I would really like to know what is going on with the karen whiteside case!

Hi. I was not really a friend of hers, but i knew her from the "bad group" as we were called. kids who hung out in the h.s. parking lot,smoking cigs, and shooting the bull.That was 1977-80 when I hung out there.I d0 remember the reaction from everyone when she was found dead as if it happened yesterday! that kind of thing just did not happen to someone you knew back then.Well, 32 years have passed,and last week, her name popped into my head. I decided to investigate on the web.That is when I found out the case had been re-opened, and they had new leads. I have searched, to no avail on any up-dates. I now have that same feeling I had 32 years ago-anxious for the killer to be found. (side note-If modern technology had been present back then, the killer would have been caught in a week!-karen was a "scrapper. I can promise you she left her mark on him before she was killed.There HAD to be dna under her fingernails,on her teeth,etc.) I am anxious to learn more about this.

forgot to mention in all of my anxiety. this occurred in eugene,oregon,fairfield elementery school, in 1978

Perhaps one of these might help. Sometimes there are updates and followup reports off the original stories, just follow the links.
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If you type her name in quotes "Karen Whiteside" in your search engine (google, yahoo etc.) you will find several Media sources that have stories written about her.
She was discussed here at VH in Aug. 2009, but unfortunately we lost a lot of our earlier topics due to upgrades and changes on our server that were beyond our control.
Hope this helps

ok so fair is fair.
Your curiosity pesters at my curiosities. Sorry I'm just built like that. I was raised by a Cop.

Do you still live in the area where you went to school?
What kind of theories were floating around with your parking lot peers?
Who did ya'll think killed her?
Were there any other murders in the area?

(I have more, but I don't want to scare you off!)

Hi Supersport, and Welcome to VH. I also found these articles,
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We will be happy to offer you any assistance you need.

and p.s. NiteSpinR is a great person and can be a great help to you!! Again, Welcome!!

supersport.

A possible breakthrough in one of Eugene’s most perplexing murder cases may finally help police solve the 1978 killing of a local teenager.

Police say they are getting closer to an arrest in the strangulation death of 16-year-old Karen Whiteside and have identified a person of interest. The case is being re-­examined after publicity about a new “cold case” squad being formed within the Eugene Police Department generated new information.

According to police, detectives are following up on those tips as well as pursuing a review of forensic evidence. They are awaiting the results of DNA tests being conducted on evidence gathered in the original investigation.

Whiteside’s body was found on March 22, 1978, at Fairfield Elementary School in northwest Eugene. She was last seen the evening before when she left her nearby home to walk to a friend’s house.

The case has stymied detectives ever since.

Police at one point named a convicted murderer, Manuel Cortez, as a prime suspect, but no evidence positively linking him to the Whiteside case was ever released.

Then in 2005, Eugene police Detectives Jeff Roth and Mel Thompson took another look. After examining the evidence independently, both of them came up with “one person that there were just a lot of unanswered questions about,” Roth said.

He described the person as an acquaintance of Whiteside’s at the time of her murder.

Additional information supporting their theory came in earlier this year when Eugene police announced they were forming a cold case squad to look over old, unsolved cases. The squad hasn’t been formed yet, but police cited the Whiteside case as one they want to revisit and that brought in some new information.

But what may seal the case is the ability to run a DNA test on evidence that may have been overlooked in the original investigation. Roth said the break came when Thompson was looking over old crime scene photos and spotted something that at the time probably didn’t stand out.

“If you just look at the photos, it looks like an innocuous item,” Roth said.

The detectives won’t say what the item is, but they’ve sent it to the state police crime lab for DNA testing. It may be the end of the month before the results are available, but Roth said they are hopeful the wait will be worth it.

“If our theory is correct about the evidence and how it was used, there’s a greater than likely chance our suspect’s DNA is on it,” he said.

If so, Roth said that evidence will be enough for them to make an arrest. He said the “person of interest” is not in prison but is still living in Oregon and his whereabouts are known.

Roth did not entirely rule out the possibility that Cortez was involved, but he said the evidence they’re pursuing now “makes it hard for us to still focus” on him as a suspect. Cortez is serving a life sentence in the Oregon State Penitentiary for the brutal torture, rape and asphyxiation of two 11-year-old girls in Ashland in 1979.

Police released little information about the Whiteside murder in the days after her body was found. They did not comment on rumors that the girl was found bound and gagged and only partially clothed, and Roth said he does not want to release any details either.

Whiteside left her home in the 1700 block of Kintyre Street shortly before 8 p.m. on March 21, 1978, to walk to her friend’s house. Shortly after that, a girl matching her description stopped at a nearby market and bought a snack.

Assuming that was Whiteside, it was the last time anyone reported seeing her alive. Her body was found the next morning by a custodian at Fairfield Elementary, at the corner of Royal and Fairfield avenues.

Roth said both he and Thompson grew up in the area and remember when Whiteside, then a sophomore at Willamette High School, was murdered. He said he never imagined that he would be one of the detectives trying to bring the investigation to a close.

“If anybody had told me I’d be working this as a cold case, I would have laughed at them,” he said.

From wraps link above. Wow this is exciting. I have a passion for cold cases that get solved and justice is served.

Thanks for the help,guys! I left eugene in 1980, and have lived in okla.,and texas ever since. I tried to locate some old friends there, Still looking. I"m sure theres an up date somewhere.

You're more than welcome!! Would love to know what your theory is...who you think killed her, etc...as NitespinR asked above.

I googled 10 pages for updates and found none.

Welcome to VH, supersport!

I put a meta tag out there to link any Karen Whiteside searches to Victims Heartland. I hope this will bring people here with updates.

If nothing else, at least it might bring out some of the old group, to discuss this topic. still no results of locating any of them at this time. Are any still alive/out here? like to hear from jeff goebler,sonia shipley,david coker,todd bickford,olita schultz, and a guy named sheldon-as these were karen"s closest friends at the time.

LOL! Nitspinr, you"d have a heck of a time scarin" me. Me and todd bickford were a couple of 14 year-olds hangin out with the big kids, acting like tough-guys! back then,it was thought to be cool to hang out in willamette high school parking lot with the"group". as you can expect, almost everyone there had their own ideas as to who did it,etc.

I love your name SuperSport. We welcome you to VH and cannot wait to read more of your comments. :woot:

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This is the most recent posting I was able to find. They are still posting about it...but the last article update looks like it is from August of 2009

Ok am looking for the person that was wanting to reconnect with Jeff Gobler, Sonia Shipley, and so on

Is anyone out there looking for Sonia Shipley