Kathleen “Kathy” Gonzalez, who described herself as “polished trailer trash,” lived in the same apartment building as Helen Wilson, a 68-year-old. On 6 February 1985, Helen’s sister found her dead.
A former investigator for the Beatrice police department, Burdette Searcey started his independent investigation before he was hired by Jerry DeWitt, a newly appointed sheriff of Gage County, as a deputy sheriff.
Burdette interviewed several informants who gave away names such as Joseph White, Thomas Winslow, Ada Joann Taylor, Cliff Shelden, Mark Goodson, Beth Johnson, Debra Shelden, and Charlotte Bishop as the ones who frequented Helen’s place. In the initial investigation, investigators obtained semen from the victim’s body and three fingerprints in her house, including one on a knife and two on a door frame.
So, Burdette believed that this heinous crime is not a possibility for one person. He also had a witness named Lisa Podendorf who claimed that she saw Ada JoAnn Taylor, Thomas Winslow, Joseph White, and Charlotte Johnson parked near Wilson’s apartment.
Meet Kathy Gonzalez, One Of The Beatrice Six
Burdette Searcey had interrogated Kathy Gonzalez during the primary investigation and she implicated James Dean’s role in Helen’s brutal death. However, when the deputy sheriff interrogated James, he recalled Kathy’s presence in the apartment. He added Kathy’s injury during the assault on Helen.
Debra Shelden, another suspect of the crime, also shared a similar story. She told the sheriff’s department that she remembered Kathy in the apartment with a bloody nose. She added that she did not know Kathy and forgot about her until she had a nightmare. Then, Burdette showed her the picture of Kathy and Debra that matched the characteristics of the woman she saw in her dream.
At the Gage County jail, Kathy confronted Shelden and Ada JoAnn, asking them why they thought she had participated in the crime. Shelden laughed and said, “I don’t know—I just remember you.” Ana JoAnn told her, “I don’t actually remember you being there”.
Police arrested Kathy on 25 May 1989 from Colorado. When arrested, she said she had been “worried about this for four years”. However, she repeatedly said that she does not recall showing up during the Wilson murder. On May 26, during an interview with psychologist Wayne Price in Beatrice, Kathy asked Wayne to hypnotize her so that she could recall being present, but Price refused.
Wayne revealed to Kathy that another witness charged with the crime implied that Kathy was there at the time of Helen’s murder.
When Kathy asked Wayne how she could refresh her memory, Wayne told her that she would remember if she relaxed and that her memories might return to her in dreams. When she asked what would happen if she still did not remember anything, Wayne said it would be “up to a court to decide”.
Wayne told Kathy that if she were “there and not participating,” it would be “a very different situation” than if she were “there participating”. Wayne told Gonzalez since she had been implicated by two others, there was “a good chance” that she was blocking it out of her memory.
“We don’t want you held responsible for anything you didn’t do and you know I have no idea of what [White] or [Taylor] and Winslow are going to say about you,” Wayne said. He said he would work with her to help her recover her blocked memory.
Meanwhile, during the blood test, Kathy’s blood result came positive and matched the blood type discovered at the crime scene. However, it was deferred by one genetic marker from the crime scene blood.
Dr. Reen Roy mailed a lab report which included the analysis. The report said that one of the genetic markers in Gonzalez’s blood (Gc-2–1) differed from one of the genetic markers that Roy identified in the type B blood (Gc-1) that was found at the scene of the murder. Even so, Dr. Roy later testified in a pre-trial deposition Gonzalez “cannot be excluded as the donor of the blood group B in many of the bloodstains that I found”.
James who kept amplifying his statement said that Kathy’s injury resulted from the struggle. He allegedly saw her bleeding in Wilson’s apartment.
Does Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez Appear On HBO Max’s Mind Over Murder?
No, Kathy Gonzalez doesn’t appear on HBO Max’s Mind Over Murder.
Where Is Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez Today?
On 5 October 1989, Kathy Gonzalez entered a plea of no contest to the charge of aiding and abetting second-degree murder. On 9 November, she testified that she had lived in the same apartment building as Wilson at the time of the crime and that Joseph White had raised the idea of committing a burglary with her.
Kathy along with James and Debra received 10-year prison terms each. She served approximately four and a half years before her release. She spoke to New York Times years after her release.
“They managed to get a bunch of people that really didn’t have important lives. We weren’t very well educated. We weren’t really conducting our lives in a Christian manner for the most part. And they just got rid of us,” Kathy told NY Times. “None of us were innocent; we were all broken in one way, shape, or form”.
She also told the outlet that the $2 million she will receive will be helpful. Kathy added she needed a car. Then she planned to see a dentist to fix her teeth. And she also planned to install air-conditioning in her house before Nebraska’s summer swelter descends. Kathy added that many people across the cornfields and cattle ranches of eastern Nebraska believe she is a murderer. It doesn’t change the fact that they owe her millions of dollars.
“Do I think it’s fair these people are going to have to pay us off?” Kathy asked. “No. But it wasn’t fair what they did to us, either”.
“None of us were living aboveboard lives,” Ms. Gonzalez said to New York Times. “We were all partyers. We were all basically chemically induced idiots. That made us disposable. That made it O.K. for them to throw us away”.
Kathy, a voracious reader, often gets to work early to read the newspapers in the grocery store break room. She came upon a letter to the editor from a Gage County farmer. The farmer argued that his taxes should not have to go up on account of someone else’s actions 30 years ago.
Kathy said the irony struck her.
“Because I know about paying for something somebody else did,” she said.
Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez Age
Born in mid-spring 1960, Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez is age 62 in 2022.
Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez Job Now
In 2017, Kathy Gonzalez spoke to New York Times. At the time she kept a job as a cashier at a grocery store in the tiny town of York, Nebraska. At the time of her arrest, she worked as a cook at a fish restaurant.
Is Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez Married?
Up to 2017, Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez appeared single. There is no info regarding her marriage in 2022.
Related FAQs
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Where Was Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez Born?
Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez might’ve been born in New Jersey.
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Is Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez On Facebook?
No, Kathy Gonzalez is not on Facebook.
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How Much Money Did Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez Receive For Wrongful Conviction?
Beatrice Six Kathy Gonzalez received $2 million for wrongful conviction from Gage County.
