What Maui, Hawaii’s Gary Ramirez did to Palo Alto, California’s Karen Stitt in 1982

Karen Ann Stitt of Palo Alto, Santa Clara County, California, United States died on September 3, 1982. She was 15.

Originally from Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA, Stitt moved to Palo Alto to live with her father and her brother. She attended Palo Alto High School on Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto.

In 1981, Stitt and Lori Kinyon, then 15, were classmates at Palo Alto High School and they had a peer counseling class together for one semester. The latter is the daughter of Andy Kinyon, who was fatally stabbed in San Francisco, California on January 22, 1972.

On the evening of September 2, 1982, Stitt took a bus from Palo Alto to Sunnyvale, Santa Clara County to meet her boyfriend David Woods, then 17, of Sunnyvale. They met at a 7-Eleven convenience store near the intersection of El Camino Real and Wolfe Road in Sunnyvale.

At around 8:00 p.m., Stitt and Woods played some videos at the convenience store, wandered over toward a Golfland miniature golf course and walked to Ponderosa Elementary School on Ponderosa Avenue in Sunnyvale. Before midnight, he walked her back so she could take a bus home.

At around 12:30 a.m. on September 3, 1982, Woods dropped Stitt off near a bus stop at the corner of El Camino Real and South Wolfe Road. She was wearing his baseball hat with a Rush rock band insignia, a leather jacket, a striped shirt and pants.

At around 10:45 a.m., truck driver Steven Bound was making a delivery to the Woolworth Garden Center in Sunnyvale when he saw Stitt near Honey Bee Restaurant, which is around 100 yards from the bus stop. She was lying naked in the bushes at the base of the 4-foot cinder block retaining wall along the garden center driveway, her wrists were bound behind her back with her shirt and her jacket was tied around her left ankle.

Blood and bodily fluid was found on Stitt’s body. A blood stain was also was found on top of the cinderblock wall just above her body.

Stitt was still alive when her body was left at the scene based on the kicked leaves and dirt. The Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety has yet to identify a suspect.

According to Dr. Angelo Ozoa, Stitt was stabbed 59 times on her neck, chest, abdomen and back. The neck stab wounds punctured her larynx, trachea and esophagus, her heart was perforated by 18 chest wounds and her lungs were perforated by 10 wounds, the medical examiner said.

On August 2, 2022, Gary Gene Ramirez, 75, was arrested at his residence in Makalani Place, Makawao, Maui, Hawaii, USA. Born and raised in Fresno, California, he is accused of murdering Stitt.

On August 10, 2022, Ramirez was extradited to California. He was set to face a judge there on August 23, 2022 but illness delayed his court appearance.