



She was 11.




His daughter had been raped and strangled.


Even today, there is disbelief.











He admitted the lie.

The FBI was called in within days of the killing to compare the crime against a national database of violent crimes. Local detectives tracked down every known sex offender and determined their whereabouts on the afternoon of Sept. 23.

In all, detectives interviewed about 50 men who were suspects, in the loosest sense of the word. Police in nearby Westchester, N.Y., forwarded a thick file on their sex offenders. It included details on men arrested for everything from rape to public urination.

None of it led to an arrest.

The massive file was handed a year ago to Hume, the latest primary investigator. Hume said he always remembers what a Seattle detective told him last fall at seminar on child homicide: ``Chances are the name of the guilty party is already in your case file.''

His file has 1,500 names.

One of them belongs to the investigation's ``primary focus,'' in the words of the city's police chief, Harry Rilling. In a recent interview, Rilling disclosed for the first time that police have a suspect, who is incarcerated for another crime.

Using new technology, they hope to link him through mitochondrial DNA testing of hairs found at the crime scene. Mitochondrial testing, not as exacting as nuclear DNA testing, can link the hairs to an extended family, not an individual.

In coming weeks, investigators will meet with prosecutors and forensic experts to decide if they should go ahead with the mitochondrial test, or wait for better technology. Each test consumes some of the evidence.

``Right now, mitochondrial DNA can tell us certain things,'' Rilling said. ``With other information we have and things that we investigated in the past, it might be enough to get an arrest and a conviction. However, a year from now, two years from now, what might be available to us that might be able to identify a person to the exclusion of everybody else in the entire world?''

It is a gamble.

``We have to roll the dice at some point. That's where we are now,'' Rilling said.

To evaluate the evidence, Rilling invited the assistance of the chief state's attorney's cold case squad, a step local department are sometimes reluctant to take. Rilling said he has no turf concerns.

``One thing is very, very clear. This is not a territorial thing,'' he said. ``The important thing for this case is to get it solved. And I don't care if it's solved by another agency. If they can help us solve this case, that's what's important to me.''

Rilling and his officers will not release any further details about the suspect for fear of tainting a prosecution.

``I fully expect to go to trial at some point,'' Gale said.

It was Gale who reorganized the unwieldy case files three years ago, spending months entering in a computer the names of every person mentioned, a summary of their connection to the case and references to any written statements or reports that name them. Rilling calls Gale extremely thorough.

Gale pursued a long shot after reading about the declassification of satellite surveillance photographs. Could there be a photograph of the crime, taken from space? He supplied the necessary map coordinates, the date and the time. He allowed himself to imagine what a photo might show, perhaps the make and model of every car in the area during the murder? Maybe a license plate?

No such photo existed.

Hume says they are now in a ``holding pattern,'' as they await a decision on the DNA testing. He insists he will remain on an even keel if any forensic testing fails to implicate a suspect.

``There are no lack of leads,'' Hume said.

Gale grew quiet when asked his next step if the investigation's primary suspect is ruled out. He said simply, ``I will be disappointed.''


It has been nearly 14 years. Another school year is about to begin. A weeping cherry tree planted in Kathleen's memory on the school grounds has grown from a sapling to a beautiful 18-foot specimen with a sturdy trunk and thick crown of foliage.

Jim and Esther Flynn still live in the house they bought when Kathleen was a toddler.

They know the police have a suspect. They've known for a while. They allow themselves to hope for an arrest.

``I think that would help with a little bit of wondering, the who. The why, I don't think we'll ever know. I don't think we'll ever know the answer to why did this happen,'' Esther Flynn said. ``I think it would nice to find out who, and have some kind of justice.''

Sitting at their kitchen table, they said they don't go a day without being reminded of their daughter, or how she died.

At the convenience store Jim Flynn now owns in Stamford, a child coming in for candy makes him think of Kathleen.

``Always something pops up,'' he said.

Esther Flynn, a high-school math teacher in Stamford, will see a child wearing a certain outfit, or hear some quality in a girl's voice. For a moment, Kathleen is there.

Just recently, Jim Flynn found himself in traffic behind a car carrying bicycles. One of them was lavender.

They gave Kathleen's bicycle to one of her friends. It had been a recent gift. Her birthday was Sept. 4, just 19 days before her death.

They kept her First Communion dress and the crafts and drawings Kathleen loved to work on. A Christmas ornament -- a wooden teddy bear -- hangs year-round in the kitchen. She made it for her father in the fourth grade.

Carefully packed away is the collection of Strawberry Shortcake dolls. Esther Flynn said they will keep them forever.


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