Pod Insights Dark Downeast The Murders of Kathy Perry and Rhonda Travers (Rhode Island) About this episode In a nine-month span between 1986 and 1987, two women were found brutally slain in the same Rhode Island city. Investigators believed that the first was abducted from the side of the road on her way home from work in the middle of the night, while the second appeared to get into an unknown vehicle voluntarily. Both were found a few miles away from the locations they were last seen alive, cruelly discarded in industrial areas.
Decades later, thanks to creative contemporary investigative strategies led by a bullish cold case detective, the cases were reenergized, producing new leads, new evidence, and a new suspect who had been right under the noses of law enforcement all along.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Kylie Low? Every case starts somewhere. A small town, a missing persons report, a family asking the same questions over and over. But sometimes, a story reaches beyond its own community. Its impact extends further, calling for more attention, more conversation, and a wider audience. That's what Crime Junkie does every Monday. Ashley Flowers and Brett Preawat cover the cases you can't stop thinking about, from unsolved murders to missing people to investigations that still need answers. Because every new person who hears the story is another chance to uncover the truth. Listen to Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:43 Kylie Low? In a nine-month span between 1986 and 1987, two women were found brutally slain in the same Rhode Island city. Investigators believed that the first was abducted from the side of the road on her way home from work in the middle of the night, while the second appeared to get into an unknown vehicle voluntarily. Both were found a few miles away from the locations where they were last seen alive, cruelly discarded in industrial areas. Decades later, thanks to creative, contemporary investigative strategies led by a bullish cold case detective, the cases were re-energized, producing new leads, new evidence, and a new suspect who had been right under the noses
1:26 Kylie Low? of law enforcement all along. I'm Kylie Low, and these are the cases of Kathy Perry and Rhonda Travers on Dark Down East.
1:47 Kylie Low? It was around 5:30 in the evening on September 14, 1986, and 20-year-old Kathy Perry was on her way to work at Ultra Finishers, a bookbinding company in Warwick, Rhode Island. Her 1979 Mercury Capri wasn't the most reliable of vehicles, but it seemed to be cooperating for her commute that night. When Cathy happened to pass her mother Marilyn on the drive-through town, they exchanged waves with each other from behind their steering wheels. Kathy's shift was 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM, which allowed her to attend cosmetology school during the day. She had logged enough hours in a hairstylist program at the school to start working in a salon while she finished up her coursework. According to reporting by Karen Newell Young and Jeff LH
2:32 Kylie Low? for the Providence Journal, Kathy was supposed to start her new job at a salon in Coventry that same week. Kathy's boyfriend was a guy named Bruce, whose father owned Ultra Finishers. And Bruce also worked at the company with Kathy, and coworkers said that when Kathy and Bruce weren't getting along, it would reflect in her demeanor at work. Things must have been good between them that day, though, because Kathy was happy, even joking around to get through the late night hours until she clocked out around 2:15 AM. As she made her way home to West Warwick, which was a separate municipality from Warwick, Kathy stopped into a gas station. She chatted with the clerk there, a girl she knew from high school.
3:16 Kylie Low? She said how tired she was and that she had to get up early the next morning for class. Kathy was alone at the time and did not appear to be in distress. She drove away from the gas station, heading south on Bald Hill Road and in the direction of home on East Greenwich Avenue. Here is retired Warwick police Detective Sergeant Fred Pierce.
3:38 Speaker 01 About two hours later, Warwick Police got a call for a car that's been on Route 2 South. And it's only a couple of miles from where Kathy lives. And it's on the same direct route that she would travel if she went home. The car's just sitting there on the side of the road. And it's weird because it's on an angle, too, where the back end of the car is actually sitting in the travel portion of the road. The car's running, the lights are on, the heat is on. Her purse with $107 is sitting on the passenger seat. But Kathy's gone. And that, obviously Kathy's car, she's gone. Who, where is she? Nobody knows where she is.
