Overview of Catherine "Catrina" Mowrey
On June 25, 1985, Dallas officials received a call from an employee of the Casa III apartments about a suspicious odor coming from a car parked around the corner in the alley nearby. Police discovered 24 year old Catherine ‘Catrina’ Mowrey's remains in the trunk of the car, wrapped in a bedsheet. Police hastily assumed that Catrina had taken her own life but then revised this statement, sharing with reporters before they received toxicology reports, that it was a drug overdose and that someone had essentially panicked and put her in the trunk. The medical examiner would determine Catrina had died two days earlier and toxicology reports showed no drugs in her system and cause of death was "undetermined." Until recent pursuit of the truth by her niece, no family had been told Catrina hadn't died of suicide or overdose, and though there is a likely suspect and many clues, to this day Catrina's case remains unsolved.