This week Mystery in Michigan looks at the murder of popular teenager Kathey Lynn Horn, who went missing on a night out with friends after taking a lift from an older acquaintance.
Traverse City, Mich. resident 16-year-old Kathey Horn was a pretty girl with a bubbly personality whom her friends nicknamed ‘Jibber’ as she was always chatting away.
On Sept. 24, 1994, the teenager disappeared with 36-year-old David Paul Czinki after a night out, he was supposed to give her and some friends a lift but she was never seen alive again.
A huge search was conducted after Horn went missing and police received more than 100 tips, but nothing turned up for two years. Then some mushroom hunters found her clothes in some remote woodland and ten days later her body was found about 6 miles away.
The autopsy was unable to determine the cause of death but her mother was sure that she’d been murdered. Janice Rott had already quit her job and put all her efforts into finding her daughter and now she focussed on finding her killer, even hiring a private detective.
However, it not be until 2001 that Czinki was eventually linked to the murder with circumstantial evidence and put on trial. In 2002 he was found guilty of second-degree murder and the judge ordered that the 36-year-old serve at least 35 years in prison before having any chance of parole.
Mystery in Michigan airs at 10:00 PM on Investigation Discovery.
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