Overview

Last Seen: March 3, 1973, at approximately noon

Location: 1512 Keko Street, Oroville, Butte County, California

Age: 16

Circumstances: Kathleen left the residence following an argument with her stepmother and was reported missing the same day. She was reportedly seen elsewhere in the Oroville area afterward but eventually disappeared completely.

Investigation: The Butte County Sheriff’s Office classifies the case as a missing person/possible homicide. Investigators have made several attempts to locate Kathleen’s remains using information received during the investigation, but she has not been found.

Status: Missing; foul play suspected.

Butte County Sheriff’s Case: C73-13826

NamUs: MP22528

Detailed Case Breakdown

Kathleen Edna Rodgers: California Teen Missing Since 1973

Sixteen-year-old Kathleen Edna Rodgers disappeared from Oroville, California, on March 3, 1973. More than five decades later, her whereabouts remain unknown, and the Butte County Sheriff’s Office considers her disappearance a possible homicide.

Kathleen was last seen around noon at her home at 1512 Keko Street in Oroville. According to investigators, she and her stepmother, Elda Stevens, had been involved in an argument before Kathleen left. Her stepmother reported her missing that same day.

Kathleen Rodgers’ Disappearance

Kathleen was born on May 10, 1956, making her 16 years old when she disappeared. She was approximately 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed about 130 pounds. She had brown hair and green eyes.

She was reportedly wearing a blue coat, green Army shirt, blue-and-white blouse, blue Levi’s jeans and brown shoes. She also wore a watch and two gold rings.

The circumstances surrounding Kathleen’s disappearance were initially consistent with the possibility that she had voluntarily left home. Investigators said she had been living with and spending time with friends, and there were reported sightings of her elsewhere in the Oroville area after she was reported missing.

But Kathleen never returned home and eventually stopped being seen or heard from by family and friends.

Who Was Kathleen With Before She Vanished?

The Butte County Sheriff’s Office states that Kathleen was associated with, and may have been dating, a man named Dale William Kirk around the time she disappeared.

The publicly available sheriff’s material does not identify Kirk as a suspect or accuse him of involvement in Kathleen’s disappearance. His name is included because investigators documented the association as part of the circumstances surrounding her life at the time.

Because Kathleen was reportedly staying or spending substantial time with friends, determining exactly where she went and whom she encountered after leaving the Keko Street residence has remained an important unanswered part of the case.

Reported Sightings After March 3, 1973

Kathleen did not simply disappear without another reported sighting.

According to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office, she was seen in the Oroville area after her stepmother filed the missing-person report. The publicly available case summary does not provide dates, locations or the identities of the people who reported those sightings.

That creates one of the central questions in the case: Kathleen’s departure from home on March 3 may not represent the actual moment when something happened to her.

Her precise final confirmed movement remains publicly unclear.

Why Investigators Suspect Foul Play

Although Kathleen may initially have left voluntarily, investigators no longer treat the case simply as that of a teenage runaway.

The Butte County Sheriff’s Office categorizes the case as a “Missing Person/Possible Homicide” and explicitly states that foul play is suspected.

The sheriff’s public case summary also contains a significant detail: investigators say several attempts have been made to locate Kathleen’s remains based on information provided to the sheriff’s office. Those searches have not resulted in the recovery of her remains.

Publicly available records do not explain where those searches occurred, when they occurred, who provided the information, or what led authorities to believe Kathleen’s remains could be located in the searched areas.

Latest Investigation Information

Kathleen’s case remains publicly listed by the Butte County Sheriff’s Office as a missing person/possible homicide.

The agency continues to seek information that could help locate Kathleen or assist investigators. Its current publicly available case material says previous information supplied to law enforcement resulted in multiple attempts to search for her remains, but those efforts were unsuccessful.

No publicly announced arrest, criminal charge or officially identified suspect in Kathleen’s disappearance was located in the sources reviewed for this article.

Kathleen also has a National Missing and Unidentified Persons System case, NamUs MP22528. Contemporary missing-person listings identify her as 16 years old when she disappeared from Oroville on March 3, 1973.

Over the years, members of missing-person and unidentified-remains communities have compared Kathleen with unidentified decedents. These comparisons should not be confused with official findings unless confirmed by investigators or NamUs. At least some unidentified-person possibilities involving Kathleen have been formally excluded.

What Happened to Kathleen Edna Rodgers?

More than 50 years after Kathleen disappeared, several critical questions remain unanswered.

Investigators know that she left the Keko Street residence after an argument on March 3, 1973. They also have information indicating that she was seen around Oroville afterward. At some point, however, the sightings ended, and Kathleen disappeared completely.

The sheriff’s office’s efforts to search for her remains demonstrate that investigators have received information significant enough to pursue the possibility that Kathleen died. Yet no publicly disclosed search has located her, and authorities have not publicly explained what evidence caused the case to develop into a suspected foul-play investigation.

Anyone who knew Kathleen, spent time with her friends in early 1973, remembers Dale William Kirk or other members of her social circle, or has information about where Kathleen may have gone after leaving Keko Street could potentially possess information investigators still need.

Very Brief Case Summary

Last Seen: March 3, 1973, at approximately noon

Location: 1512 Keko Street, Oroville, Butte County, California

Age: 16

Circumstances: Kathleen left the residence following an argument with her stepmother and was reported missing the same day. She was reportedly seen elsewhere in the Oroville area afterward but eventually disappeared completely.

Investigation: The Butte County Sheriff’s Office classifies the case as a missing person/possible homicide. Investigators have made several attempts to locate Kathleen’s remains using information received during the investigation, but she has not been found.

Status: Missing; foul play suspected.

Butte County Sheriff’s Case: C73-13826

NamUs: MP22528