Katherine Barnum Missing Person Case

In February of 1979, the life of 24-year-old Katherine Sue Barnum took a mysterious and unsettling turn, leaving her family with decades of unanswered questions. She was last seen in Aurora, Colorado, where she resided in an apartment located near the 900 block of South Salem Street. At the time of her disappearance, a man named Randal Francis Arnold had been living with her for approximately two months. After she vanished, Arnold suggested that Katherine had left for California with an unknown man and had joined the Hare Krishna movement. However, Katherine was never seen or heard from again. Her sister, Bonnie Buckley, officially reported her as a missing person that same year, initiating a case that would remain cold for many years to come.

The investigation into Katherine's disappearance yielded few leads over the years, deepening the mystery surrounding her fate. A significant, though unconfirmed, piece of information emerged when a Drug Enforcement Administration informant came forward with a grim tip. This informant claimed that Katherine's body had been disposed of in a mineshaft somewhere in the vicinity of Central City, Colorado. Despite this lead, her remains have never been located, and the information has not been officially verified. The man she was living with at the time, Randal Francis Arnold, who had a criminal record for theft, is now deceased, taking with him any potential information he may have had about her last days.

The passage of time has not brought any definitive answers in the case of Katherine Barnum. The lack of concrete evidence and the death of a key individual have left her family and investigators with a puzzle that has endured for over four decades. While DNA samples from several of Katherine's family members, including her mother, sister, and brother, have been submitted and are being searched against national databases, there have been no matches to date. The official circumstances of her disappearance remain unknown, and her case is still considered an active and unsolved endangered missing person investigation. The theory put forth by her former roommate and the tip about the mineshaft represent the two main, yet unproven, scenarios in this long and sorrowful mystery.
Last Seen: Feb 19, 1979

Missing Person / NamUs

Katherine Barnum - Colorado Cold Case Files - Case Detail

Katherine Sue Barnum - The Charley Project

Missing Katherine Sue Barnum age 24 Aurora, Colorado ... - YouTube

Katherine Sue Barnum Missing Since 02/19/1979 Aurora ...