Is Mystery Quilt Key To San Jose Woman’s Unsolved Murder 25 Years Ago?

A San Jose cold case murder may be heating up again, as the District Attorney’s office released a new clue in the 25-year-old strangulation killing of 38-year-old mom and San Jose State University student Cathy Zimmer.

Zimmer disappeared on the afternoon of March 18, 1989, after dropping her teenage kids at school, lunching with a friend then attending business classes at San Jose State where she was resuming her education while working part-time in a real-estate office.

After the classes she had a 2:45 pm optometry appointment, but she never showed up and did not return home in the evening.

Zimmer’s daughter, Debbie Lawrence, now 39 years old, described that spring day in the northern California city almost 25 years ago as “a normal day, and she just didn’t come home at night.”

Two days later, Cathy Zimmer’s body was found in the back seat of her own 1986, blue Chrysler New Yorker automobile, which was parked in the short-term parking lot at San Jose Airport. She had been strangled.

Her body was fully clothed and she did not appear to have been sexually assaulted, Santa Clara County Deputy D.A. Ted Kajani said, quoted in The San Jose Mercury News.

But there was one strange detail that investigators never released to the public, in hopes that holding back a key piece of information would help to identify Cathy Zimmer’s killer.

The woman’s body was wrapped in what appeared to be a homemade, multi-colored quilt. No one in Cathy Zimmer’s family had ever seen the quilt before.

Now the District Attorney’s investigators have released a photo of the quilt, seen above, in hopes that someone will recognize even a piece of it.

“When people look at it, we’re hoping they think of it more than just the quilt itself,” Kajani said. “Take a look at all the panels, see if you recognize maybe a set of curtains it was made from, some of the material, or a pair of funky pants or something.”

Any such identification of even one element of the quilt could help investigators trace its origin and that could lead to the killer.

“She was going back to San Jose State (University) because she basically spent her 20s raising us,” said Debbie Lawrence. “She was sprouting her wings and going (to college), focusing on her well being.”