The cold January morning in 2019 broke with an unusual disturbance on Maple Street. Six unmarked police vehicles silently pulled up to a modest two-story home in Huntington, West Virginia. Neighbors peered through curtains as officers in tactical gear positioned themselves around the property.

 Inside, 78-year-old David Kowalsski was preparing his morning coffee, the same ritual he’d performed for nearly five decades as a respected high school teacher, community volunteer, and beloved grandfather of four. The sharp knock at his door came at 7:32 a.m. David Kowalsski, West Virginia State Police. We have a warrant for your arrest in connection with the 1971 murder of Katherine Fitzgerald.

The officers would later describe how the elderly man’s hand trembled slightly as he set down his coffee mug, but his face remained eerily composed, as if he’d been waiting for this moment for half a century. March 16th, 1971. The morning sun cast long shadows across the Marshall University satellite campus in Cabell County.

 Patricia Wilson, a sophomore studying education, knocked repeatedly on her friend Catherine’s dorm room door. She always met me for breakfast on Tuesdays. Patricia later told detectives, “When she didn’t show up for class either, I knew something was wrong.” Campus security found 22year-old Catherine Fitzgerald sprawled across her dorm room floor, strangled with her own scarf.

 Her textbooks lay open on her desk, notes half-written, a coffee cup still warm. No signs of forced entry, no apparent struggle, just a brilliant young life extinguished without warning or explanation. For 50 years, the murderer who took Catherine’s life continued living just miles from the crime scene. He attended community fundraisers where her parents spoke tearfully about their loss. He read newspaper anniversary stories about the case going cold.

 He watched as Catherine’s younger sister became a prosecutor, driven by the injustice of her sister’s unsolved murder. The killer coached little league, served on the school board, and was named citizen of the year in 1997. He sent Christmas cards to detectives who had once interviewed him as a person of interest before clearing his name.

For five decades, he hid behind a facade of respectability while carrying the darkest secret in Cabell County history. How did this pillar of the community evade justice for half a century? What finally led investigators to his doorstep after thousands of dead ends? And most disturbing of all, how many lives intersected with a killer who walked freely among them, hiding in plain sight.

 Before we reveal how this predator was finally caught and the groundbreaking forensic techniques that cracked this coldest of cases, take a second to click subscribe and hit the notification bell. This channel brings you the most compelling true crime stories with all the details mainstream coverage leaves out.

 Subscribe now so you don’t miss a single moment of this extraordinary tale of delayed justice. Katherine Anne Fitzgerald was born to Elizabeth and Michael Fitzgerald on June 12th, 1948 in Charleston, West Virginia. The oldest of three children, Catherine Kathy, to everyone who knew her, was described by family and friends as thoughtful, determined, and quietly ambitious.

Her father worked as a civil engineer for the State Highway Department, while her mother taught piano lessons from their modest family home on Canawa Boulevard. From an early age, Catherine displayed a natural aptitude for science that set her apart from her peers.

 In a time when women were still largely expected to pursue teaching, nursing, or homemaking, Catherine had her sights set on medicine. Her high school yearbook photo caption reads, “Plans to attend Marshall University and become a doctor.” This was no small dream for a workingclass girl from West Virginia in the late 1960s. She was brilliant, but never made a show of it,” recalled her younger sister, Margaret, in a 2015 interview.

 “When I struggled with homework, she’d help me figure it out myself instead of just giving me the answer. That’s who she was. Always teaching, always believing in people’s potential.” Catherine graduated as validictorian from Charleston High School in 1967 and became the first person in her family to attend college when she enrolled at Marshall University’s main campus in Huntington.

 After two successful years, she transferred to the smaller satellite campus in Cabell County to focus on her premed studies where the studentto faculty ratio allowed for more personalized attention. By 1971, Catherine was thriving. Her professors consistently praised her work, particularly in organic chemistry and biology. She lived in Sycamore Hall, a women’s dormatory that housed approximately 80 female students.

 Her roommate had withdrawn mid- semester due to family issues, leaving Catherine with a private room, a rare luxury for a college student at that time. The Marshall satellite campus in 1971 was a cluster of five red brick buildings nestled against the rolling Appalachian foothills. With just over 120 students, it offered the tight-knit community feel that Catherine preferred over the more bustling main campus.

