode Island) – Part 1

In a nine month span between 1986 and 1987, two women were found brutally slain in the same Rhode Island city. Investigators believed that the first was abducted from the side of the road on her way home from work in the middle of the night, while the second appeared to get into an unknown vehicle voluntarily. Both were found a few miles away from the locations they were last seen alive, cruelly discarded in industrial areas. 

Decades later, thanks to creative contemporary investigative strategies led by a bullish cold case detective, the cases were reenergized, producing new leads, new evidence, and a new suspect who had been right under the noses of law enforcement all along.

September 14-15, 1986

It was around 5:30 in the evening on September 14, 1986 and 20-year old Kathy Perry was on her way to work at Ultra Finishers, a book binding company in Warwick, Rhode Island. Her 1979 Mercury Capri wasn’t the most reliable of vehicles, but it seemed to be cooperating for her commute that night. When Kathy happened to pass her mother, Marilyn, on the drive through town, they exchanged waves with each other from behind their steering wheels.

Kathy’s shift was 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. which allowed her to attend cosmetology school during the day. She’d logged enough hours in a hair stylist program at the school to start working in a salon while she finished up her coursework. According to reporting by Karen Newell Young and Jeff L.H. for the Providence Journal, Kathy was supposed to start her job at a salon in Coventry that same week.

Kathy’s boyfriend was a guy named Bruce, whose father owned Ultra Finishers. Bruce also worked at the company with Kathy, and coworkers said that when Kathy and Bruce weren’t getting along, it would reflect in her demeanor during work. Things must’ve been good between them that day though because Kathy was happy, even joking around to get through the late night hours until she clocked out around 2:15 a.m.

As she made her way back home to West Warwick (which is a separate municipality from Warwick), Kathy stopped into a gas station. She chatted with the clerk there, a girl she knew from high school. She said how tired she was and that she had to get up early the next morning for class. Kathy was alone at the time and did not appear to be in distress. She drove away from the gas station, heading south on Bald Hill Road and in the direction of home on East Greenwich Avenue. 

According to Warwick Police Detective Sergeant Fred Pierce, “About two hours later, Warwick Police got a call for a car that’s abandoned on Route 2 South and it’s only a couple miles from where Kathy lives and it’s on the same direct route that she would travel if she went home,” he continued, “The car’s just sitting there, on the side of the road. And it’s weird because it’s on an angle, too, where the back end of the car’s actually sitting in the travel portion of the road. The car’s running, the lights are on, the heat is on. Her purse with $107 is sitting on the passenger seat. But Kathy’s gone. And that’s obviously Kathy’s car. She’s gone. Well, where is she? Nobody knows where she is.”

The car was found right out front of the Kent County courthouse at 222 Quaker Lane. The patrolman checked the Rhode Island registration records and traced the car to Kathy Perry, and so an officer was sent to Kathy’s house, only about two miles away from the location of her car.

Kathy’s mother Marilyn was home when the officer knocked on the door. Marilyn checked Kathy’s room and for good measure, searched the rest of the house, but Kathy wasn’t there. Marilyn wondered if maybe Kathy went out with her boyfriend Bruce after work, but couldn’t be sure where her daughter was at that point. 

Police asked Marilyn to come to the scene of the abandoned vehicle and she confirmed it belonged to her daughter. It was already obvious that something wasn’t right. Marilyn filed a missing persons report and police put out an attempt to locate. Kathy’s car was then impounded and processed for evidence. 

“One of the things that the officer at the scene noticed was that there’s a beer can, there’s a beer can in front of Kathy’s car,” Sgt. Pierce explained, “And according to his report, it’s fresh. It hasn’t been there for a very long period of time.”

The fresh can of Budweiser was collected and tagged as evidence as the search for Kathy began. The effort was brief. Around 8 a.m. that same morning, a truck driver hauling debris from a local construction site was headed to a secluded spot off Telmore Road, right at the East Greenwich town line.

“And as the truck driver goes up this path, he sees the body of Kathy Perry.”