4:18 Kylie Low? The car was found right out front of the Kent County courthouse at 222 Quaker Lane. The patrolman checked the Rhode Island registration records and traced the car to Kathy Perry. And so, an officer was sent to Kathy's house, only about two miles away from the location of the car. Kathy's mother Marilyn was home when the officer knocked on the door. Marilyn checked Kathy's room and, for good measure, searched the rest of the house, but Kathy wasn't there. Marilyn wondered if maybe Kathy went out with her boyfriend Bruce after work, but couldn't be sure where her daughter was at that point. Police asked Marilyn to come to the scene of the abandoned vehicle, and she confirmed it belonged to her daughter. It was already obvious that something wasn't right.
5:03 Kylie Low? Marilyn filed a missing persons report, and police put out an attempt to locate. Kathy's car was then impounded and processed for evidence.
5:11 Speaker 01 One of the things that the officer at the scene noticed was that there's a beer can, there's a beer can in front of Kathy's car. And according to his report, it's fresh. It hasn't been there for a very long, long period of time.
5:26 Kylie Low? The fresh can of Budweiser was collected and tagged as evidence as the search for Kathy began. The effort was brief. Around 8:00 a.m. that same morning, a truck driver hauling debris from a local construction site was headed to a secluded spot off Tellmore Road, right at the East Greenwich Town Line.
5:46 Speaker 01 As the truck driver goes up this path, he sees the body of Kathy Perry.
5:52 Kylie Low? Kathy Perry's remains were discovered down a roughly 250-foot-long, one-lane gravel road that ended in a clearing. Dusty pebbles and larger boulders dotted the area that had likely been hauled in from various construction sites. Piles of dirt and debris as tall as a person formed a circle around the open clearing. But from the truck driver's vantage point, there was no missing the woman's body. She was lying face up at the bottom of a pile of dirt, which was splattered with blood. The driver quickly left the scene to find a phone at a nearby business and asked the employees there to call 911. The way Sergeant Pierce explained it, law enforcement already assumed that the deceased woman was Kathy Perry,
6:36 Kylie Low? based on all the circumstances they were dealing with at the time. Kathy was missing. Her vehicle was abandoned on the side of the street. And now there was a deceased woman found less than two miles away. The deputy chief of the West Warwick Police Department, who knew Kathy's family, wanted to positively identify the remains before delivering any news to Kathy's mother. However, the condition of the victim made visual identification impossible. A positive ID came later. The victim was, in fact, Kathy Perry.
7:11 Speaker 01 She was so badly beaten that he didn't even recognize her. She had multiple fractures. She was actually strangled at some point.
7:20 Kylie Low? Early newspaper reports I've found don't mention strangulation. Publicly available sources indicate that Kathy died of multiple head injuries.
7:30 Speaker 01 She was found naked, and she was just wearing her socks.
7:36 Kylie Low? She also had a necklace with a diamond pendant around her neck. When Kathy left work the night before, she was wearing a pink and white blouse. That was found near her body.
7:47 Speaker 01 But the rest of her clothing was found like 25 feet away. Her pants, her sneakers, everything was found. And the only thing that was splattered with her blood was the blouse and her socks. All the other clothing didn't have any blood on it.
8:06 Kylie Low? Based partly on the fact that Kathy was found nude, investigators believed that Kathy had been sexually assaulted. Testing showed that Kathy may have had sexual contact with a male within 72 hours of her death. But the medical examiner's findings regarding possible sexual assault were inconclusive. Kathy's death was ruled a homicide. A brutal, violent homicide. Early reporting in the Providence Journal indicated that her skull may have been crushed with a boulder, perhaps found at the scene.
8:39 Kylie Low? What the hell happened after Kathy Perry left work that night? Between the six hours after she clocked out and before her body was found in a secluded dirt pit? To begin to answer that question, Warwick Police first aimed to answer the several others having to do with Kathy's car. Why was it pulled over on the side of the street, somewhat haphazardly with the back end still in the travel lane? Did someone run Kathy off the road, force her to stop? Or did she experience car trouble? According to reports from the original investigation that Sergeant Pierce has reviewed, Kathy's mother Marilyn told the on-scene patrol supervisor Sergeant Dennis Morley that Kathy's car was
9:22 Kylie Low? having power steering issues and it may have recently been leaking fluid. Sergeant Morley tried the steering wheel himself, and sure enough, it was, quote, "extremely difficult to move," end quote. So, car trouble. Whoever killed Kathy had found her in a vulnerable state on the side of the road in the middle of the night, likely all by happenstance. The very next night, a Warwick detective coordinated a roadblock near the location of Kathy's car around the same time she would have been driving past and pulled over at that spot. The goal was to talk to people who routinely traveled that route.
