Kerry Patterson

Kerry’s story

Kerry Louise Patterson was 15 when she disappeared on the walk home in Fullerton on June 26, 1980. Her family had moved to the Sunny Hills neighborhood from Cerritos only about two weeks earlier. Six months later, a worker in the oil fields of Tonner Canyon near Brea found her skull. No one has ever been charged. Investigators say there is no DNA evidence in the case, so the answer will most likely come from someone who remembers something. [2][3]

Who Kerry was

Kerry had grown up in Cerritos and was still settling into a new house, a new street and a new school district when she vanished. That afternoon she met a boy from her old neighborhood and two of his friends at the Ice Cream Castle, a shop about a mile from home. According to the boys, she said she wanted to get home to wash her white Vans and might visit some local horse stables later. [4][5]

She was last seen wearing loose light-blue pants and white Vans, with either a red Hawaiian-print blouse or a white T-shirt. She carried a white macramé purse and wore a yellow pendant necklace that read “#1.” [1][2]

Family members have said she left $20 on her dresser and a partly packed weekend bag. That detail may help explain why her disappearance was first treated as a probable runaway. [7]

What happened

After the ice-cream shop, Kerry rode on the handlebars of one boy’s bicycle as far as Parks Junior High School in the 1700 block of Rosecrans Avenue. From there it was a short walk to her home in the 1700 block of Peacock Lane. Investigators believe she was heading home. She never arrived. [2][4]

The boys who gave her the ride have consistently told the same story, and investigators have said they are not suspects. [5]

For about six months there was no trace of her. Then, on Dec. 27, 1980, a worker in an oil field near Tonner Canyon and the 57 Freeway found a skull on flat ground about 50 feet from a derrick, at the bottom of an embankment. A femur, a tibia and part of an arm bone were found uphill within a day. Dental records identified Kerry. Her family reportedly learned of the find from a small newspaper item weeks later. Her cause of death has never been publicly determined. [1][5][7]

Where it happened

• Sunny Hills, Fullerton. The Pattersons’ new home was on Peacock Lane. Parks Junior High, where Kerry was last seen, sits on Rosecrans Avenue a few blocks away.
• The Ice Cream Castle, about a mile from home. The shop has since closed.
• Tonner Canyon, Brea. In 1980 this was remote, gated oil-field land on the county’s northern edge, roughly 10 to 12 miles from where Kerry was last seen.

Seven months before Kerry was found, the remains of a young man later identified as Lonnie Raymond Thomas were found in the same oil-field district. No source has suggested the two cases are connected, but the same remote district was used to leave a body twice in one year. [9]

What investigators have said

In January 2020, after a renewed newspaper appeal, a woman who lived in Kerry’s general area contacted investigators. She remembered a man who “stood out” on her street around the time Kerry disappeared and worked with a sketch artist to describe him. On Dec. 29, 2021, the Sheriff’s Department released the sketch and asked the public to help identify him. It described him as a person of interest who “may have valuable information,” not as a suspect. [2][4]

Investigator Bob Taft, who took over the case in 2019, has said the reported July sightings of Kerry “all proved to be untrue.” He has also said abductions of teenage girls were not unusual in Southern California at the time, and that a resolution will probably depend on someone coming forward. [3][4]

In 1994 a man already convicted of other killings claimed he had killed someone he believed was responsible for Kerry’s death. Investigators concluded he had pieced his story together from news coverage and do not consider it credible. [3][8]

Where accounts differ

• The date. The Sheriff’s Department’s case page says the boys met Kerry on June 27. Its own 2021 release, and all other accounts, say she disappeared on June 26. [1][2]
• The errand. The case page says she walked to “a nearby store to buy candy and ice cream.” Other accounts describe a planned meeting at the Ice Cream Castle about a mile away. [1][4]
• How many boys. The case page and the 2019 Register say three boys. Some later retellings describe one friend or two boys.
• The later sightings. The case page still lists a July 1 bowling-alley sighting and a July 3 encounter in Cerritos, in which a witness said Kerry gave him no address and he gave her $8. The current investigator says such sightings proved untrue. [1][4]
• The bones. Accounts differ on which bones were found: leg bones, arm bones, or both. [1][3][4]

Open questions

• Who is the man in the 2021 sketch, and what did he see?
• What route did Kerry take on the last few blocks from Parks Junior High?
• How did she come to be in a gated oil field 10 or more miles away?
• Which, if any, of the July 1980 sightings was examined at the time, and how were they ruled out?

What you can do

• Look at the sketch. If you lived around Sunny Hills or Parks Junior High in 1980 and recognize the man, contact the cold case team.
• Think back to summer 1980. Did you work at or visit the Ice Cream Castle, a nearby stable, or the Brea oil fields? Did you see a car or person that seemed out of place?
• Research: the Fullerton Daily News Tribune and the Register for late June to mid-July 1980 and late December 1980 may hold the earliest descriptions and resolve the June 26/27 question. City directories can pinpoint the Ice Cream Castle’s location.
• Listen: the family-supported page links several podcast interviews with Kerry’s relatives and the investigator. [6]