The town of Milton in Cabell County had a population of roughly 3,000, a place where people left doors unlocked and everyone seemed to know everyone else. Milton was the kind of place where the worst crime was usually kids tipping over mailboxes on Halloween, said retired Sheriff Jim Holloway.

 We had our share of domestic disputes and the occasional barfight, but violent crime. That wasn’t part of our reality here. On campus, Catherine had developed a small but close circle of friends. She worked part-time in the university library, attended meetings of the premedical society, and volunteered weekly at Cabell County Hospital.

 Her diary, recovered from her dorm room, revealed a young woman mindful of her schedule, devoted to her studies, and thoughtfully planning a future that would never come. March 15th, 1971, the day before her murder, began like any other Monday for Catherine. According to statements from classma

tes and professors, as well as her own diary entry from that morning, she attended her 8:30 a.m. comparative anatomy class, followed by advanced chemistry at 11 a.m. She ate lunch with her friend Patricia Wilson at the campus cafeteria around 1:15 p.m. where they discussed an upcoming biology exam. She seemed completely normal. Patricia later told detectives, “We talked about studying together that weekend.

 She was worried about the enzyme section, but that was just Cathy being Kathy. She always worried even though she’d end up with the highest grade. From 2:30 to 5:00 p.m., Catherine worked her shift at the library. The head librarian, Doris Malone, remembered that Catherine had seemed particularly focused that day, reorganizing the medical reference section and helping a professor locate obscure journal articles. At 5:30 p.m.

, security cameras captured Catherine entering the dining hall for dinner, where she ate alone while reviewing her notes. She checked out two books from the library at 7:15 p.m. before returning to her dorm room. At 9:20 p.m., she called her parents, a Monday night ritual confirmed by phone records, and her mother’s statement. She talked about coming home the following weekend, Elizabeth Fitzgerald recalled in her initial police interview. She wanted to celebrate her father’s birthday.

 She sounded happy, making plans for the future. Catherine’s final diary entry, written shortly before midnight on March 15th, read, “Tired but accomplished today. Need to finish Chem problem set before Wilson’s class. Remember to mail dad’s card tomorrow. Summer internship application due Friday. Review once more.

 The next morning, Catherine would be found dead. Between these ordinary moments of a dedicated students life and the horror of her murder lay a gap of approximately 9 hours. What happened in Catherine’s dorm room between midnight and the discovery of her body at 9:15 a.m. remains the central mystery that haunted investigators for decades.

 These details of Catherine’s life, her ambitions, her routines, her relationships, would later become crucial puzzle pieces as investigators attempted to understand not just how she died, but who might have wanted to kill a promising young woman with no known enemies and seemingly nothing to hide.

 As we continue exploring this remarkable case, I’m curious, where are you watching from today? Whether you’re in West Virginia, where this story unfolded, or thousands of miles away, true crime has a way of connecting us all to the fundamental questions of justice and human behavior. Let us know in the comments below as we continue uncovering the truth behind one of Ame

rica’s most baffling cold cases. At 9:17 a.m. on March 16th, 1971, campus security officer Robert Gaines radioed the Cabell County Sheriff’s Department with a code that hadn’t been used in the county for over a decade. 10:31, possible homicide, Sycamore Hall, room 214. The timestamp of that call marked the official beginning of what would become West Virginia’s most enduring murder investigation.

 Patricia Wilson’s morning had begun with mild annoyance that turned to concern and ultimately terror. When Catherine failed to meet her for their standing Tuesday breakfast at 7:30 a.m., Patricia initially assumed her friend had overslept. By 8:45 a.m., after Catherine missed their shared biology lecture, something she had never done before, Patricia’s worry grew acute enough to convince her to skip the remainder of class and check on her friend.

 I knocked several times,” Patricia recalled during her witness statement. “At first normal, then harder.” I called out her name. The door was locked, which wasn’t unusual, but the silence was. Catherine was always an early riser. Patricia sought out the resident adviser, 22-year-old Elaine Summers, who used her master key to open the door after her own knocks went unanswered. “I’ll never forget Patricia’s scream.

” Elaine later testified. It didn’t even sound human. I looked past her shoulder and saw Catherine on the floor. I pulled Patricia back, closed the door, and ran to call security. Officer Gaines arrived within minutes and secured the scene. His incident report, Tur and Clinical, described what he found.

