Essie Louise Buck, 39, was found dead and nude in a Poway field on May 7, 1971. A La Mesa resident and mother, she was discovered by a child. The coroner noted an unusually high level of alcohol in her blood and investigators at the time did not determine a definitive cause of death.

In November 1980 Carroll Edward Cole—who had been arrested in Dallas and later convicted of multiple murders—confessed to killing Buck. He said he met her in a tavern in San Diego, strangled her in his car, drove with her body in the trunk, and abandoned her in the Poway field. San Diego police, however, continued to cite the original investigation and the coroner’s findings and did not officially rule the death a homicide.

Cole was later convicted of five murders in Texas and Nevada and was executed in Nevada on December 6, 1985. Does anyone have memories of Essie, the Poway area in 1971, or information that could clarify what happened that spring?