Chapter Twenty Three:Kathy Kohm: Investigative Journalism



 Chapter 23

    Public outrage over the case was intense. People were deeply affected by Kathy’s murder and many felt that the police had botched the case. In 1986 a local Evansville television station, WEHT Channel 25,  tracked down the 1981 Mazda 626 that had belonged to Gash.  They wanted to get a mechanic to take it apart to look for any trace evidence of Kathy.  They specifically were hoping to find a piece of her jewelry, or blood, or a fingerprint, anything that would definitively place Kathy in that car on the day of her disappearance.  The car had been sold several times. Finding it was no easy feat. The Mazda was finally tracked down in Cincinnati, Ohio.  The new owner agreed to rent the car to the tv station and allowed them to have it examined by a mechanic.  The mechanic took the interior of the car apart and searched in detail. The mechanic found a few hairs and some fibers.  The articles written about this event does not mention if this was turned over to police.  

    The News Director at WEHT, John Esther, also attempted to get Indiana Governor Bob Orr to intervene in some way.  Legally, however,  there was nothing that a governor could do.  The News Director also wrote to Spencer County Prosecutors imploring them to reconsider charging Gash with murder.  They pointed out that driving 383 feet down a muddy overgrown logging road just to urinate doesn’t seem likely.  They reiterated all the other circumstantial evidence and the fact that pleading the fifth in the civil trial is essentially an admission of guilt.  All their efforts would come to nothing.  It does show the lengths some in the community would go to in order to seek some sort of justice for Kathy.  People were deeply affected by her murder and they hadn’t forgotten her. 


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