Victim Studies: the Two Decades Murder Case of Lil Miss

The Murder of Lil Miss was about a murder case that happened in March 25th of 1988 and was solved in 2004, Almost two decades just to solve one murder case is obviously ridiculous but many issues that occurred hindered the process of this case and was the main reason why it took so long to be solved.

Lisa Marie Kimmell also known as “Lil Miss” was set to drive from Denver, Colorado to Billings, Montana on her way there she was planning on stopping in Cody, Wyoming where her boyfriend Ed Jaroch lived she never made it to Cody, Wyoming. Carla (a close friend of Ed and Lisa) immediately notified Lisa’s parents that she never made it to Cody, Wyoming Sheila and Ron Kimmell assumed she got into a car wreck Ron drove down to Cody, Wyoming with Ed and decided to back track Lisa’s route and see if she was stuck somewhere; also Ed notified Colorado, Montana and Wyoming State Patrols about an “overdue arrival”. Later that day Sheila called Wyoming Highway Patrol to change the overdue arrival report to attempt to locate and file a missing person report the Wyoming Highway Patrol allowed her to file a “attempt to locate” report but not a missing person report because they usually wait 72hrs to take those kind of reports due to kids who run away usually come back before the 72hr mark even though Sheila pleaded that Lisa was not a runaway kid they still didn’t allow her to file a missing person report. Wyoming Highway Patrol called Sheila back to notify her that Lisa was cited for speeding in Douglas, Wyoming Friday night at 9:06pm that narrowed down their search because now they know she made it as far as Douglas alive. Sheila had to conduct her own ‘command post’ at home since no law enforcement agency had jurisdiction over this case Sheila finally reached out to the media for help they immediately came to Sheila at her home in Billings and they got the news out meanwhile Ron is still backtracking Lisa’s route from Douglas to Billings and stopping by every county and asking the sheriff department for help some helped some just brushed it off. Sheila started having hallucinations of Lisa crying for help Sheila also seen Lisa in her dreams assuming this was all due to lack of sleep Sheila believes that night was the night her daughter was murdered.

Saturday April 2nd 1988 just one night after that dream Deputies from Yellow Stone County Sherriff notified the family that body matching Lisa’s type was found in the North Platte River which was eventually confirmed it was Lisa Marie Kimmell. Now that a crime scene exists it means finally a specific jurisdiction can take over the case, Natrona County was where the body was found so that means they take charge in this investigation.

Dan Tholson and Jim Broz are the 2 detectives assigned on the case the Sheriff of the county was Ron Ketchum, controversy between Ron Ketchum and the Kimmell family would come sooner than later. Detectives Tholson and Broz were tasked to a very difficult case Lisa could have been killed anywhere between Douglas and where the body was found their job is to find Lisa’s vehicle and find her murder scene usually murder cases have one or the other this particular one has neither, the detectives couldn’t handle the wide range of search so they asked Sheriff Ron to bring in help and make a federal task force he quickly denied the request because this was the first major case Natrona County has ever gotten he definitely didn’t want to share the spotlight.

On top of the task force debate there was another problem the Kimmell family were dealing with when it came to handing over evidence, there was a chain link going on between the ‘liaison’ that was created in Billings and the Detectives in Natrona County the evidence was going through a lot of agencies hands the Kimmell were disappointed and frustrated because of this. Back to the task force issue Sheila and Ron Kimmell were so upset and confused as to why the Sheriff didn’t want to make a federal task force, at the 1-year anniversary the Kimmell family finally met with Sheriff Ketchum they expressed how they really wanted a federal task he responded asking “Why do you feel that way” Sheila and Ron responded saying it has been a year and the case might go cold, the main point Sheriff Ketchum gave was he didn’t want to have a task force setup going from Billings to Denver because he might lose control over the case. Eventually Sheriff Ketchum lost his temper and yelled at Sheila and Ron saying “You are not the victim…Lisa was” and even threatened to arrest both of them for obstruction of justice.