10:01 Speaker 01 One of the things that they learned was that a lot of the people traveling the roadway that time in the morning worked at a place called La Croix Catering, which makes sense that early in the morning. And they actually, they catered, you know, obviously to businesses. And wouldn't you know, they catered to businesses on Telmore Road where Kathy was found. They also catered to Ultra Finishes where Kathy worked.
10:26 Kylie Low? As police stopped drivers at the roadblock, they asked if anyone saw Kathy or her car.
10:32 Speaker 01 And a lot of them did. And many of them did see Kathy's car on the side. One lady actually gave Kathy's license plate. And one person in particular, a guy named Thomas, he goes by, he actually sees a second car with Kathy. He sees Kathy talking outside of her car with this person. He describes him as having long hair and he's drinking from the beer can. He describes the car that's parked in front of her, her car's in the back, his car's in the front. It's a green car, a large older model green car.
11:05 Kylie Low? Hypnosis was a common investigative technique back in this era. Thomas agreed to be hypnotized to see if he could recall any other details about this person and the green car.
11:25 Kylie Low? I've been trying to get a head start on holiday shopping this year, and I've realized that some of the best gifts are just really nice versions of things people already use every day, which is why I always turn to my BFF, Quince. I got my daughter the cutest lightweight puffer jacket, which is perfect for layering during these colder months, and don't worry, she doesn't know how to find the podcast app yet, so she won't hear this and spoil her gift. As a New Englander, high-quality outerwear is key, but I can't justify paying triple digits for a jacket that'll fit her for, like, two snowstorms. Quince is high-quality, everyday essentials, not high prices, because they work directly with factories and cut out the middleman.
12:06 Kylie Low? I know you can find what you're looking for from Quince: cashmere sweaters, organic cotton basics, bedding, luggage, a gift for everyone, and hey, pal, you deserve to treat yourself too. Gold hoop earrings? Add to cart. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Dark Down East. It's the best way to support the show.
12:39 Speaker 02 You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?
12:44 Speaker 03 Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?
12:48 Speaker 02 I'm Eliza Orlands, career public defender.
12:50 Speaker 03 And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.
12:53 Speaker 02 And on our brand-new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.
13:00 Speaker 03 No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.
13:16 Kylie Low? Sergeant Pierce is writing a book about Kathy and Rhonda's cases. He shared portions of his manuscript with me, including excerpts from reports filed by Warwick PD Captain Stanley Mitchell about the hypnosis session with the witness, Thomas. From that report, quote, "Thomas was then asked to review his recall in slow motion and to relate the same. As he did this, he related that he was coming down the hill, observed a smaller, light-colored car parked in front, and it had its four ways on. He said that there were three male subjects to the rear of this vehicle, and they seemed to be partying a little bit. He said that he believed that he recalled something on the ground, glass or something
14:01 Kylie Low? like that. He said that one of the guys was holding a soda can or something," end quote. If what Thomas recalled under hypnosis was true, then it's possible that he saw Kathy with the person who abducted and killed her. If one of the people Thomas believes he saw was truly holding a can as he recalled under hypnosis, it's possible it wasn't a soda can, but a beer can, like the one found on the ground in front of Kathy's car, for example. Thomas looked through a book of car photos and identified a few that could have been the car he saw near Kathy's that night. It was a starting point, at least, but it didn't narrow down a suspect pool by any means.
