Death of young girl in ‘74 still haunts man

Editor’s note: This is the first of occasional stories on unsolved local crimes.

Thirty-two years after Patty Kuzara, 7, was murdered in Poway, San Diego Sheriff’s detectives continue to wonder what piece of untold information might solve the mystery surrounding the youngster’s death.

Sometimes, it’s that small detail that can crack a “cold case,” as detectives refer to murders that are unsolved, despite their repeated efforts long after the tragedies occur, according to Det. Pat Gardner with the Sheriff’s homicide unit.

Gardner is currently working on another cold case, that of the murder of 13-year-old Nikki Benedict, another Poway girl slain in 1967, he said.

But looking into a cold case is painstakingly slow and he’s not ready to make any comments until he has reviewed all the evidence and re-interviewed people, he said.

Anyone with information about either the Kuzara or Benedict homicides, should call the homicide unit at 858-974-2321.

Patty Lee Kuzara, a Midland Elementary School student, was walking home from a babysitter’s home in Poway Portal Homes, the first subdivision inside the Poway city limits off Poway Road, about dusk on Saturday, Sept. 28, 1974.

According to police reports, her mother told her to walk home if she wasn’t ready to be picked up at a specified time from the babysitter’s home.

At the time, Poway was considered a fairly small, but safe community with about 9,000 or 10,000 people.

Several witnesses spotted Patty Lee that Saturday night en route to her home on Putney Road off Midland Road, according to stories written about the incident in the Poway News Chieftain.

Her mother, Nancy Kuzara, reported Patty Lee missing about 7:45 p.m., after she did not show up at home.

Deputies plotted the girl’s path east along Poway Road, where merchants said they remember seeing the girl walk past their shops. She was seen crossing through the Safeway store’s parking lot, which is currently Henry’s Marketplace, on the corner of Poway and Midland roads, north on Midland toward her home on Putney Road, just blocks away.

Something caused the girl to turn toward a field that separated Midland from Community. Her footprints were found on Midland as she approached a church, but those prints abruptly turned toward the field, according to the police report.

Did someone call to her? Did she hear some kind of a noise?

Extensive searches were conducted during that Saturday night of her disappearance and into the wee hours of Sunday morning by 60 men — sheriff’s deputies, the department’s search and rescue team, along with local volunteers.

Her body was ultimately discovered with several blows to the head about 10:30 a.m. on Sunday by teenage boys on their way to services at the First Baptist Church on Midland Road.

One of the News Chieftain’s headlines a few days later asked “Where Were You The Night Patty Died? The Sheriff’s Department Wants To Know.”

Sgt. Doug Clements, who headed the investigation, told the News Chieftain in 1974, “If someone was walking their dog, driving to the store or out in a yard, I want to know about it.”

Clements also said that he didn’t want the community to “play detective.”

“Give the information to us and let us work with it,” he said in the newspaper interview. “If we don’t have it, it won’t help us.”

But not enough information, or evidence, could help identify who killed Patty Lee. Clements often said publicly that the murderer was probably someone living in the community.

Patty Lee was buried in a family plot on her grandparent’s ranch in Wyoming.

Her parents, Nancy and Dennis, subsequently divorced.

During a recent interview with Ian McQuage, who now lives in Missouri, the former Poway resident claims he was in the field where the Kuzara girl was murdered.

He was not quite 7 years old at the time, and he, along with a school chum, loved playing in the fields around Poway.

“It was pretty safe, a small community then,” McQuage said. “We explored the fields and local creeks and went most places on bikes.”

While some adults might not have believed him at the time, he vividly recalls being told by the murderer to “put your face into the dirt and don’t look up.”

The words were stern enough that McQuage was petrified and didn’t move a muscle, he said.

Deputies later asked if he could identify the murderer and he said “no.”

He could only say that the man was dark-haired. But when asked about the man’s height, he couldn’t specify how tall he was.

“When you’re a kid, everyone looks tall to you,” he said.

These days he remembers the sounds of the little girl being hit on the head, her moans and then stillness.

He doesn’t sleep much 32 years after the incident. And police contact him from time to time to see if he remembers anything else, but the tragedy remains a haunting impression, despite the lack of details that could help catch a murderer.