 Female victim approximately 20 25 years of age, lying supine on floor between desk and bed. liature marks visible on neck. No signs of life. Room undisturbed, door locked, window closed. Sheriff Thomas Hayward and Detective Frank Mullins arrived at 9:42 a.m., followed 20 minutes later by county medical examiner Dr. Howard Levitt. By 10:30 a.m., the small campus was swarming with law enforcement as news of the murder spread through the stunned community.

 The initial scene assessment suggested several immediate concerns. Detective Mullins wrote in his case notes. The victim appeared to have been strangled with what we later identified as her own scarf. There was no sign of forced entry. The room was neat and orderly except for the area immediately surrounding the body. Most peculiarly, there were two coffee cups on the desk, both apparently used recently.

This detail, the second coffee cup, would become the most tantalizing and frustrating piece of evidence in the case. It suggested Catherine had willingly admitted her killer into her room, likely someone she knew and trusted enough to share a late night coffee. Dr.

 Levit’s preliminary examination at the scene established the time of death between 11:30 p.m. Monday night and 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. Catherine was dressed in jeans and a Marshall University sweatshirt, not sleepwear, indicating she hadn’t been preparing for bed when she was killed. The ligature marks show consistent pressure application, Dr. Levit noted in his initial report. The perpetrator approached from behind using considerable force.

 Death would have occurred within minutes. The victim likely had minimal opportunity to defend herself. Indeed, the only signs of struggle were defensive bruising on Catherine’s forearms and broken fingernails on her right hand. The killer had been both swift and powerful. As investigators processed the scene, they made several observations that would shape the initial investigation.

 Catherine’s wallet remained untouched in her purse with $43 inside, ruling out robbery as a motive. Her class notes were still open on her desk beside the two coffee cups, suggesting she might have been studying when her visitor arrived. Her door had been locked from the inside with a key that was later found in her pocket, a detail that confounded investigators.

 Either the killer had their own key, which was highly unlikely given the university’s strict key control, or they locked the door from inside and exited through the window, Detective Mullins theorized. The window, however, showed no signs of being opened, and the three-story drop would have been difficult to navigate without injury. By noon, news of the murder had spread beyond the campus to the wider community.

 Local radio stations interrupted regular programming with special bulletins. The campus administration hastily called an emergency meeting where they announced the cancellation of all classes for the remainder of the week. The phones in our office rang non-stop, recalled Linda Jenkins, who worked as a secretary in the administration building.

 Parents were panicking, wanting to pick up their children immediately. Students were crying in the hallways. It was like the whole world had suddenly shifted beneath our feet. The reaction from the tight-knit Milton community was equally profound. Local businesses closed early. Churches opened their doors for impromptu prayer services.

 The town mayor appeared on local television, urging calm while promising that no resource would be spared in bringing this criminal to justice. As investigators continued working the crime scene throughout that Tuesday, they meticulously collected evidence that would eventually decades later prove crucial in solving the case. fingerprints from the coffee cups, fibers from the carpet near the body, and microscopic skin samples from beneath Catherine’s fingernails where she had scratched her attacker. “We’re treating everything as potential

evidence,” Sheriff Hayward told reporters at a hastily arranged press conference that evening. “At this stage, we have more questions than answers, but I want to assure both the campus and the wider community that this case is our absolute priority.

 By Wednesday morning, March 17th, investigators had begun constructing a timeline of Catherine’s final hours, piecing together witness statements, security camera footage, and physical evidence. 7:15 p.m. Catherine checks out two books from the library. 7:30, 8:45 p.m. Catherine is seen studying alone in the dorma

tory common room by several witnesses. 8:50 p.m. Catherine returns to her room according to her hallmate who briefly spoke with her. 9:20 p.m. Catherine calls her parents, confirmed by phone records. 10:15 p.m. Catherine’s neighbor across the hall hears what sounds like a kettle whistling in Catherine’s room. 11:05 p.m. The same neighbor reports hearing muffled voices from Catherine’s room. Not arguing, just conversation.

11:45 p.m. 2:30 a.m. Estimated time of death based on medical examiner’s findings. 9:15 a.m. Body discovered. The investigation’s first major challenge emerged when they attempted to identify who might have visited Catherine that night.

 Her diary contained no mention of expecting company, and none of her friends reported any plans to meet with her. The coffee cups told us someone was there, but nobody would admit to being that someone. Detective Mullins later explained. Either the killer was a stranger who somehow gained her trust instantly, or it was someone she knew well enough to invite in late at night, someone who wasn’t coming forward.

