She seemed nice enough, my new roommate that I had been stuck with. Bubbly and outgoing. Pretty in a chunky, fresh clean faced girl next door way. Really, I was so NOT interested in sharing a room. I thought I was going to be lucky and escape the whole roommate ordeal when I moved into my new dorm. I had just switched out of a closet sized room that I shared, all of 1st semester, with a girl that was BEYOND polar opposite of me. Apparently though, having my own safe little haven wasn’t in my college deck of cards.
So, I had to make due.
Turned out, Kim was awesome. Her enthusiasm for life and laughter was contagious. She was a huge Dolly Parton fan and her dream was to sing at the Grand Ol’ Opry so she was training to be a country and western singer. And she could belt out those twangy country tunes with her strong voice which she entertained us with quite often.
We became very close, along with our suite-mate. The three of us hung out all the time. Hitting the Spaghetti Bender or Theo’s in Ypsilanti on Thursday nights, smoking AND inhaling, watching Breakfast Club and Bill and Ted over and over while yelling out the lines. Oh yeah, and doing our homework, but that kind of stuff we don’t like to talk about 😉
The year passed quickly. Soon it was time to say goodbye and go home for the summer. Laura and Kim were still going to room together that following fall. I was moving into an apartment off campus with some other girls, which was a BIG mistake but that is for another post.
I don’t remember if Kim went back to Eastern Michigan after the summer break. I only went back for a semester before I did something really stupid like…drop out.
All I remember is how cold it was. I was sitting on the living room floor with my friend Mark. We were watching television and from what I remember, we were playing War. A preview highlighting stories on the 11 o’clock news came on. One story was going to be of a local girl who had been murdered at a gas station in Redford. I froze.
I distinctly remember saying, out loud to Mark, that I hoped it wasn’t my roommate Kim.
Turns out, quite sickeningly, it was.
My friend and college roommate had been murdered while working the late shift at the same gas station she worked many weekends while in school. She would steal cartons of smokes to bring back for all of us. This very same gas station where, a couple of years earlier, a young girl had been violently gang raped in the bathroom.
It happened late at night. The murderer had been someone she had known because she had let, what I’m assuming was a man, into the locked gas station office.
A customer found her, half alive and bleeding in the parking lot. She died on the way to the hospital.
That was all I ever found out. My old college friends and I had our assumptions and our ideas about who did it. But, I never saw anything else on the news about it and have never turned up anything doing research on the internet.
But. I think about her often. I wonder sometimes if she would have lived out her dream and become the next Dolly Parton. It amazed and saddened me that someone could have hated such a kind, big hearted girl enough to stab her multiple times and leave her to die on the cold, hard concrete.
I don’t know why I felt the need to write about her. It was 20 years ago! Maybe to introduce you to my memory of her. Maybe to somehow, some way, let her know that I will always have fond memories of her. All I know is, this post took me days to write. Which is quite ironic considering my memories and feeling didn’t seem to translate all that well.
I just hope that someday soon, if they haven’t already caught the bastard that killed her, they do.
Oh Melissa, Oh my word.
Wow.
How horrific. I hope he’s been caught by the law or by karma.
xoxo
Wow, that is horrific. That poor girl.
That is just terrible. I feel for the family and friends the girl left behind. Have you ever googled her to see if the perps were caught?
That is such a senseless tragedy. I hope the killer is/was caught.
.-= Tara R.´s last blog ..Happy childhood memories =-.
I don’t think these feelings are the kind that can be captured with words. But you did a really good job.
.-= Jennifer´s last blog ..A day to remember =-.
Oh my gosh…that is horrifying. And I also hope that this person has been caught. Thanks for sharing your memories of her. That must have been hard for you to have your friend taken in that way. Wow. I don’t think I know what else to say.
.-= Mommy X´s last blog ..Mommy X Rocks the House =-.
Heartbreaking. It sounds ridiculously obvious to say, to actually verbalize it . . . but, I don’t get it? Murder. The fact that someone actually thinks he/she has the right to take it away from another person. While your story is 20 some odd years old, the senseless, incomprehensible behavior continues–and it only seems to have gotten more brazen, more common, more mind-numbingly terrifying.
I’m just so, so sorry. My heart hurts. I lost a friend to murder when I was in high school and it still makes me sick when I think about it. So sorry.
.-= Aunt Becky´s last blog ..Never. There. =-.
How tragic.
If you had ideas of who it might have been, it is not too late to call the police and tell them…her family deserves to have all leads followed…..
.-= The Retired One´s last blog ..The Gift that Keeps on Giving… =-.
Wow. Just wow. I have no words. Just plain awful!
This is so awful for all concerned. I do hope they caught the murderer. They say what goes around comes around. Nothing could come around hard enough for the murderer. I’m sorry such a bright light was extinguished in such an awful way.
.-= SurprisedMom´s last blog ..I’m laughing =-.
Melissa, Kim is my cousin that went to Heaven way before her time. To answer your questions, we all feel that she knew the person that she let in. They have never arrested anyone, to my knowledge for her murder. We think of her often, and wish she was here. One day we will see her again. I hope that whoever the violent idiot was, rots in Hell, but really that is too good of a place for that person, or persons, to spend eternity. I did enjoy reading your story. and seeing the comments written. I just had to let everyone know, that the “Sicko” is still on the streets.
Kim was my Aunt (my Dad’s sister), and this all happened when i was 5. For some reason I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately, and i saw this post while trying to find any links about her death online. Thank you for still having her in your thoughts. It means a lot to her family.
Kim was my husbands sister. She is dearly missed. It is good that others remember her too, she was a wonderful girl whose life touched the hearts of so many. It is difficult to sit in our living room, with her photo so close, and recall the past years that she never got to live. How different things could have been–our sons would know their aunt–and to know her was to love her.
The person who took her life is still unknown and uncaught, but we move on knowing that God’s timing is perfect and that we can live without the answers we crave, for now. Some day, not only will we know the truth, but we will see her again.
Thank you for caring about a regular girl–our girl–whom we love so much.
I grew up in the same neighborhood as Kim. I remeber her as a very sweat person. I remember hearing about her murder and who the suspect was. A few years later I was I ran into an old friend and we started talking about the old days. He had asked me if I remeber a boy who grew up in our neighborhood. I did. He lived down the street from me. He went on to tell me the boy committed suicide. Later that day I ran into another old friend. I had asked her if she remembered the boy who died. She said she did and knew why he had killed himself. The boy and another friend were heavy into drugs and were robbing gas stations and party stores. The boy and his friend murder and old couple who owned a party store on telegraph. The store used to be an arcade called Sparkys Machine. My friend went on to tell me how she knew about the unsolved murder. The next day I called the Redford police and spoke to a detective. The detective visited my friend many time to question her about the unsolved murder. My friend told me the detectives were more interested in getting her to bed than trying to solve the murder case. I tell you this story because the boy who died and his friend both knew Kim. I belive they are responsible for Kims murder. I went ot the police years ago with my suspicions. They seem uninterested. The original detectives are no longer with the police department. From what I have been told they were the “jokes” of the police department. i hope they find out who killed her. But it wont be at the hands of the Redford Police.