The Unsolved Mystery of Kathy Hobbs

Kathy Hobbs was a 16-year-old girl who loved reading, writing and drawing. She had a bright future ahead of her, until she vanished on the night of 23 July 1987. Her disappearance and murder remain unsolved to this day, despite several leads and suspects.

Kathy lived with her mother and stepfather in Las Vegas, Nevada. She had recently graduated from high school and was planning to attend college in California. She was also looking forward to celebrating her 17th birthday on 31 July.

On the evening of 23 July, Kathy went to a nearby grocery store to buy a magazine. She left her home around 8:30 pm and walked along Boulder Highway, a busy road with many shops and restaurants. She was wearing a pink T-shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers. She had long blonde hair and blue eyes.

She never made it back home.

Her mother, Julia Hobbs, became worried when Kathy did not return by 10 pm. She called the police and reported her missing. She also contacted Kathy's friends and relatives, but no one had seen or heard from her.

The next day, a horrifying discovery was made. A man walking his dog found Kathy's body in a desert area near Lake Mead, about 15 miles from her home. She had been beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted. Her clothes were torn and her sneakers were missing.

The police launched a massive investigation into Kathy's murder. They interviewed hundreds of people, collected evidence from the crime scene and searched for the missing sneakers. They also checked the surveillance cameras from the grocery store and the nearby businesses, but they could not find any trace of Kathy or her killer.

The case soon attracted media attention and public outrage. Kathy's family and friends held vigils and rallies, demanding justice for her. They also offered a reward of $10,000 for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderer.

Over the years, several suspects emerged in the case. One of them was Michael Lee Lockhart, a serial killer who was executed in Texas in 1997 for another murder. He had confessed to killing several women in different states, including Nevada. However, he never mentioned Kathy by name and there was no physical evidence linking him to her murder.

Another suspect was David Middleton, a former police officer who was convicted of killing two women in Nevada in 1995. He had also worked as a security guard at a casino near Kathy's home and had access to a car similar to the one seen near the crime scene. However, he denied any involvement in Kathy's murder and there was no DNA match between him and the evidence.

A third suspect was Gerald Gallego, a notorious serial killer who was sentenced to death in California and Nevada for killing 10 young women with his wife Charlene in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He had also lived in Las Vegas at the time of Kathy's murder and had a history of targeting blonde girls. However, he died of cancer in prison in 2002 before he could be questioned about Kathy's case.

Hobbs had a dark gift: visions of her own demise at the age of 16. These haunted her since childhood and made her a prisoner in her own home. She hoped to be free of the dreadful prophecy on her sixteenth birthday, as her loved ones later revealed. But fate was cruel: a mere three months afterwards, she was brutally killed by a blow to the head on her way back from a bookshop.

According to some sources, Hobbs had written a poem about her death and had also drawn a picture of a girl lying in a pool of blood. She also told her friends that she had a dream of being killed by a man with a moustache and a baseball cap. However, none of these clues helped to identify or catch her killer, who remains unknown to this day.

Kathy Hobbs was a beautiful, talented, and innocent girl who deserved a long and happy life. She was taken away too soon by a cruel and cowardly killer who has not been caught yet. Her story is one of the most tragic and mysterious cases in Nevada's history.