In the early summer of 1981, the life of a spirited teenager from southeastern Michigan became a haunting and unresolved mystery. Kim Marie Larrow, a 15-year-old white female, was known for her rebellious streak, a love for laughter, and a caring heart. Described as spunky, she had a history of running away and hitchhiking, once traveling with a friend as far as Florida. Despite this wanderlust, her family maintained that she would always make contact to let them know she was safe. Just a week before she vanished, Kim had moved from her father's home on Eggert Road in Dundee to live with her mother on Beaufort Drive in Canton, Michigan. Much of her extended family lived in the Ida area, where she often spent weekends visiting her aunt.
On the evening of Monday, June 8, 1981, Kim was at Stroh's Ice Cream Parlor, located near Sheldon and Ann Arbor roads in Canton, where her best friend worked. The two girls made plans to meet up later that night at Haggerty Field in the sprawling Hines Park. Kim, however, never arrived. In the days that followed, an immediate alarm was not raised. Because of her past habit of disappearing for days at a time, she was not reported missing for several days. The initial stages of the investigation were further hampered, according to police, because Kim's mother was uncooperative. As the silence from Kim stretched from days into weeks, her loved ones grew certain that this was not another runaway episode; the call they always expected never came.
The investigation into Kim's disappearance was a difficult one for the Canton Police Department from the start. With no crime scene, no body, and the fact that Kim had no driver's license or Social Security number, there were few leads to follow. Her father, Arnold Larrow, eventually hired a private investigator to aid in the search for his daughter. For decades, the case grew cold, leaving a void of unanswered questions for her family. Kim's father passed away in 2005 without ever learning what happened to her. Her brother, Brandon Headley, later spoke about the painful family dynamics, stating, “Kim was a forgotten child by an extremely selfish family. We all should have been there more for you, and I'll never forgive myself, ever.”
A significant development finally came in 2018 when authorities publicly identified a possible suspect: Arthur Ream. Ream was a convicted sexual assailant already serving a life sentence for the 1986 murder of 13-year-old Cindy Zarzycki, his son's girlfriend. After his conviction in that case, Ream had led authorities to Cindy's body in a shallow grave in a wooded area in Macomb Township, about 30 miles from Detroit. While incarcerated, Ream reportedly boasted to fellow inmates that he was a serial killer with four to six victims. This information, combined with other evidence, led investigators to believe Ream might be responsible for Kim's disappearance and those of several other young girls from the area between 1970 and 1982.
This new lead prompted a multi-agency search in May 2018 of the same property where Cindy Zarzycki's remains had been found a decade earlier. The FBI and local law enforcement excavated the site, hoping to find the remains of Kim or other missing girls. Despite being "cautiously optimistic" after recovering an unspecified item, the week-long search concluded without the discovery of any human remains. Arthur Ream was never charged in connection with Kim Larrow's case. He consistently denied involvement in other disappearances, though he was known for playing mind games with investigators.
Arthur Ream died of cancer in prison in August 2024, taking any secrets he may have had about Kim Larrow's fate to his grave. As of October 2024, her case remains an active but unsolved endangered missing person investigation. Her family has not given up hope of one day finding answers and bringing her home. Anyone with information about the disappearance of Kim Marie Larrow is asked to contact the Canton Police Department at 734-394-5400 or the FBI at 313-965-2323.
