Continuing the posts in the cold case of Karen Caughlin:
Guest post by Miriam Said and Stephanie Saunders with Alice de Sturler
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We have some new details in the 1974 Canadian cold case of Karen Caughlin.
Karen was NOT wearing saucer earrings but hoops. I think that we described them in an earlier post as “saucer like” but they were hoops.
She left the house with those earrings in but when she was found, they were not in her ears or found near her body. Police have never circulated a picture or an exact description of the earrings.
Authorities have never spoken to the public about the earrings either. In short, we do not know whether the hoops were from silver, metal or gold (what karat, origin of the gold to determine exact colour, type of claps, stick earrings or earrings for pierced ears, etc. If the earrings were of 24 karats and thus very soft, impressions could have been left on them).
Remember the purple paint chips?
Remember also that there was not final determination whether Karen was hit by a car or a truck?
Well, I think we should include farm equipment in our search. Initially, I thought this might be a waste of time since personally, I have never seen purple farm equipment. But, Miriam and Stephanie have been searching the Internet for purple coloured farm equipment and this is what they found:
1: David Brown Tractors were available in a purple-red colour.
2: DuPont Tractor Colours included purple for farm equipment.
Now we need to find out whether police in 1974 included purple farm equipment in their initial searches! I can hear you say: “But did the paint not come from a car? I thought we were looking for a Chevrolet?”
That is indeed what we mentioned before but we also posted that “The Toronto Forensic Lab and Chrysler Canada determined that the paint chips were from this make models, year and colour of car. It was also determined that the paint chips were that of factory paint used at the Windsor Chrysler plant during these years (1970/1971).” Is there any chance that farm equipment could be painted with that factory paint? Has anyone ever seen purple farm equipment in the Sarnia area?
The paint chips were found on Karen’s clothing and it was determined that those chips were factory paint. Then the search went into the direction of automobile factories. But why not farm equipment as well? It may be a long shot but I think we should explore it.
UPDATE: I asked one of my forensic friends whether there is a chemical difference between paint used for vehicles and paint used for farm equipment. Answer: “Other than the color blends it is usually just enamal paint, same as automotive, the color is the unique part.”
Miriam and Stephanie also looked into the distance between Brock Street, Sarnia, where Karen was last seen alive and Plowing Match Road, where she was found dead. They noticed a few variations in time on Google Maps but the difference was just by a few minutes. In general, the distance between Brock Street and Plowing Match Road is approx 33 minutes.
To be continued.