Family seeks killer in 11-year-old case

Jul 08, 2008 (The Olathe News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- PNRA | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Lori Knight ate lunch Thursday at a table outside Panera Bread Company.

She flew in from Arizona the day before and had done several errands that morning.

Her last visit to Kansas was 10 years ago, and a lot had changed during that time.

The table she sat at was installed three years ago when the restaurant opened near the shopping center with Home Depot and Target.

"So much is different," she said.

She's different.

She experienced some dark moments, faced several demons during that time. Her days have become brighter in recent years, but a chapter of her life remains unwritten.

The large tattoo on her slightly tanned left shoulder is a symbol, a reminder of the life-altering event that affected her and her family. It also is a symbol of love and of hope. The tattooed heart filled with a purple rose has two dates inscribed underneath: 2-7-81 to 12-7-96. The purpose of her return to Kansas is tied to the name tattooed in black cursive letters above the heart: Tawnya.

"She was my baby," she said. "She was my only daughter."

Tawnya never returned home Dec. 7, 1996, after attending an impromptu teen gathering at a friend's house in Spring Hill. The Spring Hill High School freshman was 15 and from all accounts a typical teenager. She played volleyball and basketball and was a cheerleader. There was no indication that she would run away from home.

Tawnya's father, Frank, filed a missing person's report Dec. 8, 1996, with the Spring Hill Police Department after Tawnya's family made telephone calls that night trying to locate her.

The police considered her a runaway at first. Spring Hill is a small town with a small police department, and it wasn't unusual for a teenager to run away from home.

But Frank wasn't satisfied with the response. The family knew she wasn't a runaway.

"She was a finicky girl," Lori Knight said.

She cared about her attire and appearance.

"For a teenage girl who is very particular about how they look, you don't leave the house without your purse and makeup," her mother said.

Tawnya also had a small amount of savings and would have taken it with her if she had run away. Frank Knight called the media, and the ensuing media blitz pressured the Police Department to ask the Johnson County Sheriff's Department for help.

Lori Knight had moved Tawnya and her two older brothers, Wayne and Chris, to Arizona in 1983, after separating from Frank. Tawnya had a normal life -- attended school, had sleepovers and talked on the phone with friends about that day's events. She moved back to Kansas to live with her father, stepmother and stepsister in 1994. Lori Knight thought the move was good for Tawnya and her father.

Like most teenagers, Tawnya had the typical teen angst and some difficulty adjusting to an untraditional family life but for the most part was happy, Lori Knight said.

On Dec. 7, 1996, Tawnya had gone to Olathe with two girlfriends. The girls dropped her off later that day at the house in Spring Hill where teens had impromptu gatherings when there wasn't much going on. She walked out the house later that night and never was heard from again.

"I think Tawnya would have talked to her dad if there was trouble," Lori Knight said.

"I know she would have called us (in Arizona) if she was having problems."

After receiving word that Tawnya was missing, Lori Knight stayed in Arizona in case Tawnya came to her door. She had remarried and lived with her husband, two stepdaughters and two boys.

There had been a glimmer of hope when an uncle said he had received a phone call from Tawnya on Dec. 12. Hope faded when investigators learned the uncle fabricated the story in an effort to ease the family's worries. All it did, Lori Knight said, is cause more grief for the family and wasted investigators' time.

As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, the family knew something was wrong.

Frank had filed information with the Missing Children's Network and continued to talk with the media and investigators in an effort to find his daughter. Those efforts cultivated few results, and within months the family would learn that Tawnya hadn't run away -- she hadn't even left Spring Hill.

On June 7, 1997, two boys working on their family's farm found a human skull near a hedgerow adjacent to the Spring Hill Cemetery. Investigators later found more human remains and clothing in the field.

Detective Scott Atwell with Johnson County Sheriff's Department has worked the case since it was given to him Dec. 12, 1996.

"I never did suspect she was a missing person," he said.

Things didn't add up for him. She was a young girl on the road without her belongings or money and had made no contact with her family.

"It never made since to me," Atwell said.

Investigators faced several obstacles when Tawnya was reported missing. The woman whose home Tawnya had visited that night was the last one to see her alive.

It's likely that Tawnya walked toward home because the two girlfriends were supposed to pick her up but got involved with some other teens in Olathe and never came back, Atwell said.

