Walk Into the Light
Open the door. Show us your face.
As of August 1st, it has officially been forty years since Kathleen Lombardo was murdered and assaulted in an alleyway in Oak Park, Illinois. Forty years since her life was so violently taken away. Forty years without resolution or closure. Forty years since Michelle McNamara went to that same alley and picked up the broken pieces of Kathy's yellow walkman, which ignited her passion for true crime and helping the families affected by it.
Four months since I stood in that same alley between Euclid and Wesley to try and understand what happened. Why Kathleen, and why here.
The surrounding homes are magnificent. This is not an area where strangers wander through and decide to end someone's life. Everyone knows who everyone is. Even if you do not personally know your neighbor, you know of them. This would be especially true during the summer of 1984, when people were outside at all hours enjoying the late, muggy evenings with a chorus of cicadas in the background. No one's eyes were averted to their smart phones or aimlessly scrolling through Instagram. The issue is, I do not know what anyone else was doing while Kathleen Lombardo was jogging down Pleasant street listening to her music and feeling carefree in her own neighborhood. I do not know if a neighbor was watching the baseball game on TV on high volume when she was dragged into the alley and assaulted, her throat slit. All I know is what Michelle wrote about in her book, about the Olis and Keating boys finding Kathy's body and running to the nearest house to try and get help while she took her last breaths.
I think that is what bothers me the most. That someone's life could be taken at any moment, on a normal evening. That a young woman could be walking home and pulled away to be assaulted or raped or murdered or all three. The same thing happened to Grace Puccetti two years prior in 1982 when she was on her way home. There was an attempt at assault and her throat was slit. Miraculously, Grace survived and made it to her home feet away from where she was attacked. It happened mere blocks from where Kathy was murdered. Grace's assailant was also never found. Two girls interrupted, two years apart in the same place.
The more I looked into the cases, the more frustrated I became. These killers could still be out there. Living in the same neighborhood, going about their daily lives, maybe raising a family while pretending to be someone entirely different. Maybe they are in prison for another crime. Maybe they are dead. Either way, I wanted justice and I want to see it handed down.
Obviously, I am not the only person who feels this way. Kathy's family, along with production who worked on HBO's "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" dedicated the last episode of the series to Kathy's case. I felt chills as the neighborhood I know so well flashed across the screen, as Tom Olis retraced his steps in the alleyway where he found Kathleen's body. Christopher Lombardo talked about his sister with so much admiration and determination. Even after all these years of dead ends, Christopher filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the help of the HBO production to retrieve the police report and evidence from the Oak Park Police Department.
This request was denied. The reason being that it would interfere with the department's ability to collect evidence and secure witnesses. This answer seems absurd to me, seeing that they have had forty years to collect evidence and test DNA. Why would they not want to use every possible advantage they can to solve this case, now being discussed on an international platform? I have my own theories, but I'll save that for another post.
I never got the chance to meet Michelle McNamara in person. I would have loved to discuss writing, true crime, and Oak Park's history with her. To compare the craziness of having huge Irish families. I may not have known her, but I know for a fact she would be spearheading this case if she were still here. I'm sure she's still spearheading it despite everything, just like she was in August of 1984. I'm sure she'd love to know that another girl from Illinois spent a whole year writing about this small Chicago suburb while in Scotland, completing her master's degree. I'm sure she'd like to know that her work and dedication to shining a light on the truth is being carried on by so many people.
I think it's time to catch the white whale.