COLD CASE: Karen Lee Jolly

It was an ordinary Wednesday morning in rural Louisville, Mississippi, as 23-year-old kindergarten teacher, Karen Lee Jolly, walked down her family's gravel driveway to check the mail. It should have been a simple routine -- the kind of thing you do without a second thought. But someone, unseen and unknown, was lurking nearby her home that day.

Karen Lee Jolly was the kind of person you would trust with your children. She had just fulfilled her dream of graduating from Mississippi State and landed her first job post-graduation. Soft-spoken, kind-eyed, and committed to her community, Karen had just gotten her life started. Wednesday, September 2, 1981, Karen planned to relax before her new job started. Thursday would have been her first day teaching at Kinder Loft, a preschool in Louisville. Her classroom was waiting. Her students were waiting. Her life was waiting.

Instead, what followed was a frantic search, a haunting discovery, and decades of questions.

Karen Lee Jolly

On the morning of September 2, Karen stepped outside her family's home, set in the middle of a 40-acre tract of land. She walked 250-yards down the Jolly family's gravel driveway and got the mail. She found a letter from her younger sister who was away at college and eagerly opened the letter. She likely read it as she made her way back to her home, walked inside, and sat down on the couch to finish reading the letter when she was interrupted. What happened next is still a decades long question.

When her mother returned home from work at around 4 p.m., Karen wasn't home. She thought this was odd because Karen, though 23-years-old and a young adult, would call her mother each time she planned to leave the family home. Both of the vehicles that the family owned were being used that day by Karen's mother, Jean, and her father, Bobby. By the time her father -- a retired Mississippi Highway Patrolman -- got home at 5:30, panic had set in.

Her father began to look around the house and noticed signs that were subtle but strange. The letter from Karen's sister was found on the couch in what he described as a "haphazard manner". One lens from Karen's glasses were on the rug near the couch. That rug was ruffled as if a scuffle had taken place. None of Karen's clothes were missing. No valuables were taken. None of the doors showed any signs of forced entry.

Bobby Jolly immediately called the Winston County Sheriff's Department and the search began. Family, friends, neighbors, fellow church members, Mississippi Highway Patrol, members from the Mississippi National Guard, Civil Defense, Louisville Police Department, volunteer fire departments, and the Winston County Sheriff's Department all joined forces to search for Karen.

As a 20-year veteran of the Highway Patrol, Bobby Jolly was familiar with missing person cases. His daughter being missing was unnerving. His fears were heightened when a scrap of material from what appeared to be a Mississippi State bulldogs jersey was found by searchers on a 1,000 acre plot of land about 8 miles from the Jolly home. When he went to Karen's room and searched her closet, a Mississippi State shirt was missing.

There was no way to match the scrap of cloth to any one person because there were thousands of Mississippi State shirts sold in that area of the state. The Jolly's requested the community keep them in their prayers and the search continued.

A Winston County Constable who was in the area of the Jolly's home on the day Karen was discovered missing noticed a newer model green Ford van acting suspicious. He attempted to stop the man, who he could only describe as having shoulder-length hair. The driver began speeding away and the Constable lost sight of him after about three or four miles of chasing him on the winding county roads.

Though Karen's parents were not positive on a description of clothing she may have had on, her dad did believe she was wearing a 1978 men's Ackerman High School class ring. The ring was engraved with the initials "BT" and had been given to her by her boyfriend.

Despite sweeping searches involving local police and sheriff's departments, Mississippi Highway Patrol, National Guard, and countless volunteers, the trail went cold. Winston County Sheriff Cecil Jennings, admitted that the search teams had "run out of roads to run up and down."

As hope dwindled and possibilities of Karen being safe and well began to narrow, Karen's mother shifted from uncertainty to grim conviction. She was sure that her daughter had been abducted from the couch she sat on reading that letter from her baby sister.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Jackson was on stand-by awaiting any indication that there was foul play or criminal circumstances involved. No concrete evidence of a crime was apparent. It was as if Karen had just vanished into thin air.

