Back in the 1970s, a young girl by the name of Brenda Gerwo was a smiling, happy, outgoing flower child who loved to live her life to the fullest. Gerow was a 21-year-old sister to Bill Gerow and both had been through the foster care system in New Hampshire.
Gerow found a job at a local bar by the name of OJ's. It was known as a biker bar where she had met a guy by the name of Jack Kalhauser. Kalhauser found a love interest with Brenda and kept frequenting that bar to get to know Gerow more.
Finally, Brenda decided to leave with Kalhauser on his bike. She just had to tell her brother, who she was very close with, the news. Brenda told her brother she loved him and would be back. Little did Bill know this was the last time he would verbally hear from his sister.
Months later, Bill got some turquoise from Brenda that was mailed to him from the state of New Mexico. It was a choker and back then turquoise was highly popular.
In the meantime, Bill was getting to learn more information on Jack Kalhauser. Kalhauser had served a sentence on a murder that he was convicted of. His parole was up and he got out on bond on May 8, 2019. Basically, Bill was starting to wonder if Kalhauser was running from his charges. Unfortunately, his sister did not know this and she had already left with him.
As the worry came across Bill's mind on learning more information about Jack Kalhauser, he started trying to figure out where his sister was, and what he could do to help. Weeks later, Bill got a phone call that his sister's body could potentially have been found in the state of Arizona on I-10 near the Houghton Road exit.
Two hunters found her body and there was a jacket hanging nearby. Her body was found on April 8, 1981, and she was beaten, strangled, and had been sexually assaulted. The investigators could not identify her eye color due to the decomposition of her body, but they knew she was dressed in denim pants, pink pom-pom socks, blue underwear, and brown shoes.
Police did a flyover, took photographs of the scene, and extracted DNA from her clothing to see if they could do a DNA profile on the potential murderer.
Bill was extremely shocked at what he was hearing and started doing some investigating himself.
In 2012, Brenda's body was exhumed and digital face recognition was done as her skull was examined.
Bill had a feeling that Kalhauser was involved and he had talked with a lot of people who knew Kalhauser. Kalhauser was known as a womanizer and verbally abusive towards women.
Another known fact that Bill had come across was that Kalhauser had changed his name, and had been using it as an alias the whole time he was in Arizona. Kalhauser married another woman and she had gotten to learn how he was. She filed for divorce and asked for custody of her two sons.
The rumor has it that this wife had been murdered and her body had been dumped in a mineshaft. Her body was never found so they could never formally charge Kalhauser with that murder.
Authorities found a picture that looked like a young Brenda Gerow that Kalhauser had in his possession. They gained evidence on him, but there was never enough to convict him of Brenda Gerow's murder. To this day, this is still a cold case in Pima County. Hopefully, someone will come forward so this young woman and her family can have justice.
Until then, it remains unsolved with so many questions.
Written By:
Heidi Reilly
Sources:
Comments