Case Details

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This person was missing Missing Since 08/18/1961

Missing Since:

Missing Since 08/18/1961

Missing From:

Missing From Torrance, California

Classification:

Classification Non-Family Abduction

Gender:

Female

Race:

Race White

Date of Birth:

Date of Birth 07/25/1950 (74)

Age:

Age 11 years old

Height and Weight:

Height and Weight 4’11, 55 pounds

Clothing/Jewelry Description:

Clothing/Jewelry Description Royal blue shorts with a white printed band on the bottom, a white sleeveless blouse, a white knit cardigan sweater, blue and white socks, blue rubber sandals, a pearl necklace with a clear plastic pendant containing a mustard seed, and a new yellow Hanover watch.

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Karen’s hair was cut short with bangs at the time of her disappearance. She has freckles across the bridge of her nose and a brown-colored birthmark in the middle of her forehead half an inch below her hairline. Karen’s teeth are uneven and the right eyetooth protrudes.

Details of Disappearance:

On August 18, 1961, eight-year-old Karen disappeared in Torrance, California. She’d been at a summer crafts class and was seen leaving at 5:30 pm with two toy wagons she’d made. A classmate walked part of the way home with her, but Karen never arrived.

A man was briefly arrested, but released due to lack of evidence. The following year, another young girl, Dorothy Brown, was murdered nearby. Both girls were blonde, around the same age, and disappeared at a similar time. Police suspected a connection.

Authorities later believed Mack Ray Edwards, a highway construction worker, was responsible for both girls’ cases, along with several other unsolved disappearances and murders of children in California. Edwards confessed to killing three children and was sentenced to death in 1970, but he died by suicide the following year. He claimed to have buried some victims, but the bodies were never found. Investigators think he might have buried them under the highways he helped build.

Karen’s case was reopened in 2007 to search for Edwards’s victims, but there was no breakthrough. The circumstances suggest Karen was a victim of foul play.

Agency:

Los Angeles Police Department 213-485-5381

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