14:44 Kylie Low? Based on the fact that Kathy's purse with more than $100 in cash was found untouched in her car, and her diamond necklace was still clasped around her neck when her body was found, investigators ruled out robbery as a motive. Kathy's lifestyle and social circle didn't suggest she was wrapped up in anything that might put her in harm's way, but there was something among her possessions that raised several questions. A license plate number scrawled on a piece of paper tucked inside her purse. It came back registered to a green 1974 Chevrolet Malibu, and it had only been registered for three months before Kathy was killed. Meaning that in the three months before she was presumably abducted from the side
15:29 Kylie Low? of the road and brutally murdered, Kathy wrote down a license plate number for reasons unknown. The license plate traced back to a green car. Thomas, the witness, said that he saw a green car pulled over in the front of Kathy's car on the night she was murdered. Sergeant Pierce reviewed the original records from Kathy's case, and it does not appear that detectives actually spoke to the man who owned the car in 1986. But a friend of the car's owner said that he was on active duty with the Navy in Chicago at the time. It seems like the license plate lead was dismissed after that. Police had other people to look into, though, including those closest to Kathy.
16:11 Kylie Low? Her boyfriend Bruce was briefly investigated as a possible suspect.
16:15 Speaker 01 Bruce was ruled out right off the bat because he was still at work. He was working, it was verified that he was there. And even after the police went to ultra-finishes to get information, he was still working. So they verified he was there.
16:30 Kylie Low? There was also a rumor that Kathy was seeing a married man at some point before her murder. The man admitted to having an affair with Kathy, but he, too, was quickly ruled out as a suspect.
16:41 Speaker 01 They polygraphed him back in the day. His wife at the time provided an alibi for him. Years later, I'd spoke both to him and his now ex-wife, and the stories were consistent. She did provide an alibi for him, and he readily agreed to give me his DNA, that kind of thing. So there was no indication that he had any involvement in it.
17:06 Kylie Low? Police looked into other boyfriends and acquaintances, too, but there was nothing there. And to begin with, the circumstances of her presumed abduction and murder gave the impression this was an opportunistic, stranger-type homicide. Kathy was on a short drive home, and she just happened to be pulled over on the side of the road. These types of crimes can be the most challenging to investigate. Warwick Police administered polygraph exams to at least three people in the first two days of the investigation, and continued interviewing her friends, relatives, and coworkers. But months ticked by without any progress. Kathy's case was still open and active when Warwick Police were faced with another homicide,
17:49 Kylie Low? a second female victim found in a secluded industrial section of town.
17:56 Kylie Low? It was around 12:40 PM on June 20th, 1987, when a man was doing some scrapping in a wooded area in the Hills Grove section of Warwick. If you're not familiar with the activity, scrapping can mean scavenging for discarded items, either to refurbish and keep or sell, like a trash-to-treasure sort of deal. As he wove side streets and industrial areas, the scrapper ventured behind the old Levitin manufacturing complex off Kilvert Street in Warwick, a spot he frequently checked. It was a known party spot and dumping ground for trash and debris, a potential honey hole for a scrapper. But that day, the man found something he never expected to encounter on his treasure hunt.
18:40 Kylie Low? Some distance off a dirt path, he stumbled upon the body of a deceased woman. She was laying on her back with her arms out to her sides. The woman was wearing what was described as a pink disco outfit and a white cotton jacket, but her clothing was in disarray. Her pants and pantyhose were still on her body, but the pants were unbuttoned and her top was pulled up around her armpits, showing stab wounds across her chest and bruises on her arms and body.
19:08 Speaker 01 When Rhonda was found, she was in a state of undress. Rhonda was stabbed 10 times in her chest and in her neck area. But what's unusual, what I found was unusual was that none of the stab wounds were through her clothing.
19:25 Kylie Low? The woman did not have any identification on her when she was found. However, when police later ran her fingerprints, their records came back matching 26-year-old Rhonda Kelly, which turned out to be an alias. The victim's legal name was Rhonda Travers. Rhonda had been arrested on May 4th and again on June 13th, 1987, just seven days before she was found dead on charges of prostitution. An autopsy showed that Rhonda died of multiple stab wounds to the neck and chest and had been strangled. Her death was ruled a homicide. According to Sergeant Pierce, the murder weapon was believed to be a single-edged knife. The medical examiner, Dr. William Q. Sterner, concluded that Rhonda's body had been there,
20:10 Kylie Low? quote, "a fair amount of time", but he did not get more specific to protect the investigation. The autopsy results found no evidence of sexual assault.
