Joy Kathleen Kathy Harmon was 22 and newly married when she disappeared from Salt Lake City in early March 1976. On the evening of March 2 she left the Better Days Bar on State Street alone around midnight for the short walk home; a coat she had been wearing was later found at her apartment. When she didn’t show up for work and could not be reached, her parents reported her missing.

Her body was found March 6 by a hiker in a remote area between Emigration and Parley’s Canyon, about 300 yards off a lookout point. She was partially clothed and the scene showed a violent struggle. An autopsy determined she had been beaten and died of strangulation. Cash and jewelry, including her wedding ring, were left behind, so robbery did not appear to be a motive.

Investigators cleared her husband, who was out of town for work, and examined multiple leads over the years. Ted Bundy was considered a person of interest; the man later arrested in the nearby Carolyn Sarkessian murder was ruled out in Harmon’s case after a 2004 DNA link in that separate investigation. A 2009 tip about a man with facial scratches also yielded no arrest. The homicide remains unsolved.

If anyone knew Kathy, saw her that night, or has information about a man with scratches in 1976, please come forward.