Kristin Mary O’Connell was a 20 year old college student from Burnsville, Minnesota, whose summer trip to the Finger Lakes region of New York ended in a brutal and still unsolved murder. She was last seen during the late evening of August 14, 1985, after reportedly leaving a gathering near County Road 139 in Ovid, New York. Two days later, searchers found her body in a nearby cornfield.
Kristin had traveled more than 1,000 miles from home to visit a young man she had met during spring break in Florida. The trip was supposed to be an opportunity to spend time with someone she was interested in and explore a part of the country that was unfamiliar to her. Instead, she soon decided to shorten the visit and return home.
On the night she disappeared, Kristin reportedly walked away from a trailer alone, barefoot and without her purse. Witnesses later described seeing her along the rural road, but no confirmed account established where she went afterward or who encountered her during her final moments…