20:21 Kylie Low? Warwick Police began their investigation into Rhonda's murder, surveying the scene off the dirt path where her remains were discovered. But it was difficult to discern what was related to her murder and what was just trash. There was no murder weapon at the scene. One of Rhonda's shoes, a white high heel, was found near her body, but its companion was not. At least one report states that Rhonda was wearing a high-end strand of pearls around her neck when she was found, though Sergeant Pearce hasn't been able to verify this detail. If true, it suggests that robbery wasn't the motive here.
20:57 Speaker 01 There was evidence at the scene of Rhonda's homicide that she was actually dragged, almost in an effort to kind of conceal her a little bit.
21:07 Kylie Low? The location was near the city of Warwick's wastewater treatment plant. A little over a week into the investigation of her murder, an employee of the wastewater treatment plant was out checking dumpsters for any salvageable building materials, so another different scrapper, when he found a red purse. It still had some personal items inside, which allowed him to identify the owner as Rhonda Travers. There was a second bag in the dumpster that apparently belonged to Rhonda, this one filled with clothing. The employee reported the discovery to the police, who were trying to piece together a timeline of Rhonda's last known movements before she was killed.
21:48 Kylie Low? Witnesses say that Rhonda didn't have a permanent address at the time of her murder. For a while, she had been staying at a residence on Lennox Avenue in Providence, occupied by a known drug dealer named Norman Tate, who is now deceased. Rhonda reportedly screened customers at the door for Norman, but witnesses say that Rhonda allegedly stole some of the product, so she wasn't allowed there anymore. For a short period of time after that, she was staying across the street with another person known to sell drugs, and sometimes crashed with someone else at his apartment on Bridgem Street. Rhonda was known to engage in sex work. She had been seeing clients throughout the night on Friday, June 19th, and into the early morning hours of June 20th.
22:33 Kylie Low? When she wasn't with clients, she was at the Bridham Street apartment, where some of the occupants were using cocaine in the form of crack. Due to substance used by witnesses that night, investigators have found their recollections to be somewhat unreliable. However, as far as the original investigation could confirm, Rhonda was last seen alive around 4:00 a.m.
22:56 Speaker 01 Around 4 o'clock in the morning, Rhonda is seen getting into a car on Westminster Street. It was a green car, and according to the witness, she acted like she knew the person.
23:07 Kylie Low? That was the last trace of her. Investigators back in 1987 were unable to track down whose car Rhonda got into, where she went next, and who else may have been in the vehicle or at the destination waiting for her. The circumstances of the victims' lives were very different. There was Kathy Perry, a "nice woman" from a nice family, and Rhonda Travers, who had a history of sex work, associated arrests, and substance use. However different on the surface they seemed, though, both women had families who loved them, who mourned their loss and stolen potential. They hoped answers and justice would be swift.
23:50 Kylie Low? Instead, the investigations screeched to a halt.
23:55 Speaker 01 In 1987, it just looked like everything stopped. Everything stopped in 1987. As far as the investigation into Cathy and Rhonda's case.
24:05 Kylie Low? The cases were investigated separately, as there was nothing to indicate the murders were connected. But both investigations into the women found murdered in Warwick in September of 1986 and June of 1987 faded out within a year. In my conversation with Sergeant Pierce, he shared his theories as to why the cases may have gone cold. As we've discussed already, Cathy's murder showed elements of an opportunistic stranger crime, which is more challenging to investigate. As for Rhonda's case, the circumstances of her life may have caused some indifference among law enforcement at the time. And there was something else happening in Warwick at the time, too.
24:46 Speaker 01 And I'm saying, why did it stop? 1987 was when the Craig Price murders happened.
24:52 Kylie Low? Craig Price was 13 years old when on July 27, 1987, he broke into the home of his neighbor, 27-year-old Rebecca Spencer, and stabbed her with a kitchen knife nearly 60 times, killing her. On September 1, 1989, when he was 15 years old, Craig murdered 39-year-old Joan Heaton, stabbing her 57 times, and killing her two young daughters, also by dozens of stab wounds. Craig was arrested in September of 1989 after police received a tip and matched a wound on his hand to a cut sustained during one of the killings. He confessed to all four murders.
