Brutal 1982 Cold Case Murder of Girl, 15, SOLVED! Man, 78, Sentenced

Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan

CrimeOnline and iHeartPodcasts

True Crime

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

15-year-old Karen Stitt was stabbed to death 100 yards from the bus stop where she was headed to catch a bus to take her back home. She suffered nearly 60 stab wounds, 18 to the heart, and there is blood evidence all over the crime scene. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the case that has so much evidence it is shocking how it went cold, and only got colder as the years went by. The murder happened in 1982 and it took until the last few months to get a conviction. Is justice delayed, justice denied?

Transcribe Highlights
00:00.65 Introduction

02:08.90 Grisly murder, blood saturated crime scene

04:59.07 Close to 380 episodes of Body Bags

09:42.63 Event occurred 100 yards away from bus stop

14:56.13 Killing took place behind a wall

20:03.83 Making castings of shoe imprints

25:28.74 Volume of blood can change color of clothing, more than 59 stab wounds

30:04.66 18 wounds to the heart

34:57.38 Boyfriend was suspect, but never charged, he didn't do it
39:29.99 DNA - Genetic Genealogy leads to suspect

41:01.64 Gary Ramirez pleads "no contest" sentenced to life with possible parole after 25 years

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an IHeart podcast.
0:06.9	Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Moore.
0:10.8	I love language.
0:12.3	I love studying language.
0:14.2	I guess, you know, people have come to me and they have asked me before, if you weren't doing what you do or what you did,
0:21.3	you know, what would you, what would you do otherwise? And it's like, you know, I got to tell you,
0:29.9	I used to think when I was a little boy, I thought I wanted to be an archaeologist, and then
0:33.9	got older and thought I wanted to be a historian.
0:39.3	And I suddenly came to my senses and realized that you couldn't make a living at it.
0:45.3	But in the last few years, I've gotten where I really, and I'm such a nerd,
0:52.3	I really enjoy watching linguistic videos on YouTube.
0:58.2	The reason I enjoy it, it combines history with language, and I can't speak a foreign language.
1:03.4	I know bits and pieces of Spanish, a little bit of French, not much.
1:08.1	But I love to study origins.
1:11.5	And today, I wanted to throw a word out to you that has been used for years.
1:17.4	As a matter of fact, the first time that it actually entered in to our language sphere was in the 12th century.
1:28.3	Actually, in Middle English, the word actually derives from an old English word.
1:37.3	And since then, it has been used to describe things that are horrific.
1:45.4	Things that most people would not expect to see, certainly.
1:50.4	It generally involves blood, and particularly, it involves death.
1:57.2	That word is grisly.
2:01.6	I have trouble pronouncing that word many times because I get it confused with grizzly.
	...

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