Kathy Kohm:1981, Santa Claus, Indiana

    

   Kathy Kohm was 11 in 1981. On Sunday April 5th, 1981 she listened to America’s top 40 with Casey Kasem and then she went out for a walk. Her mother had gone to the store to grab a few things. It was an average Sunday. Her Dad and two younger brothers were watching ball games on t.v. The weather was a rare nice warm day in early April. It had stormed the night before and so a warm front had temporarily moved in. 

   Kathy lived in a very rare type of neighborhood for the early 1980s in Indiana. Kathy’s neighborhood was a gated community with a guard shack at the entrance. You couldn’t get in without being a resident. Visitors to the neighborhood had to sit at the guard shack and wait for the guard to call the home that they were trying to visit. Once permission was granted; they could drive into the neighborhood. That rule stood for anyone and everyone. If you were a repair technician coming to work on a furnace or someone checking gas meters you had to have permission. Period. 

   Kathy was hoping to be a part of the track team at her elementary school that spring. She loved sports. She was involved in a competitive swimming team. She loved music. She was a very responsible, oldest child. She took care of her two younger brothers. She did a lot of chores around the house to help her mother and father. She was well liked and had a lot of friends.

   That Sunday in April, Kathy disappeared. Her neighborhood is wooded and has several lakes. People were out searching almost immediately when her mother came back from the store  began calling around to find out where Kathy was. This was a tight knit community. People watched out for each other’s children. How could a child disappear from such a safe neighborhood? 

   That same day, a man in a small sports car, a Mazda 626, got stuck in the mud not long after exiting Kathy’s neighborhood. Stanton Gash was a firefighter from Evansville. He had been staying in Christmas Lake Village at the vacation home that his family owned. He was there alone that weekend. 

Stanton Gash

  He had driven away from Christmas Lake Village and turned down a small muddy lane. He drove back into that lane several hundred feet. When he realized he was stuck, he used his floor mats as traction. That didn’t work. He then walked to a nearby farmhouse. He asked the farmer to help pull him out and that farmer did. Stanton Gash then returned to Christmas Lake Village; got his things and headed back to Evansville. As he drove out of the gated community he saw and heard people looking and shouting for Kathy. 

  The farmer who pulled Gash out of the mud, hearing about Kathy on the radio, called the local police the very next day to report the unusual occurrence. He thought it was very strange that a man would pull so far back into this wooded lane to urinate when there was plenty of foliage to hide behind closer to the road. It seemed suspicious to him. But he didn’t go back to the lane and look around. He assumed the police would investigate thoroughly. 

  The local town Marshall, Leo Snyder, did not investigate this immediately because he was busy coordinating search efforts around the area for Kathy. A man getting stuck in the mud did not seem at all significant. They had barns, woods and sheds to check. They had three lakes to drag. A man getting his car stuck seemed like the least of his worries. 

  In the weeks that followed, Stanton Gash’s wife would find it odd that he bought a metal detector.  Was he using it to try to locate and retrieve the bullet that killed Kathy?  Was he thinking about ballistics evidence that might tie him to this crime? 

  

  Gash also got new floor mats that Spring. That is understandable since he left his original floor mats in the muddy lane.  He also got new carpet for the trunk of his car.  Why did he need new carpet for the trunk of his Mazda 626?  

  Months went by.  Finally in the summer, the town Marshall, Leo Snyder, relayed the information about the man getting stuck in the mud to the state police. State Police identified Gash as the only owner of a Mazda 626 who had access to the gated community. They questioned him.  He denied involvement but went home and attempted suicide. He was admitted to the hospital. A newspaper article then came out naming him as a suspect. Lt. Lewallen and multiple police officers searched that muddy secluded lane on June 10th,1981 but found nothing but the mud caked floor mats.

  Harold Byers and his grandson decided to go look there as well on June 11th, 1981. They knew where the lane was just by the description on the news. They thought they might find some evidence like Kathy’s clothes or something belonging to Kathy. As they were walking down the lane, the grandson saw a shoe in the bushes. They then rushed away to call the police. They had found the body of Kathy Kohm.

  Kathy was clothed. Her underwear was found stuffed in her pants pocket though indicating that she had likely been sexually assaulted and then re-dressed. She had been shot in the head. Because she had lain out in the open for months, her body had undergone significant decomposition because of the extreme weather conditions of the spring and early summer. 