25:33 Speaker 01 It's probably the biggest case Warwick has ever had. You know, he was a serial killer. There's no doubt about it. I mean, it was hideous.
25:40 Kylie Low? At the time, Rhode Island law did not allow juveniles to be tried as adults for crimes committed before age 16. This meant that, under existing law, Craig would have been released at age 21 and his juvenile records sealed, despite the severity of his crimes. Due to public outrage and the threat of his release, Rhode Island lawmakers later enacted legislation allowing juveniles to be tried as adults in certain violent felony cases. However, these changes could not be applied retroactively to Craig's case. Craig Price ultimately remained incarcerated because he committed a series of disciplinary infractions and new crimes while in custody, including assaults and threats.
26:23 Kylie Low? These offenses led to additional charges and sentences, preventing his release.
26:28 Speaker 01 I think that contributed to the case going cold. I really do. Because those two cases were... The whole city of Warwick was in a panic when all that happened.
26:37 Kylie Low? Whatever the true cause, be it lack of leads, indifference, or investigative resources directed elsewhere, Kathy and Rhonda's cases went cold, until a rambling voicemail reactivated the investigations.
26:59 Speaker 02 You know that thing where you're scrolling the internet and suddenly you're three hours deep into a celebrity lawsuit?
27:04 Speaker 03 Where you hear a courtroom term and think, wait, what does that actually mean?
27:08 Speaker 02 I'm Eliza Orlands, career public defender.
27:10 Speaker 03 And I'm Taya Johnson, law professor and legal analyst.
27:13 Speaker 02 And on our brand new podcast, Criminally Online, we break down the law behind the stories you can't stop talking about.
27:19 Speaker 03 No legal degree required, just curiosity. Find Criminally Online wherever you get your podcasts.
27:36 Kylie Low? Fred Pierce was a police officer for 37 years, starting as a military police officer with the Rhode Island National Guard in 1981, and then a patrol officer in Greenwich, Rhode Island in the mid 80s, before he joined his hometown force at Warwick Police Department. A few years later, Fred was promoted to patrol sergeant and then detective sergeant. He spent 22 years as detective sergeant supervising the night shift for the entire city of Warwick. In 2004, Sergeant Pierce was designated as Warwick PD's cold case sergeant, supervising the longstanding cases that had yet to reach a conclusion.
28:15 Speaker 01 We had about 15 unsolved homicides in the city going back to the 1970s. Many of those were organized crime. I gotta be honest with you, for some reason, organized crime, organized criminals, the homicides, they chose Warwick to be the dumping ground, if you will. So about half of those were organized crime.
28:35 Kylie Low? Some of Warwick's other cold cases were considered domestic in nature. Many of the homicide cases Fred investigated throughout his career were in that category.
28:46 Speaker 01 But in the case of Kathy and Rhonda, which was, they were different because they were more of a stranger-type homicide, and they happened within nine months of each other, which was unique for that time. That really didn't happen back then, and it still doesn't.
29:03 Kylie Low? As the sole investigator reviewing unsolved homicides for Warwick, Sergeant Pierce familiarized himself with every case. So in the event a tip came in, if a family called, if something happened to reignite the investigation, he'd already know the details.
29:19 Speaker 01 And in Kathy's case, that's exactly what happened. We got a phone conversation that was left on the patrol commander's voicemail. And if I wasn't familiar with the case, I don't think anybody would have realized that it was kind of important.
29:34 Kylie Low? In February of 2006, the Warwick Police Patrol Commander received two voicemails from an anonymous caller. They were a little hard to follow, but a name in the rambling messages stuck out to Sergeant Pierce: Carmelo Tony Contreras. He remembered it from the Kathy Perry case file. The caller accused Contreras of being responsible for a few unsolved homicides. When the tip landed on Sergeant Pierce's desk, he wanted to run with it. By then, though, Kathy's case had been handed over to the Rhode Island State Police, so he had a hard time getting access to all the records needed at first. He eventually obtained copies of the original reports and some of the physical evidence.