Discovery & Autopsy

Kathy Perry’s remains were discovered down a roughly 250-foot long, one lane gravel road that ended in a clearing. Dusty pebbles and larger boulders dotted the area that had likely been hauled in from various construction sites. Piles of dirt and debris as tall as a person formed a circle around the open clearing, but from the truck driver’s vantage point, there was no missing the woman’s body. She was lying face up at the bottom of a pile of dirt, which was spattered with blood. 

The driver quickly left the scene to find a phone at a nearby business, and asked the employees there to call 9-1-1.

The way Sergeant Pierce explained it, law enforcement already assumed that the deceased woman was Kathy Perry, based on all the circumstances they were dealing with at the time. Kathy was missing, her vehicle was abandoned on the side of the road, and now there was a deceased woman found less than 2 miles away. 

The Deputy Chief of the West Warwick Police Department (who knew Kathy’s family) wanted to positively identify the remains before delivering any news to Kathy’s mother. However, the condition of the victim made visual identification impossible. A positive ID came later. The victim was, in fact, Kathy Perry.

“She was so badly beaten that he didn’t even recognize her, multiple fractures. She was actually strangled at some point,” Sgt. Pierce said.

Early newspaper reports I’ve found don’t mention strangulation. Publicly available sources indicate that Kathy died of multiple head injuries. She was found naked and she was just wearing her socks. She also had a necklace with a diamond pendant around her neck. 

When Kathy left work the night before, she was wearing a pink and white blouse. That was found near her body.

“ But the rest of her clothing was found like 25 feet away. Her pants, her sneakers, everything was found, and the only thing that was splattered with her blood was the blouse and her socks. All the other clothing didn’t have any blood on it.”

Based partly on the fact that Kathy was found nude, investigators believed that Kathy had been sexually assaulted. Testing showed that Kathy may have had sexual contact with a male within 72 hours of her death, but the Medical Examiner’s findings regarding possible sexual assault were inconclusive. 

Kathy’s death was ruled a homicide. A brutal, violent homicide. Early reporting in the Providence Journal indicated that her skull may have been crushed with a boulder, perhaps found at the scene. 

Kathy’s Early Investigation

What the hell happened after Kathy Perry left work that night, between the six hours after she clocked out and before her body was found in a secluded dirt pit? 

To begin to answer that question, Warwick Police first aimed to answer the several others having to do with Kathy’s car. Why was it pulled over on the side of the street, somewhat haphazardly with the back end still in the travel lane? Did someone run Kathy off the road, force her to stop? Or did she experience car trouble?

According to reports from the original investigation that Sgt. Pierce has reviewed, Kathy’s mother Marilyn told the on-scene patrol supervisor, Sergeant Dennis Morley, that Kathy’s car was having power steering issues, and it may have recently been leaking fluid. Sgt. Morley tried the steering wheel himself and sure enough, it was, quote, “extremely difficult to move.” End quote. 

So, car trouble. Whoever killed Kathy had found her in a vulnerable state on the side of the road in the middle of the night…Likely all by happenstance.

The very next night, a Warwick detective coordinated a roadblock near the location of Kathy’s car around the same time she would’ve been driving past and pulled over at that spot. The goal was to talk to people who routinely traveled that route

“One of the things that they learned was that a lot of the people traveling the roadway that time in the morning worked at a place called LaCroix Catering, which makes sense that early in the morning. And they actually, they catered obviously to businesses, and wouldn’t you know, they catered to the businesses on Telmore Road where Kathy was found. They also catered to Ultra Finishers, where Kathy worked,” Sgt. Pierce explained.

As police stopped drivers at the roadblock, they asked if anyone saw Kathy or her car.

“And many of them did see Kathy’s car on the side. One lady actually gave Kathy’s license plate and one person in particular, a guy named Thomas, he goes by, he actually sees a second car with Kathy,” Sgt. Pierce continued, “He sees Kathy talking outside of her car with this person. He describes him as having long hair, and he’s drinking from a beer can. He describes a car that’s parked in front. Her car’s in the back, his car’s in the front. It’s a green car, a large older model, green car.”

Hypnosis was a common investigative technique back in this era. Thomas agreed to be hypnotized to see if he could recall any other details about this person and the green car.

The cases of Kathy Perry and Rhonda Travers continue on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the episode wherever you get your podcasts.