A woman found dead in 1981 in Arizona has just been identified as Brenda Gerow, who went missing from New Hampshire in 1980. Gerow, then about 20 years old, left Nashua for Arizona with John Kalhauser, who had already been convicted of manslaughter nine years earlier in a man's shooting death, the Lowell Sun reports. And the year before he moved to Arizona with Gerow, he was also indicted for armed assault with intent to murder in connection to another shooting, this one of his ex-girlfriend's boyfriend. Kalhauser was out on bail when he left for Arizona. "We think she ran off, we don't know," Gerow's father tells the AP. "My daughter was just gone and we have no idea why. I don't know what happened. Thirty-three years and still no reason why." Gerow's brother tells the New Hampshire Union Leader his sister was a free spirit who met Kalhauser at a nightclub.
In 1995, Kalhauser's ex-wife disappeared from Arizona and Kalhauser (who had been using an alias) was arrested in connection with the 1979 incident. In 1996, he was convicted of armed assault with intent to murder in that incident; in 1999, he was convicted of second-degree murder in connection with his ex-wife's disappearance, though her body was never found. When Kalhauser was picked up in 1995, he had a photograph of a woman with him; in 2012, when investigators decided to exhume the body they found in Arizona in 1981 and reconstruct her face so that they could test evidence with new technology, WMUR reports, they matched her face up with the photo Kalhauser had been carrying. In 2014, they posted both images on social media, and tips ultimately led them to identify the woman as Gerow. Kalhauser is now considered a person of interest in her death, and the investigation continues. (More cold cases stories.)