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Upstate cops revisit LI teen's 1974 murder

December 8, 2012 5:34 PM
By JOSEPH MALLIA  email@example.com
 Nearly four decades after a Ronkonkoma teenager was found stabbed to death near her upstate university campus, police are once again seeking the public's help in solving the case. Photo Credit: Fox23 News


Police have put Katherine Kolodziej's picture on a billboard facing a busy two-lane highway, not far from where her half-clothed body was found in 1974.


"If the person who did this is still alive, I want him to know we haven't forgotten what he did," Schoharie County Sheriff Anthony Desmond said last week.

"It's been 38 years, but we're putting it out there again, continually hoping a lucky break will come our way," he said.

A Connetquot High School graduate, Kolodziej disappeared on Nov. 2, 1974, after dancing with friends at The Vault, a Cobleskill Village bar. Her body was found weeks later, on Thanksgiving. She had been stabbed seven times, laid on a stone wall in a wooded area and covered with a red coat.

Long IslandCold cases on Long Island Over the years, police have questioned potential local suspects and investigated possible links to serial killers, including Ted Bundy, but got nowhere.


Now state troopers say they are taking a different approach: They aim to identify and interview every person who was in the bar that Friday night and early Saturday morning.

Kolodziej's parents died several years ago, but her uncle, Charles Szydlowski of West Islip, said last year that he hasn't lost hope that the killer can be caught -- and the story behind the slaying revealed at last.

"If they can be sure, I certainly would like to know," said Szydlowski, whose sister Hedwig Kolodziej spent the rest of her life mourning her daughter. "And in my prayers, I will tell my sister what happened."

Szydlowski couldn't be reached for comment on the latest developments.
 The billboard near Cobleskill is an appeal for help: "1974 Unsolved Homicide. Katherine Kolodziej. 17 yr. Old SUNY Cobleskill student. Last seen leaving bar alone. Body found in field . . . Cash Reward up to $2,500. Anyone with information Please Call."

Though investigators through the years have interviewed hundreds of people -- including the entire student body at SUNY Cobleskill -- they still hope to find new leads, Desmond said.

"There's always somebody we might have missed, or someone who was reluctant to talk," he said.

The billboard space was donated by a businessman whose father was the Schoharie district attorney in 1974. The sign is on Route 7 west of Exit 22 of Interstate 88, about six miles from campus. The reward is offered by CrimeStoppers.

State Police are leading the investigation, with the aid of the FBI, the Cobleskill and SUNY police, and the sheriff's and district attorney's offices.

NationFBI Most Wanted