Kimberly Ratliff

School had never come that easy to Kimberly Ratliff of Council Bluffs, Iowa, but she’d worked hard to keep up her grades in order to graduate. And, she’d done it — the first in her family to do so.

Her post-graduation days, however, came with their own set of challenges, and somehow she found herself drifting toward a crowd of friends involved in both using and selling drugs.

It was during that time her stepfather, Leslie Kennedy of Council Bluffs, had a sit-down with his daughter in hopes of helping her get her life back on track. She listened, and knew he was right. The time had come for her to break free from “friends” who pulled her down and get busy mapping out the kind of future she hoped to enjoy.

On Friday night, January 8, 1999, the 22-year-old thanked her dad for his “intervention,” gave him a kiss goodbye and said, “Dad, I’ll be home tonight.”

He never saw his daughter alive again.

A few days later on Tuesday, January 12, a People’s Natural Gas employee clearing snow from the sidewalk found Ratliff’s body inside her vehicle in the company’s parking lot. She had sustained multiple stab wounds and been nearly decapitated.

Twelve years later, her homicide remains unsolved.

As her cold case anniversary approached, Les Kennedy and Kimberly’s mother, Joyce Kennedy, sat down with WHO-TV Channel 13’s Aaron Brilbeck  to talk about how they first learned of their daughter’s death, and second chances not always promised in one’s life.

Read more about Kimberly Ratliff on Iowa Cold Cases.

If you have any information regarding Kimberly’s unsolved murder, please contact the Council Bluffs Police Department at (712) 328-4765 or (712) 328-7876.