  Who was Stanton Gash? Stanton Gash was a firefighter. His father was the chief of police for many years in Evansville. His father had also been granted a position of Assistant Chief of Police for life after being replaced as Chief. This was a very unusual position. Evansville police have never had a lifetime appointment before or since for an Assistant Chief of Police. It seems that he was possibly very well connected.

  Many people were able to put together the fact that on the day that Kathy disappeared Stanton Gash had gotten stuck in the mud in the very spot that Kathy was later found in. But the evidence was deemed circumstantial. Prosecutors refused to bring a case against Mr. Gash. The bullet that they took from Kathy's remains did not match the brand of ammunition that was found in Gash's home.  Did he go to the body trying to retrieve the bullet with a metal detector but abandon that grisly idea? Did he then go home and throw out his old brand of ammo and buy a different type?  Very possibly. With a father with decades of experience in law enforcement...it is possible that the idea of new ammunition would occur to, or be suggested to Gash.  

  This failure of the prosecution to bring a case against Gash infuriated Kathy's parents and the community. A retired FBI agent contacted a lawyer friend of his, and they convinced the Kohm family to mount a civil case against Stanton Gash for wrongful death.

   Gash got a defense lawyer, who seemed very knowledgeable and experienced. But that lawyer decided to let his client plead the fifth in court. Gash then refused to answer questions because they might incriminate him. In a civil court that is the legal equivalent of admitting guilt. The court immediately found in favor of the family. And then the court had to decide what the damages would be. How much is an 11-year-old girl worth? How does one determine that? 

  This court determined a dollar amount by having Kathy’s mother lay out all of the things that Kathy used to do to help around the house. Each load of wood Kathy brought in and each sink full of dishes were given a dollar value. Vacuuming, mopping and babysitting were also given a dollar value. The timeframe for this loss was from the date she went missing until her 18th birthday. They determined by 18 she would be on her own or married. So this child’s worth was measured only by her labor. She was valued like a pack mule. Can you imagine putting a grieving mother through this? 

   The sum of about $6000 was decided. That’s all Kathy was worth in the opinion of the court. 

   The lawyer for Stanton Gash immediately began the appeals process. Gash lost all subsequent appeals.  In the court of public opinion some people expressed disgust that Kathy’s family would seek monetary damages. What they were actually trying to do was to force Mr. Gash to testify. They were hoping to get more information that might lead to a criminal indictment. 

  He fought paying the damages for years. He claimed he was too poor to pay. He sought psychiatric examinations. He hoped that might make him look innocent by reason of insanity. He did manage to get a disability retirement from the Evansville fire department. And then Gash moved to Georgia and later to Florida. His wife stood by him every step of the way. She kept her local job, though, and visited him. She eventually moved to Florida as well. He had lots of unsupervised free time down south, sadly. This was before sex offenders had to register.  Gash was not a criminally adjudicated sex offender anyway.  But his Georgia and Florida neighbors had no idea who was living next door.

   Eventually Gash paid the damages plus court imposed fines for the delay.  The Kohm family used the money to form a foundation to teach children about safety and stranger danger. Kathy's brothers were very active with that work.

   Meanwhile, crime scene investigation technology was being improved by leaps and bounds. In 1987 the first case to be convicted in a court of law using DNA evidence happened in the United Kingdom. Not long after, DNA was used to convict someone in the United States. Investigators in Indiana decided to try to test evidence in the Kathy Kohm case. They approached Stanton Gash in Florida for a DNA sample. He complied.

   Gash didn’t wait for the results to come back though. He died by suicide a few days after investigators knocked on his door.

   An innocent man would be thrilled to give a DNA sample. An innocent man would know that this would finally exonerate him. An innocent man would know that he could then counter sue the Kohm family. He might then be able to recoup his losses and clear his name. But I think Stanton Gash knew very well that he was not an innocent man.

   When the results came back, they were inconclusive. In those days, a larger amount of DNA was needed. Today, technicians can retrieve DNA from a fingerprint. But, Kathy had laid in the open so long that much biological evidence was destroyed.

   But I think back to the fact that Stanton Gash knew he was not innocent. He feared being exposed for the child rapist and murderer that he was.

   

   I think everyone can learn a lot from the Kohm case.  Mistakes  were made along the way. The community assumed that she was just lost or missing for too long. The tip about the man stuck in the muddy lane was dismissed too easily.  But people in the early 1980's in rural Indiana did not really know about crime like this yet. I think many people thought that crime was just a big city problem. We all learned a hard lesson in 1981. 

   Rest in Peace, Kathy Kohm. 

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