Katharina Buczek
On top of the searches, the Sheriff’s Office would also receive a tip or two every year regarding Catherine’s whereabouts. One tipster claimed to have spotted her in Delafield; meanwhile, another suggested she was getting married in California. But unfortunately, none of the tips ever checked out.
Bizarrely, though, the Concord House was the same location where a young couple, Timothy Heck and Kelly Drew, were last seen alive in 1980– six years after Catherine’s disappearance.
Both cases remained cold for decades, and with the Concord House being a common factor between them, the Sjoberg family began to believe that perhaps the same perpetrator had committed both crimes.
Then, in 2012, investigators announced that DNA evidence had led to the arrest of a man named Edward Edwards– who was seventy-six and living in Louisville, Kentucky, at the time.
It was at that moment that the Sjobergs began to clutch onto a sliver of hope.
“The only hour in maybe thirty-five years that we had hope,” Catherine’s sister, Wendy Tesch, said.
Sadly, though, a detective who reopened Catherine’s case would ultimately shatter that hope. The detective revealed that investigators did not believe Edwards had killed Catherine.
Apparently, Edwards was a drifter who had been at the Concord House while working as a one-time handyman. And when Catherine disappeared in 1974, he was not in Wisconsin.
“Even if he was not involved in this, maybe somebody else might feel guilty enough to say something, so I can at least bury my daughter,” Ruth said in an interview with TODAY.
To this day, though, no one has ever come forward regarding Catherine’s disappearance, and her case has remained cold for over forty-eight years now.
No remains were ever found, so the Sjoberg family was never able to hold a proper funeral. Instead, a memorial service for Catherine was held in 1995.
