Linda Katherine Tilley was a 22-year-old senior at the University of Texas in Austin when she died on September 5, 1981. She was found drowned in the swimming pool at her apartment complex, fully clothed. The Travis County Medical Examiner initially ruled the death an accidental drowning; the autopsy noted abrasions on her face and neck and a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit for driving, and no evidence of sexual assault was reported.

In 1982 Coral Eugene Watts, who had fled Detroit for Houston, confessed to murdering Tilley. Watts said he encountered Tilley returning from a date, attacked her outside her apartment, and that during their struggle they fell into the pool where he held her underwater until she drowned. Authorities later treated Tilley’s death as one of the killings Watts admitted to; Watts received immunity in exchange for confessions to multiple murders and was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for other killings.

Does anyone have information about Tilley’s final movements that night or recollections of the apartment complex area in Austin on September 5, 1981?