1969 Abduction and Murder of Roxie Ann Phillips

On June 30, 1969 Roxie Phillips, a 17-year-old high school student from Oregon, was visiting family friends in Salinas. Roxie disappeared after going out for a walk in the early afternoon. No trace of Roxie was found until her body was discovered on July 13th, just outside the city of Carmel, partially buried in a wooded area. Roxie had been strangled to death. Most of her clothing was never found. The intense initial investigation into the case led detectives to the state of Michigan, where a two-year massive manhunt for the original “Co-ed Killer” was finally coming to a close with the arrest of their suspect, who had just returned home from his brief stay in Salinas. He was suspected in at least 6 homicides of young women in and around the Ypsilanti, Michigan area.

Although this same suspect was identified in Roxie’s case, he was never brought to justice and tried for her murder. He was only tried and convicted of one of the murders in Michigan. The other Michigan cases, as with Roxie’s case, remain unsolved. In late 2024, after a review of the original investigation, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office and DA’s Office Cold Case Task Force located key items of evidence from the original investigation, which had been maintained and untouched for the past 55 years. Some of this evidence, using modern state-of-the-art DNA examinations, has the strong possibility of identifying Roxie’s killer, which could also aid in the further investigation of the unsolved Michigan murders.