4.2 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2022
⏱️ 43 minutes
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When a young mother is murdered in her Michigan home, the brutality of the crime is unprecedented in her small community. An enduring mystery remains unsolved despite a wealth of evidence in this episode of Last Seen Alive.
MAY 2023 UPDATE: On April 30, 2023, investigators arrested 53-year-old Robert Odell Waters of Beaufort, South Carolina in relation to the brutal 1988 murder of young mother Cathy Swartz. Waters was charged with Open Murder, and taken into custody. A week later, on May 6th, 2023, he was found deceased in his jail cell. For information on the investigation and how Waters was identified as a suspect, see our update episode which aired on May 4th, 2023.
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https://lastseenalivepodcast.com/2022/02/14/unsolved-homicide-cathy-swartz/
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0:00.0 | When a young mother is murdered in her Michigan home, the brutality of the crime is unprecedented in her small community. |
0:08.1 | An enduring mystery remains unsolved despite a wealth of evidence in this episode of Last Seen Alive. |
0:35.8 | Music Thanks for listening to Last Seen Alive. |
0:41.5 | I'm your host, Leah, crime analyst by day and true crime storyteller by night. |
0:43.0 | I'm your host, Scott. |
0:47.9 | Kathy Swartz was last seen alive on December 2nd, 1988. |
0:54.9 | Only 19 years old at the time, she lived in the southernmost part of the state of Michigan in a town called Three Rivers. With a population of about 7,500 people at the time, it was the kind of place where |
1:01.8 | murder was and still is a rarity. According to FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics, Three Rivers |
1:09.1 | averages less than one homicide per year. In 1988, |
1:13.6 | Kathy's death was the sole homicide. But her murder wasn't shocking simply because of the rarity of such a |
1:20.1 | crime. Rather, its shock value was derived primarily from its brutality and its senselessness. |
1:27.0 | It was the kind of crime that could generate true crime documentaries, |
1:30.9 | although it hasn't, or even fit into the plot of a horror movie. |
1:35.3 | To compound the tragedy, it's likely that Kathy was killed by someone she knew, |
1:40.0 | and that person remains unidentified and very possibly at large, even now. |
1:46.2 | In the wake of Kathy's death, Three Rivers was left with the frightening knowledge that someone |
1:51.0 | with the capacity for committing such violence was likely still living among them, and perhaps they |
1:57.3 | still are. Kathy's last day of life began as an ordinary one. She planned to spend the |
2:03.7 | day at home caring for her nine-month-old daughter, Courtney, and do laundry while her boyfriend was at work. |
2:10.0 | She was excited about her daughter's first Christmas and had already put up a tree in the living room |
2:14.4 | and draped it in silver tinsel. There were even wrapped gifts under it already. |
2:19.4 | Kathy's boyfriend, who, oddly, has never been identified by name in any of the reporting on this case, |
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