Morna Jean Brennen was 22 when she disappeared after a night out in Maplewood, Minnesota. On the evening of November 7, 1986, she and a friend left M.T. Pockets; the friend briefly went back inside and found Morna gone a few minutes later. Her purse was found near a wooded trail the same day, prompting a search that turned up bloody bedding in garbage bags. Two weeks after she vanished, dismembered remains were discovered in sacks through the woods and an autopsy found her throat had been slashed.

Investigators identified three men who had shown interest in the women at the bar that night, and concentrated on Ricky Karate Guy Kiger because of a violent history and reports that he was enraged after Morna rejected him. The account states Kiger is believed to have assaulted Morna in his truck, slit her throat, kept her body in his car and at his workplace, then dismembered her; evidence recovered in his apartment led to an arrest in December.