With pressure mounting and effectively no leads, authorities distributed photographs of Karen throughout the state, conducted aerial searches by helicopter, and enlisted TV stations in Columbus, Tupelo and Meridian to broadcast Karen's photo, pleading for tips from the public.

Karen's disappearance left Winston County and surrounding areas stunned. For her family, each passing hour without answers was unbearable. Investigators knew they were in a race against time. They were searching for a break in a wall that refused to crack. No credible leads were coming in.

Nearly a week after Karen's disappearance, her family announced a $10,000 reward for her safe return. The Bank of Louisville was holding a reward fund that her church family at Murphy Creek Baptist Church had started. Friends, neighbors, and other churches also poured into the fund hoping that the monetary reward would bring forth some answers.

Investigators were able to pin down a time frame in which they believed Karen was taken from her home -- between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. When speaking with about 100 residents who lived in the area, investigators noted that many people noticed a light-colored van driving up and down a road not far from the road the Jolly's home was situated on during that time frame. Nobody noticed the van's license plate number. Sheriff Jennings expressed that the driver of the van was not considered a suspect but they would like to speak with them. The Sheriff was not ruling out anything and said he and his deputies intended to run down every lead, even if it took them to Chicago.

By September 15, 1981, the trail was still just as cold as it was when it started. In fact, it appeared to be even colder. The scrap of material that was believed to be part of a Mississippi State jersey turned out to be a scrap of cloth used by tree-trimmers in the area. The thick, dark red colored material was used for bedding for their dogs.

Investigators were hopeful when they received a call from a Columbus resident who had seen coverage of Karen Jolly's disappearance. She said she believed that she had seen Karen while camping with her husband on the Tombigbee River. Investigators made contact with the woman believed to be Karen and though they said there was a strong resemblance, the woman was not Karen.

Karen's friends and associates were questioned. Investigators even went so far as to conduct background checks on all of them. But her acquaintances at both Holmes Junior College and Mississippi State offered no substantial leads. Another dead end.

Karen Lee Jolly Found -- A Family's Worst Fear, A Town's Unhealed Wound

On the morning of Friday, November 28, 1981, two deer hunters made a grim discovery that ended nearly three agonizing months of waiting: the body of 23-year-old Karen Lee Jolly was found in a wooded area just 10 miles northwest of her home.

The discovery came just one day after Thanksgiving, and while the Jolly family were now spared the torment of not knowing, the pain of what they now did know was permanent. They prayed they would hear something by Christmas and her mother expressed that she was relieved that her daughter hadn't been suffering all that time she was missing.

Authorities believed Karen's body had been there since the day she disappeared due to the advanced state of decomposition present. Karen only had a shirt on....her Mississippi State shirt. Next to her body were a few rings which her parents were able to identify. Her body was identified immediately due to a unique surgical marker. Karen had a steel pin placed in her back during a childhood medical procedure that was evident in the remains found that day. An autopsy report would indicate that Karen had been bludgeoned to death, the instrument unknown. Her arm and ribs were also broken prior to the blow to the head that would ultimately take her life.

Over 200 mourners from around the county came to pay their respects at Karen's funeral. It was drizzling on the day her body was finally laid to rest. The crowd fell silent as pall bearers carried her casket into the church.

Karen Lee Jolly was a daughter, a teacher, a friend. A young woman whose class ring should have been replaced with an engagement ring, who should have had a long life filled with students' drawings hung around a classroom filled with love, small-town mornings, and family dinners. She should have had a life full of all the things she loved.

Over four decades later, Karen Lee Jolly's killer has never been found. The man in the van has never been identified. Her parents, Bobby and Jean Jolly, have both been buried beside their daughter, going to their graves without ever seeing justice served.

If you have any information please contact the Winston County Sheriff's Department at (662)773-5881.