Chapter Thirteen: Kathy Kohm: The Interview

 Chapter 13

    On June 2nd 1981 Stanton H. Gash showed up for his appointment with Lt. George Lewallen in Jasper, Indiana at the Indiana State Police Post.  

    Gash was positively identified by Jack Harry as the man he had pulled out of the mud. 

    When questioned about his whereabouts on April 5th, he said he had been home in Christmas Lake Village all day watching t.v. and that his wife had been in New York on a buying trip for her job at The Baby Shop.  Lewallen knew that this differed completely from what Gash had told Jack Harry when he was stuck in the mud.  Gash had told Mr. Harry that he had been in Chrisney, Indiana watching basketball games on t.v. with some friends.  But on the survey sent out to all Christmas Lake Village residents after Kathy went missing he wrote that he and his wife were home there in Christmas Lake Village all day. So, here were three different stories.  

    Lewallen asked if Gash could come back on June 4th and take a polygraph examination.  Gash agreed to return for the test and left Jasper a free man that day. But he would not make it to his appointment on June 4th and he would never ever take a polygraph examination about the disappearance of Kathy Kohm.

       

    On June 4th Linda Gash would call the Fire Department to tell them that Stan was too sick to come into work.  She would then call the police and file a missing person’s report because she did not actually know where he was.  Suddenly, she was the worried one with no idea where her loved one could be.  

    Lt. Lewallen was notified and began the process of getting a warrant to search the home of Stanton Gash in Evansville and the vacation home owned by his family members in Christmas Lake Village. 

    Stan would call his wife from Georgia on June 5th.  She must have wondered what in the world he could be doing all the way down in there. He would tell her that he was just stressed out and had to get away.  She called the police to report that she did indeed find her husband and they could discard the missing person’s report.  

    Stanton would not come back to Indiana until June 9th.  By that time the police had searched his home. They took many things into evidence including a receipt for a new car trunk liner and floor mats.  They took other things into evidence that day too.  It is standard to look for weapons when searching a suspect’s home and they found two .22 caliber guns and ammunition.  

   They also found a metal detector. His wife said it was a recent purchase. She said it was odd because he always used to make fun of people who used metal detectors.  She mentioned how weird it was that he suddenly changed his opinion and bought a metal detector afterall. State Police officers took it into evidence as well.

    Stanton Gash was back in town on June 9th.  His family surely must have been calling him and asking what was going on. Just imagine those conversations.  On the night of the 9th of June, Stanton overdosed on valium and alcohol. He left behind a suicide note apologizing for an unspecified act. His wife called the fire department and they rushed to the Gash residence. Stanton’s life was saved.  

    He would be in a hospital bed on June 10th when an article would come out in the paper linking him publicly to Kathy Kohm’s disappearance. The article named him as a suspect and placed his Fire Department photo next to the photo of Kathy that we all knew so well by now. State Police officers would then be assigned to guard his hospital room. He had skipped town once before after all and there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t try to flee again.

   The article in the paper told of Stanton Gash getting his car stuck on an old overgrown lane in Santa Claus. It told of his changing his story about his whereabouts on the day of Kathy’s disappearance and of his trip to Florida to avoid his polygraph appointment. 

    Harold Byers, a farmer in Santa Claus, and his grandson Steven saw that article and decided to go out looking for Kathy on June 11th.  Everyone was concerned and many people were still looking. The Byers’ thought they knew the area around Santa Claus where the car might have been hung up. They took a short drive over there and parked. Harold Byers would say later that he thought maybe they would find some clue, something that belonged to Kathy. 

    They walked up the now very green and overgrown lane. Steven took the opportunity to bend down and look under the foliage and bushes every now and then. It was a nice day.  The sun was shining.  Steven was a curious kid and a careful observer.  He and his grandfather found a couple of old cans and trash and then suddenly Steven saw what looked like light blue tennis shoes sticking up from a pile of leaves and sticks. The shoes were in a position as if they were still on someone’s feet. He told his Grandfather and pointed the shoes out to him. Harold took a closer look and what he saw confirmed his worst fears. They immediately went to find the nearest phone.

    Town Marshall Leo Snyder would later comment that only two weeks before he had been about 25 feet from her body. Despite that search of the area, the police had not located her.  At that point they had been there to look at the spot where a man had been stuck in the mud.  They didn’t know yet that it was related to Kathy’s disappearance.  Should they have searched more thoroughly?  Hindsight is 20/20.  Of course they should have.  We can only look at mistakes in cases like these and learn from them at this point.  

   Hindsight allows us to easily see that the area should have been thoroughly searched on April 6th after Jack Harry initially reported the man stuck in the mud.  We have had the benefit of numerous true crime shows and police procedurals.  We know the kind of place that makes a good place for a murderer to conceal a body. But, police in 1981 didn’t have these advantages.  No one did. 

   Word spread fast and it was all over the evening news and the Sunday papers. Suddenly we would all know what the killer had known all along.  She wasn’t in another state or another country. She wasn’t lost in the woods. All that time she had been only two and a half miles from home.  She was outside the boundaries of Christmas Lake Village.  So, she had been taken from her neighborhood.  I remember how naive I was. At first I was thrilled that she was found and immediately I was so confused that she was found deceased.  How could that be?  This was supposed to have a happy ending. Everyone in Southern Indiana was devastated. It was crushing to know that she was so close to home all that time.

    A few days later we would find out that she wasn’t just dead but she had been murdered. She had not died accidentally. Someone intentionally killed her.  Who would want to murder a little girl?  What could she possibly have done?  Why on earth would anyone do that?  The minds of typical people cannot fathom the way predators think.  Kathy was not a little girl to the killer who kidnapped her, assaulted her and ended her life. Killers like that think differently.  But nobody really knew that then.