30:17 Kylie Low? For almost two decades now, even during his retirement, Sergeant Pierce has been digging deep into Kathy and Rhonda's cases, dedicated to uncovering the truth about what happened to these women. Following those rambling voice messages, Sergeant Pierce started down the path of investigating Contreras, but it was slow going. So in 2007, he aimed to generate new attention and leads with a little local media coverage. He reached out to the Kent County Daily Times, and on August 3 of that year, the paper ran a front-page story. It didn't generate anything new as far as investigative leads at first, but it certainly stirred up conversation in town and even among other law enforcement officials.
31:01 Kylie Low? Sometime after the article ran, Sergeant Pierce received a phone call from West Warwick Police Detective Fernando Arujo.
31:09 Speaker 01 He said, "Hey, listen, we had a homicide back in 1990 of a girl named Cheryl Johnson. And you may want to take a look at the guy that we charged in that case." That was also a cold case, and it wasn't solved until 2001. And he gave me his name.
31:24 Kylie Low? At the request of Sergeant Pierce and to protect the integrity of the investigation into Kathy and Rhonda's cases, we're going to refer to the suspect by a fake name chosen by Sergeant Pierce: Stanley. Just a note: although we are using a fake name for this suspect, Cheryl Johnson is the victim's real name. Sergeant Pierce knows, and I know, that anyone with a knack for internet sleuthing or knowledge of Records Request Protocol in Rhode Island can likely uncover Stanley's real name through Cheryl's case. Do with that information what you will.
32:00 Speaker 01 So I jotted the guy's name down, I looked into him, basically. And I looked into their homicide, and it was like, to me, it looked like it was more of a domestic-type situation, like a one-time deal. And I didn't think that much of it. Shame on me for that.
32:13 Kylie Low? At the time, Sergeant Pierce was very much still on the train of Tony Contreras, spurred on by the voicemails from a tipster. That angle hadn't been ruled out, so Stanley was back Bernard for the time being. But things slowed down and the investigation sputtered out. A few years later, Sergeant Pierce was this close to moving on from Kathy's case when a Facebook message changed everything. In 2010, three years after that Kent County Daily Times article and the phone call from Detective Arujo, Sergeant Pierce had finally caved to prodding by out-of-state friends and decided to join Facebook as a way to stay in touch.
32:58 Kylie Low? He was skeptical of learning a new technology at his age, but Fred made a profile anyway. As he navigated likes and comments and DMs, he found himself really enjoying the platform. He was connecting with family and friends, and reconnecting with people he hadn't seen or spoke to in years. This sparked an idea.
33:17 Speaker 01 So anyway, I said, "All right, well, let me try it." So I did. And then I said, "You know what? This is pretty cool. We can go back and forth." And he said, "You know what? I wonder if it could happen, if I could do this for Kathy." And because it gives me connections to people that she knew, people that she worked with, et cetera. And it's like, maybe somebody knows something.
33:38 Kylie Low? Sergeant Pierce created a personal profile for Kathy versus a group or a page like you might see for other unsolved cases today. He set the profile photo as a black and white photo of Kathy, smiling at the camera, her hair feathered back. He populated the info section with details about Kathy's case and went about sending friend requests to people who knew Kathy. Soon enough, people were initiating friend requests to Kathy themselves, some who actually knew her, some who didn't. There were plenty of armchair detectives, as Fred called them, who chimed in with their thoughts on her case. He even received some friend requests from people who simply saw Kathy's photo, thought
34:20 Kylie Low? she was attractive, and decided to hit on her via Messenger. They were quickly scared off when he informed them they'd reached Detective Sergeant Fred Pierce of Warwick PD. He learned a lot about Kathy through that Facebook page. He connected with her friends and classmates, and those conversations helped bring Kathy to life. It strengthened his resolve to find an answer for the young woman and her mother, Marilyn. But about two years after the creation of Kathy's profile, Fred started to feel like it had run its course. The renewed investigation, now six or seven years old at this point, was stalling out. He was feeling burnt out, both personally and professionally, and was considering taking
35:04 Kylie Low? the lieutenant exam, which would mean moving on from his role as detective and handing off Kathy and Rhonda's case to someone else. That all came to a halt when he noticed a name on Kathy's Facebook friend list.
