Norwalk Police working to solve cold case of 11-year-old's murder

NORWALK, Conn. (WABC) -- Police are shining new light on the 30-year-old murder of an 11-year-old girl who was found strangled between her home and school.

On the evening of Sept. 23, 1986, at 5:12 pm, Kathleen Flynn was reported missing by her mother when she did not return home from school.

Her mother drove to the school and to nearby neighborhoods to look for her, but when she couldn't to find her, an extensive search began. Her body was found in a secluded wooded area over 100 feet from the path. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

"It appears at this point that Kathleen had walked off by herself, so it was an isolated incident," Lt. Arthur Weisgerber said. "I think a lot of people were scared by it, as far as it was so off the normal reality to have this happen to a school child walking home in the afternoon."

The murder is an active investigation and is being evaluated with recent advancements in DNA technology.

Norwalk police say Kathleen normally walked home from Ponus Ridge Middle School using a path that leads to Hunters Lane and then to Fillow Street, and one or two of her friends said they last saw Kathleen walking toward the beginning of the path a few minutes after school ended.

During the course of the investigation, a flyer was produced at one time with composite sketches of three white males with long dirty hair operating a green vehicle with New York plates.

There is a possibility that the car was not involved in the Flynn case, but was rather a group of teenagers that borrowed the car and were on school grounds and took off when a teacher leaving the school approached the vehicle.

"It is difficult, but I wouldn't be doing cold case homicide investigations if you didn't think everything was solvable," Weisgerber said. "Using Facebook and kind of getting it out to the media, anytime I can get more exposure to it, you are almost hoping that the suspect at one point mentioned something about it."

Anybody with information is asked to call (203) 854-3028 or email aweisgerber@norwalkct.org.