June 23rd 1989 finally Assistant U. S Attorney David Kubichek started a federal task force lead by ATF agent Don Flickenger, one of the first things he did as the lead investigator of this task force was eliminate all suspects by matching the DNA that was found on Lisa’s body that lead to eliminated suspects like Ed who was Lisa’s boyfriend and the police officer who stopped Lisa Marie speeding in Douglas, Wyoming. After Don Flickenger took over the case a lot of new leads developed one of them being a woman saying she spotted Lisa’s vehicle in Casper only catch was she said it was in the middle of a traffic stop and Sheriff Ron Ketchum was the officer who was conducting the stop, this lead to Sheriff Ketchum becoming a suspect he first refused to give DNA but eventually cooperated and was crossed out as a suspect.

Case took a very long time to solve mainly because the car was nowhere to be found, in 2002 a program called CODIS which stands for Combined DNA Index System was launched it was a system that allowed every state to compare DNA’s in their systems and see if they get a match elsewhere. Wyoming first submitted the DNA found on Lisa’s body and immediately got a match connecting to Dale Eaton Wayne who was serving time in Colorado for murder he was eventually sentenced to life in prison at Wyoming for Lisa Marie Kimmells murder. It was eight miserable days for Sheila, Ron, Stacy, Sherry Kimmell and family friends, they literally endured the most pain a human body can take in those 8 days and quite frankly the Criminal Justice systems flaws didn’t make it any better. When Sheila and Ron were first notified about their daughter’s disappearance they immediately reached out to law enforcement for help but they were rejected which is the worst thing that can happen to a vulnerable family. Lisa’s death was something unimaginable to Ron and Sheila but the outcry they had from the lack of help they received from law enforcement was just as bad, when Sheila called to report her daughter as a missing person they denied to file a report because of a 72hr rule that they have in place on top of that they refused to help the Kimmell family search for their daughter during those 72hrs which is just cruel. When eventually the 72hrs passed law enforcement still couldn’t help Ron and Sheila search for the missing girl due to jurisdiction barriers, so it’s not that the police and sheriff agencies didn’t want to help its due to the Criminal Justice system that they couldn’t help Ron and Sheila felt abandoned for 8 long days. When Lisa’s body was found in Natrona County that meant finally the jurisdiction issue was over and the Sherriff department of that county would take over the investigation but the issues with the Criminal Justice system wouldn’t end for the Kimmell family. Ron and Sheila were hurt and they wouldn’t get over this tragedy unless the killer was brought to justice they were emotional and they just couldn’t understand the process of the investigation, when a year went by since Lisa’s body was found Ron and Sheila just couldn’t take it and started questioning the process of the investigation they were disappointed at the fact that Natrona County was too small of an agency and couldn’t handle the work.

Criminal Justice system really had a lot of hiccups in this case that hindered the process of bringing justice to the Kimmell family and it took a huge toll on nobody else but the Kimmell family. According to Wemmers (2013) secondary victims were found to have Post-Traumatic Stress Symptom they used their studies based off of “how authorities treated victims was measured in terms of victims’ procedural justice judgements” this indicates that not only does the secondary victim like the Kimmell family have to deal with the tragedy that occurred but also the hardship they go through due to the Criminal Justice systems flaws. The criminal justice policy shift in the last decade of the twentieth century had ostensibly been from a position in which victims had little role in the criminal justice system other than as a source of evidence.

This is all the information I found from researches that have been done on primary, secondary and victims of 3rd degree and they all mentioned how victims in the criminal justice system all been treated wrong even if it wasn’t intentional they weren’t treated with the care and compassion they needed. In the book of “The Murder of Lil Miss” Sheila Kimmell mentions towards the end of the book how she was devastated to see Dale Eaton’s sister cry when he was sentenced to the death penalty she felt as if the family members of the suspects were also victims she even started to advocate for victims of the third party.

This entire process made me change my mind on how the criminal justice system can affect a family that has already dealt with horrible things such as murder. When a murder happens usually you see it on the news and expect the family to go through a tough time but eventually their hearts would heal, this book showed me no matter how long it has been (even 16 years) their hearts will always endure pain. The criminal justice system has been around for a long period of time and it constantly has to change to keep up with serving justice in multiple ways even if it’s through satisfying victims, when the Kimmell family asked for more assistance from law enforcement I’m sure they were expecting a full flagship of support instead they were inserted to a legality limbo that they had no clue about, in today’s time that wouldn’t happen.