The Disappearance of Kimberly King

The night of September 15, 1979, Kimberly stayed at a friend’s house in Warren, Michigan, which was across the street from her grandparents’ house. When she called her sister at 11:00 p.m., she claimed to have snuck out of her friend’s house and to be calling from a nearby outdoor phone booth. To return inside, her sister instructed her. However, Kimberly never went back to her friend’s house and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.

Authorities don’t know which pay phone Kimberly used to call her sister. She claimed to have walked there quickly from her grandparents’ house, but a bystander claimed to have seen her using the phone a distance of several miles. Her situation was initially categorized as a potential runaway.

Few Clues

There are few clues as to Kimberly’s whereabouts, but her disappearance is now thought to have been the result of a non-family abduction with possible foul play. After going missing, Kimberly may have travelled to Grand Rapids, Michigan, according to investigators, but the leads were unsuccessful.

Kimberly does not have a history of runaway behavior, and authorities no longer believe she left on her own accord, despite the fact that one of her sisters had fled the house on numerous occasions and Kimberly herself had occasionally been known to stay out until late.

Victim of Serial killer

Authorities theorized that Kimberly may have been a victim of a serial killer of children in Oakland County, Michigan.   The kidnapper, known as “The Babysitter” because he fed and bathed the kids before they died, is thought to be responsible for the 1976 and 1977 kidnappings and murders of two boys and two girls King’s age.

Before being killed, the kids were all imprisoned for several days. No one has ever been put on trial in relation to any of the killings. If Kimberly was the murder victim, her case would be unusual because in the other murders, the victims’ bodies were dumped by the roadside and were discovered fairly quickly, but Kimberly’s remains have never been found.

Suspect in The Case

For many years, David Norberg was thought to be a suspect in the case. He lived just two streets away from Kimberly’s house and was employed in Warren at the time of her 1979 disappearance. In 1981, he perished in a car crash close to Recluse, Wyoming. Jewelry that allegedly belonged to several of the Oakland County child victims was discovered among his possessions after his death. However, he was never charged in relation to any of the murders or Kimberly’s disappearance.

When Norberg’s body was exhumed in September 1999, his DNA was compared to a solitary, unidentified hair found on Timothy King, the last murder victim (no relation to Kimberly). Although Norberg’s DNA did not match the hair found on Timothy, authorities did not completely rule him out as a suspect in November 2002.

He remarkably resembles the serial killer, and there is circumstantial evidence connecting him to the killings. Even if not the murders, investigators still believe he was responsible for Kimberly’s apparent kidnapping.

2018

Authorities declared Arthur Ream a suspect in Kimberly’s case as well as the disappearances of Kellie Brownlee, Cynthia Coon, Kim Larrow, Nadine O’Dell, and Ream in 2018. This case summary is posted with a picture of Ream.

In the 1970s, he was found guilty of sexual assault, and in 1986, he killed Cindy Zarzycki, a 13-year-old girl who was dating his son. After being found guilty of her murder, he helped authorities locate her body, which was buried 30 miles from Detroit, Michigan, in a shallow grave, in 2008.

Ream allegedly told his cellmates that he was a serial killer with four to six victims while he was incarcerated. Police started digging at the site where Cindy was interred in May 2018 because they thought they might find the bodies of other missing girls there. However, no human remains were discovered, so the digging was abandoned after a week.

In 1995, Kimberly’s grandmother passed away. She bought her granddaughter a gravesite before she passed away. The two sisters of Kimberly remain optimistic about finding her. Her case is still unsolved.

Investigating Agency

• Warren Police Department 810-574-4700