The second major challenge involved the dormatory security. Sycamore Hall had strict visitor policies requiring guests to sign in at the front desk and leave by 10 beller. The sign-in log for March 15th showed no visitors for Catherine, and the night guard insisted no unauthorized persons had entered the building after hours. This left investigators with a troubling conclusion.

 Either the killer was another dormatory resident, a university employee with access privileges, or someone who had found a way to circumvent the building’s security measures. The coffee cups yielded the investigation’s first substantial leads. Both contained traces of the same instant coffee brand that Catherine kept in her room.

 But while her fingerprints were on one cup, the other had been wiped clean, an intentional act that suggested premeditation. By Friday, March 19th, investigators had interviewed 47 people, including Catherine’s friends, professors, dormatory residents, and campus staff. They’d taken fingerprints from 23 potential suspects and collected hair samples from 15. Each person had provided alibis for the night in question, though not all could be immediately verified.

The more we dig, the more complicated this gets. Sheriff Hayward admitted in his case notes that weekend, “This wasn’t a random act of violence. Someone targeted this young woman specifically. someone comfortable enough in her presence to share a late night coffee, someone methodical enough to clean their fingerprints afterward, and someone who knew how to enter and exit that room without being detected.

 As Catherine’s body was released to her family for funeral services the following Monday, the investigation hit its first major roadblock. With no eyewitnesses, no clear motive, and a crime scene that raised more questions than answers, detectives found themselves chasing shadows.

 The funeral in Charleston drew over 400 mourners, including dozens of classmates who traveled from Cabell County. The university president delivered a eulogy praising Catherine’s academic promise and personal character. Her father, stoic throughout the service, broke down only when his daughter’s casket was lowered into the ground.

 “We demand justice for our daughter,” Elizabeth Fitzgerald told reporters afterward, her voice unwavering despite her tear streaked face. Someone out there knows what happened to Catherine. We beg you to come forward. What neither the grieving family nor the determined investigators could have imagined that day was that justice would take half a century to arrive.

 Or that the key to solving the case was already in their possession, preserved in an evidence box that would sit untouched for decades, waiting for science to catch up to a killer who walked freely among them. By April 1971, the initial shock of Katherine Fitzgerald’s murder had evolved into something more insidious. Fear. Enrollment numbers at the satellite campus dropped as parents withdrew their daughters. Female students began traveling in groups, even during daylight hours.

 The administration installed additional lighting and hired security guards to patrol the grounds 24 hours a day. Meanwhile, the investigation that had begun with such urgency and promise was hitting one dead end after another. Detective Frank Mullins maintained a methodical approach, establishing three concentric circles of suspicion around Catherine.

 Those closest to her daily life, those who intersected with her routinely, and those who might have encountered her randomly. “This approach yielded an initial suspect list of 27 individuals. “We started with the obvious,” Mullins wrote in his case summary. former boyfriends, male classmates who had shown interest in her, faculty members who had close contact with her.

Catherine’s most recent boyfriend, Thomas Mitchell, a graduate student at the main Marshall campus in Huntington, became the investigation’s first focus. They had dated for 8 months before breaking up in January 1971. The split had been Catherine’s decision, according to her diary entries.

 She wrote that he became too possessive and couldn’t understand her prioritizing med school over marriage. Detective Mullins noted. Classic motive territory. Mitchell was interrogated three times during the initial investigation. His alibi that he was studying with classmates in Huntington, 30 mi away, was confirmed by multiple witnesses. Phone records showed he ma

de a call from his dormatory phone at 11:30 p.m. within the estimated window of Catherine’s murder. Reluctantly, investigators ruled him out. The second major suspect emerged from witness statements. Janet Meadows, who lived down the hall from Catherine, reported seeing a maintenance worker leaving the vicinity of Catherine’s room around 10:30 p.m. on the night of the murder, well after normal working hours. He didn’t have any tools with him, Meadows stated.

 I remember thinking that was odd, but he smiled and said good evening, so I didn’t think much more about it. This led investigators to Raymond Lewis, a 43-year-old university maintenance employee with access to all dormatory buildings. Lewis had a minor criminal record, two disorderly conduct charges from bar fights in his 20s.

