Solved: DNA evidence helps unravel the killing of Karen Klaas, a Hermosa Beach mystery 41 years in the making
Karen Klaas was killed in her Hermosa Beach home on Jan. 30, 1976. The identity of her killer remained a mystery for more than 40 years. Photo courtesy Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department On Jan. 30 1976, Hermosa Beach resident Kathy Bergstrom was working as a teacher. After the school day ended, she returned to her North Hermosa home, when she noticed a man pacing up and down the street. The man was a detective with the Hermosa Beach Police Department. “He told me he had gone to my house and the door had been unlocked,” Bergstrom recalled. “I said, ‘Why would I lock it?’ And he said, ‘Don’t you know what’s happened?’” Bergstrom did not, but she and the rest of the town soon would. Just up the block, police had cordoned off a grisly crime scene. Karen Klaas, then 32, had been attacked and strangled in her 24th Place home. Klaas was taken to a hospital and survived in a coma for five days until perishing Feb. 4 For 41 years, the case stood as one of the great unsolved crimes of Hermosa. The mystery was lifted Monday with an announcement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department: a cold-case team had used the latest DNA technology to pinpoint Klaas’ killer. But there…
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