"Both of them, understandable, wish they had picked her up," he said.

Teens at the gathering provided little information to help investigators build a case. The uncle's story "muddied" the investigation, Atwell said, as did truckers calling in saying they had seen Tawnya in a variety of states.

"They had put information about Tawnya in trucker magazines, so we had calls from all over," Atwell said.

Truckers said they had given Tawnya a ride in places like Pennsylvania and Florida. All of the locations were inconsistent with the locations Tawnya was familiar with.

Atwell was sure Tawnya was not a missing person, but without a body and no indication she was dead, he had to follow up on some of the information.

The case didn't become less complex when Tawnya's body was found. Nature had made it difficult to collect evidence that could lead to her killer. Her body had "extreme decompositional changes," and animals had caused "extensive damage to her remains," according to the autopsy report.

"Anytime you have a biological substance outdoors for six months, it's going to make it more difficult," Atwell said.

They identified Tawnya through dental records, but investigators were able to gather some facts about her death. Although Atwell won't say exactly how she died -- detectives withheld the information for investigative purposes -- all the evidence points to a homicidal death. From the evidence at the scene, investigators believe Tawnya's body was dumped in the field.

Atwell said he's interested in a couple of suspects.

"I got a person who I personally think is involved, but I don't have enough to move forward," he said.

"I'm still focused on one, if not two, friends of Tawnya's," he added.

Atwell and his partner continue to review the case file, along with a couple of other cold cases, but that one piece of information, that one person who knows the truth is still out there.

Tawnya's death took a toll on Lori Knight.

"(I was) working full time at one job, bartending on weekends," she said. "If I wasn't at one of those places, I was drinking pretty heavily. I went into depression. It's like your whole world falls apart. You hit rock bottom."

Lori Knight left her husband a year after Tawnya was buried because "he said, 'Get over it, you have two girls right here.' He meant his daughters."

It was the first Christmas after Tawnya's body was found. The lack of support, the overwhelming grief, her life went "downhill."

"Drinking, I tell you what, that don't solve nothing," she said.

She sobered up to the same problems, the same feeling of loss and injustice.

"You got to face reality," she said. "You got, too."

Lori Knight blamed herself. She blamed the circumstances. She thought if she had kept Tawnya in Arizona or kept closer tabs on her in Kansas, her daughter would still be alive.

She realized that none of it -- her drinking, her grief, her rationale -- would bring Tawnya back, and she had to face reality. She began to take medication for depression. She cut back on drinking and finally quit -- not only for herself but for her grandchildren. She also wanted to think clearly and be there to help write that final chapter for Tawnya.

"I want a final chapter," she said. "I want it to be closed."

That's why her trip to Kansas was more of a "mission of justice" than a visit.

"It's been 11 years, and we haven't given up yet. I may be in Arizona but I won't give up," she said.

One of Lori Knight's errands last Thursday morning was to visit Tawnya's grave in Wellsville. She's buried near her grandfather; her grandmother purchased the gravesite when Tawnya's body was found.

Lori Knight placed a Dallas Cowboys teddy bear by the headstone (Tawnya was a Cowboys fan). She changed the flowers and placed a new wreath to one side.

She wanted to let Tawnya know she hasn't forgotten -- "to tell her I haven't given up and I'm back here and I'm going to raise some hell."

She also talked about the what-ifs.

"I wondered what she would be doing now," she said. "I wonder what her wedding was like. She would have kids now. I least I think she would."

Tawnya would have been 27 this year.

"Whoever did it, if it was an accident, I could probably forgive them," she said. "But if it wasn't, I don't know. The kids she knew then now have kids of their own. If they know something, have the decency to tell someone. They owe that much to her. What if it was one of their kids?"

Lori Knight feels good about what the investigators are doing, but she still wants justice. And she knows there is someone who knows what happened to Tawnya or has information that could lead investigators to the person who does know.

Tawnya's brother Chris, 31, has established two Web sites, tawnyaknight.org and tawnyaknight.com.

The family hopes the sites will get people interested in the case and that someone would provide information that will lead to Tawnya's killer.

Anyone with information about Tawnya's death can leave it anonymously either on the Web sites or by calling the sheriff's investigation unit at 913-791-5561 or the Tips Hotline, 816-474-TIPS.

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