 Initial interviews revealed inconsistencies in his account of that evening, elevating him to prime suspect status for nearly two weeks. The case against Lewis collapsed when investigators discovered he had been admitted to Cabell County Hospital at 9:45 p.m. on March 15th with a broken ankle from falling off a ladder. Hospital records confirmed he remained there until the following morning, physically incapable of committing the murder. We’re not sure who Janet Meadows saw.

 Sheriff Hayward acknowledged in a press briefing, but it couldn’t have been Raymond Lewis. The third significant early suspect was Professor William Harris, who taught Catherine’s advanced chemistry class. Several students reported that Harris had shown special interest in Catherine’s academic work, often asking her to stay after class for discussions.

One classmate described his behavior as borderline inappropriate. Harris voluntarily submitted to questioning and fingerprinting. His alibi that he was home with his wife and teenage children was corroborated. Furthermore, his fingerprints didn’t match any found in Catherine’s room. Despite lingering suspicions, investigators couldn’t connect him to the crime scene.

 By late April, all 27 individuals on the initial suspect list had been investigated and cleared through alibis, forensic inconsistencies, or lack of physical evidence connecting them to the scene. The investigation had reached its first major impass. We’re dealing with either incredible luck or calculated precision, Detective Mullins confided to Sheriff Hayward in a memo dated April 30th, 1971.

This wasn’t a crime of opportunity or passion. Someone planned this meticulously. The investigation then widened to include Catherine’s activities beyond campus. Detectives interviewed staff at local businesses she frequented, patients she encountered during her hospital volunteer work, and even bus drivers on routes she regularly took.

 This expanded effort added 43 more names to the suspect list. Each systematically investigated and eventually cleared. Meanwhile, forensic analysis of the crime scene evidence, constrained by 1970s technology, yielded minimal results. The coffee cups had been dusted for fingerprints using primitive powder methods.

 The clean cup revealed nothing, while Catherine’s cup showed only her own prints. The scarf used to strangle her contained no foreign fibers or hair that could be matched to a suspect with the technology available. Most promisingly, skin samples recovered from beneath Catherine’s fingernails indicated she had scratched her attacker, likely leaving visible marks.

Investigators checked the arms, necks, and faces of every suspect interviewed, finding no suspicious scratches. The samples were preserved in the evidence locker, but DNA testing was still years away from becoming an investigative tool. Our biggest challenge wasn’t just identifying suspects.

 It was maintaining the integrity of the evidence we did have, explained Thomas Hayward in a 1996 interview long after his retirement as sheriff. We knew what we had, but we didn’t have the science to make sense of it. All we could do was preserve everything carefully and hope technology would eventually catch up. The preservation methods of the 1970s were rudimentary by modern standards.

Evidence was stored in paper bags rather than plastic containers, increasing the risk of contamination. Temperature controlled storage facilities didn’t exist in Cabell County, exposing biological samples to degradation. Documentation relied on handwritten chain of custody forms that occasionally contained gaps or errors.

 Despite these limitations, Detective Mullins insisted on extraordinary care with the Catherine Fitzgerald evidence. He personally supervised the packaging and storage of all items, implementing stricter protocols than were standard for the era. This foresight would ultimately prove crucial decades later. By summer 1971, media interest in the case began to wne.

 Local newspapers reduced coverage from front page stories to occasional updates buried in later sections. Television stations moved on to newer headlines. The fading public attention concerned the investigators who worried that potential witnesses might forget important details as time passed. In June, a potentially significant witness came forward. Margaret Simmons, an elderly woman who lived in an apartment with a view of Sycamore Hall, claimed to have seen a man climbing out of a window around 1:00 a.m. on the night of the murder.

 She described him as average height, wearing dark clothing, but could provide no further details that might identify him. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, she told detectives. I thought maybe it was just some boy sneaking out after visiting his girlfriend after hours.

 It wasn’t until I read about poor Catherine that I wondered if it might be connected. Investigators found Simmons’s timeline consistent with the estimated time of death, but her vague description offered little actionable intelligence. They canvased the area again, asking if anyone else had witnessed unusual activity that night, but no corroborating witnesses emerged.

 By September 1971, 6 months after Catherine’s murder, the investigation had effectively stalled. Detective Mullins and his team had pursued 124 distinct leads, interviewed 201 people, and collected 97 pieces of physical evidence. They had constructed and discarded dozens of theories, followed promising leads that evaporated under scrutiny, and exhausted every investigative avenue available with 1970s era techniques.

