TRUE CRIME ATLAS
← Back to all cases

Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders

Published July 26, 2026Updated August 15, 2026
Feb 4, 1972

Maureen Sterling and Yvonne Weber disappear after a night at the ice arena

Maureen Sterling and Yvonne Weber vanished after spending the evening at Redwood Empire Ice Arena in Santa Rosa. Witnesses later suggested the girls had been hitchhiking on Guerneville Road.

View sequence of events
  1. 21:00
    The girls were at the rink while waiting for their mothers to return later that night.
  2. 23:00
    When their rides came back, both girls were gone, beginning the case that later defined the series.
Mar 4, 1972

Kim Allen is last seen hitchhiking in San Rafael

Kim Allen was last seen on the Bell Avenue northbound U.S. 101 on-ramp in San Rafael, carrying the small wooden soy barrel she had bought in San Francisco.

View sequence of events
  1. 17:20
    Two men who had given Allen a ride earlier dropped her near the on-ramp and were later cleared.
  2. Allen remained on the roadside trying to get north toward Sonoma County.
Mar 5, 1972

Kim Allen's body is found off Enterprise Road

Allen's body was found in a creek bed off Enterprise Road near Glen Ellen. Investigators concluded she had been sexually assaulted, bound, and strangled.

View sequence of events
  1. Investigators recovered physical clues including a gold loop earring and biological evidence.
  2. Her dumped body established the rural Sonoma County disposal pattern that later cases would echo.
Apr 25, 1972

Jeannette Kamahele disappears near the Cotati on-ramp

Santa Rosa Junior College student Jeannette Kamahele was last seen entering a pickup truck near the Cotati Highway 101 on-ramp. She has never been found.

View sequence of events
  1. A witness described the truck as an older pickup towing or carrying a faded homemade camper.
  2. Her disappearance remains one of the strongest possible but unconfirmed links to the broader series.
Nov 1, 1972

Lori Lee Kursa disappears in Santa Rosa

Lori Lee Kursa, 13, disappeared during November 1972 after a period in which she was known to run away and hitchhike around Santa Rosa.

View sequence of events
  1. Lori was known to run away and hitchhike, which meant her disappearance did not initially trigger the level of emergency response a stranger-abduction case might have received.
  2. That delayed urgency mattered because she vanished into the same roadside ecosystem already producing dead and missing girls around Santa Rosa.
Dec 14, 1972

Lori Lee Kursa is found in a Calistoga Road ravine

Kursa's body was discovered about 50 feet down a ravine off Calistoga Road. Investigators believed she had died one to two weeks before the discovery.

View sequence of events
  1. Cold weather preserved the body enough to narrow the likely time of death.
  2. Her death deepened the pattern of teen girls disappearing and being dumped in isolated Sonoma County terrain.
Dec 28, 1972

The remains of Sterling and Weber are found off Franz Valley Road

Hikers found the skeletal remains of Maureen Sterling and Yvonne Weber down a steep embankment off Franz Valley Road nearly ten months after the girls disappeared.

View sequence of events
  1. The skeletal remains were found down a steep embankment off Franz Valley Road, nearly ten months after the girls vanished.
  2. No clothing was recovered with the bodies, reinforcing the recurring dump-site pattern that linked the case to the other Sonoma County killings.
Feb 6, 1973

Carolyn Davis leaves home and begins drifting through Northern California

Fifteen-year-old Carolyn Davis left home in Anderson and moved through multiple Northern California stops before eventually returning toward the North Bay.

View sequence of events
  1. After leaving home in Anderson, Davis moved through Northern California in the same hitchhiking and runaway circuits that had already become dangerous for young women and girls.
  2. Her drifting path matters because it shows how the case intersected not only with local Santa Rosa teens, but with a wider youth mobility pattern across the region.
Jul 31, 1973

Carolyn Davis is found near the Sterling and Weber recovery site

Carolyn Davis's remains were found just feet from where Sterling and Weber had been discovered. The coroner determined she died of strychnine poisoning.

View sequence of events
  1. The body location linked her death physically to the most symbolically important dump site in the case.
  2. Her cause of death added complexity to the question of whether a single offender or more than one killer was operating.
Dec 22, 1973

Therese Walsh is last seen hitchhiking north before Christmas

Therese Walsh was last seen attempting to travel north for the holidays. Days later, she would become one of the most violently treated victims associated with the case.

View sequence of events
  1. Walsh was older than most of the earlier victims and was traveling a much longer intercity route when she disappeared.
  2. Her case widened the pattern beyond local teens by showing that adult women moving through California's hitchhiking network could also be pulled into the same zone of danger.
Dec 28, 1973

Therese Walsh is found in Mark West Creek

Walsh's body was found in Mark West Creek after heavy rains. She had been sexually assaulted, hogtied with clothesline, and strangled.

View sequence of events
  1. Investigators believed the body may have floated several miles from the original dump site because of storm runoff.
  2. The rope binding and body disposal intensified theories about a serial offender with a stable signature.
Jan 1, 1975

Investigators and later writers treat the murders as part of a wider Northern California pattern

By the mid-1970s, investigators and later chroniclers were openly considering whether the Santa Rosa killings were linked to a wider cluster of hitchhiker murders across Northern California.

View sequence of events
  1. By the mid-1970s, investigators and later writers were no longer treating the murders only as isolated Sonoma County events.
  2. The possibility of links to a broader Northern California pattern made the central question harder: was this one offender, several offenders, or a partially overlapping cluster of cases?
Jul 2, 1979

An unidentified Jane Doe is found near the Kursa recovery site

The skeletal remains of an unidentified young woman were found near Calistoga Road close to where Lori Kursa had been discovered years earlier. She remains unidentified.

View sequence of events
  1. The unidentified young woman's remains were found close to the area where Lori Kursa had been discovered years earlier.
  2. Because the estimated time of death overlapped the original active years of the series, the discovery reopened the question of how many victims might truly belong to the Santa Rosa pattern.
Nov 1, 2015

Kerry Graham and Francine Trimble are identified in a separate but often-compared case

DNA identified the remains of Kerry Graham and Francine Trimble in 2015. Their murders remain separate and unsolved, but the pair are still discussed around the Santa Rosa case because of geography and victim profile overlap.

View sequence of events
  1. DNA work finally gave names back to two long-unidentified North Bay victims whose case had often circulated near Santa Rosa discussions.
  2. Even though their murders remain separate, the identification highlighted how many nearby Northern California victim clusters had been left unresolved for decades.