35:18 Speaker 01 I'm going through Facebook and all the friends that are on Kathy's list, whatever, and I notice a name. And one of the names on there that I knew to be a longtime investigator up at DACI.
35:31 Kylie Low? The name was Robert "Bob" Catlow, the chief inspector of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections. Prior to that, Catlow was chief of the Special Investigations Unit. Sergeant Pierce sent a friend request to Chief Catlow himself, and then a few weeks later, he got a call from Bob.
35:51 Speaker 01 Hey Fred, I've been looking at your Facebook page on Kathy Perry. And he said, "Would it mean anything to you if I told you she was found with just her socks on?" And of course it did, because that's exactly how she was found. It's not something that was widely known.
36:07 Kylie Low? Sergeant Pierce explained that that detail may have been in a newspaper article at one time, but I personally have not found that particular article in the archives I used to research old media coverage about Kathy and Rhonda's cases. If it was published at some point, you can't say it was a detail only the killer would have known. Still, the mention of that lesser-known information got Sergeant Pierce's attention.
36:34 Speaker 01 Long story short, he said, "I have a longtime informant at the ECI who's willing to come forward with information he knows who killed Kathy."
36:42 Kylie Low? Sergeant Pierce is admittedly very wary of jailhouse informants. Oftentimes, their cooperation with an investigation is hinged on reciprocity. "I'll give you this information if you help me get some perks in prison, or help negotiate a shorter sentence," kind of thing. Still, Sergeant Pierce was intrigued. He wanted to know if the informant was willing to give the name of Kathy's alleged killer upfront.
37:09 Speaker 01 So I asked the chief, when he called me, and I said, "Can you tell me what the guy's name was?" And he told me, Stanley, he used the name Stanley, and was like, "Oh boy."
37:21 Kylie Low? Sergeant Pierce had heard that name before, several years earlier. It was the same name he backburnered while still on the trail of Contreras, which, by the way, turned out to be a dead end. Contreras is not believed to have anything to do with Kathy's murder. Fred is not too proud to admit that this likely cost the investigation valuable time. But any stagnation in the case was erased by that phone call. Sergeant Pierce paused his plans to take the lieutenant exam. He set out to learn everything there was to know about Stanley, completely and totally invested in the search for answers once again.
38:03 Speaker 01 In Kathy's case and Rhonda's case, they were looking for a murderer. Not just one, they looked for two separate murderers. And I think that's where they made the mistake. What they should have been looking for was a serial rapist, a sexual predator.
38:21 Kylie Low? After almost 20 years, the investigation into the murders of Kathy Perry and Rhonda Travers had a new lead. In the next episode of Dark Down East, Sergeant Pierce will walk us through his renewed investigation, the evidence, the informant and witnesses, and the grand jury proceedings that dangled the possibility of justice. If you have any information relating to the 1986 murder of Kathy Perry or the 1987 murder of Rhonda Travers in Warwick, Rhode Island, please contact the Warwick Police Department Detective Division at 401-468-4233.
39:02 Kylie Low? You can also share information with retired Warwick PD Sergeant Fred Pierce via the Kathy Perry Facebook page, linked in the description of this episode. Any information shared with Sergeant Pierce will be forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
39:25 Kylie Low? Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram, at Dark Down East. This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Low, and this is Dark Down East.
39:56 Kylie Low? Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audio Check. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
40:07 Kylie Low? In New England, investigations can shift with the tide. And my friend Delia Diambra, host of Park Predators, knows just how the landscape can shape a case. From beaches to national parks around the world, Delia investigates true crime cases as compelling as the places where they occurred. Through her signature boots-on-the-ground reporting, she goes beyond the headlines and speaks directly with those closest to the case. If you're ready to follow the evidence beyond the trail, listen to Park Predators every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
Previous The Murder of Walter Page (New Hampshire) Next The Murder of Kathy Perry and Rhonda Travers (Rhode Island) Part 2 Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated