This murder took place in Tempe Arizona between Thursday night March 19th and Friday morning March 20th 1981. Gretchen was 23 years old and a senior majoring in a Textiles program at ASU. She was originally from Livonia Michigan but moved to Arizona for college after high school. Gretchen left her job at Cloth World in Tempe around 9pm to go home to study for a test in her Botany class which was to take place the next morning. She lived in an apartment complex on the NEC of Priest and Broadway in Tempe. That night neighbors reported hearing a man banging on the apartment door screaming "Gretchen! Let me in!". Police were called to the apartment that night but they left when they found nobody was at the apartment.
The next morning a groundskeeper found Gretchen's body in the parking lot of Corona Del Sol high school. She was wearing only a gold watch and gold bracelet and white bathrobe. She has been run over with her own car which was discovered back at her apartment complex parked in a spot that was not her usual one. The high school was located 15 minutes away from Gretchen's apartment. In 1981 the high school was surrounded by cotton fields and was a much more secluded area than today. The southeastern suburbs of Phoenix would not begin their great boom period until the 1990's.
Police highly suspect Gretchen's boyfriend but he has not been charged or publicly identified. He apparently was the only person interviewed by police who hired an attorney soon after Gretchen's murder. In a 1998 article in the Arizona Republic Gretchen's father revealed this man was also an ASU student. Another piece of information withheld in the articles on the case is the name of Gretchen's sorority. Perhaps her friends at ASU have more information?
https://cdssunrise.com/16926/top-stories/the-ghost-of-gretchen/
