In a harrowing tale that shocked the nation, the seemingly ordinary road trip of 18-year-old Lisa “Lil Miss” Kimmell turned into a six-day nightmare in March 1988. Lisa embarked on her journey from Colorado to her hometown of Billings, Montana, with the intention of picking up her boyfriend in Cody, Wyoming. However, she vanished somewhere along the desolate stretches of Wyoming’s highways, with her last confirmed sighting being a traffic stop by a state trooper in Douglas, Wyoming.
As days turned into a week with no sign of Lisa, her family and local authorities launched extensive search efforts, distributing flyers and scouring the area for any trace of her. Tragically, the hope of finding her alive was shattered on April 2, 1988, when two fishermen discovered her lifeless body floating in a river near Casper, Wyoming. The coroner’s report revealed that Lisa had been brutally beaten, stabbed, and held captive for nearly a week before her murder.
The investigation quickly turned to the mystery of Lisa’s car, a black Honda CRX adorned with custom Montana plates reading “Lil Miss.” Despite the car’s distinctive features, no one could locate it, leading investigators to question multiple eyewitness reports claiming to have seen the vehicle and a woman resembling Lisa driving it after her death. The case went cold as leads dried up, leaving her family and the community in anguish.
In a chilling twist, six months after Lisa’s murder, a handwritten note was found taped to her gravestone, signed by “Stringfellow Hawk,” a character from the 1980s television series Airwolf. The note, which expressed deep sorrow and longing for Lisa, raised suspicions about a possible connection to her killer. For 14 years, her case remained unsolved until renewed efforts in 2002 led cold case detectives to a DNA match linking her murder to Dale Wayne Eaton, a welder and former inmate already incarcerated on unrelated charges.
Eaton was apprehended, and as investigators searched his remote property, they pieced together a horrifying account of Lisa’s last days. According to Eaton, Lisa had pulled over to rest on his land, where he abducted her at gunpoint and held her captive in an old school bus. After torturing her for nearly a week, he ultimately murdered her and disposed of her body from a bridge into the river. Further investigation revealed the buried remains of her Honda CRX on his property, confirming suspicions about his involvement.
In 2003, Dale Wayne Eaton was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault, bringing a measure of justice to Lisa’s family after nearly 15 years of uncertainty. However, suspicions lingered that Eaton may have been involved in other disappearances and murders, given his history and the parallels to Lisa’s case.
In a subsequent legal battle, Lisa’s family sought justice beyond the criminal conviction by filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Eaton. In 2005, they won the case, obtaining ownership of Eaton’s property, where Lisa had suffered. On what would have been Lisa’s 36th birthday, her family took a symbolic stand against her killer by burning down the buildings on the land, erasing the remnants of his horrific actions.
The case of Lisa Kimmell is a haunting reminder of the dangers that can lurk in the most unsuspecting circumstances. While justice was served in part with Eaton’s conviction, questions remain about his potential connections to other victims, leaving a chilling legacy of unresolved mysteries in the wake of Lisa’s tragic fate. As her family continues to seek closure, the story of “Lil Miss” Kimmell endures as a testament to resilience and the quest for justice in the face of overwhelming loss.