 Sheriff Hayward faced the grim task of meeting with the Fitzgerald family to deliver the news that their daughter’s case was being classified as open but inactive, the bureaucratic term for a cold case. “It was the hardest conversation of my career,” Hayward later recalled.

 Michael Fitzgerald just stared at me with empty eyes. Elizabeth clutched her husband’s hands so tightly her knuckles turned white. They didn’t cry or shout. They just nodded as if they’d been expecting this moment all along. Their quiet dignity was more devastating than any outburst could have been. The Fitzgeralds made one request, that all evidence be preserved indefinitely, no matter how insignificant it might seem.

Sheriff Hayward gave his personal guarantee, a promise that would connect 1971 to 2019 through a chain of carefully maintained evidence boxes, waiting for science to evolve enough to speak for a victim whose voice had been silenced. If you’re finding this story interesting, hit the like button to help others discover it, too.

 The forensic techniques that eventually solved this case are nothing short of revolutionary, and I’d hate for you to miss what’s coming next. What time is it where you’re watching? It’s fascinating to think that while you’re tuning in from different time zones around the world right now, Catherine’s killer spent nearly 50 years checking his watch daily, perhaps wondering if this would be the day his past finally caught up with him.

 The Fitzgerald family returned to their Charleston home after Catherine’s funeral to find it filled with casserles, sympathy cards, and the suffocating weight of unanswered questions. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, once a vibrant piano teacher with 27 students, stopped giving lessons. Michael Fitzgerald took a six-month leave of absence from the highway department, returning as a shell of his former self.

 The first year was about survival, Margaret Fitzgerald, Catherine’s younger sister, recalled in a 2010 interview. Mom would set the dinner table for four, then freeze when she realized it should be three. Dad would start sentences with, “When Kathy comes home for Christmas,” then trail off into silence. We lived in a house haunted not by Catherine’s ghost, but by her absence. For the Fitzgeralds, justice became a generational pursuit.

When the active investigation was suspended in September 1971, Michael Fitzgerald began keeping meticulous records in a series of leatherbound journals. He documented every conversation with law enforcement, every newspaper article, every potential lead, no matter how insignificant. By the time of his death in 1994, these journals filled 17 volumes, a father’s desperate attempt to solve what authorities could not. Elizabeth channeled her grief differently.

 In 1973, she founded West Virginia Families for Justice, an advocacy group for relatives of unsolved murder victims. The organization lobbied for better evidence preservation laws, longer statutes of limitations, and increased funding for cold case units. What began as four grieving families meeting in the Fitzgerald’s living room grew to over 300 members by the 1990s, becoming an influential voice in state criminal justice reform.

 My daughter’s killer took more than just her life,” Elizabeth told the West Virginia legislature during testimony for a 1978 bill that would eventually establish the state’s first cold case review team. “He took our peace, our trust in the world, our sense of order. But he will not take our determination to see justice done, whether it takes years or decades.

” Margaret, only 16 when her sister was murdered, found her life’s direction irrevocably altered. Abandoning her plans to study literature, she instead pursued a law degree, graduating from West Virginia University in 1980. She joined the Canawa County Prosecutor’s Office, specializing in violent crimes. Though ethical guidelines prevented her from working directly on her sister’s case, Margaret became a fierce advocate for victim’s rights throughout the state.

 “I couldn’t save Catherine,” she explained in her first press interview after becoming an assistant prosecutor. “But I can make sure other families don’t experience the helplessness we felt in Cabell County.” Catherine’s case remained officially open, but gathered dust as new crimes demanded attention. Detective Frank Mullins, who had led the original investigation, requested to review the case annually on the anniversary of Catherine’s death, a personal ritual he maintained until his retirement in 1992.

 “Frank never let it go,” said James Thornon, who served as a junior detective under Mullins. “Every March 16th, he’d pull out the files, spread everything across the conference table, and go through it all again. Sometimes he’d find some small detail we’d overlooked, but mostly it was his way of telling Catherine she wasn’t forgotten.

 The case files themselves underwent a physical journey that mirrored the investigation stops and starts. Initially stored in the active case room at the Cabell County Sheriff’s Department, they were transferred to the basement archives in 1972, then to the newly built county records facility in 1985. During a flood in 1997, a deputy sheriff reportedly carried the Fitzgerald evidence boxes to higher ground on his shoulders, refusing to let anyone else handle them.

 Media coverage of the case ebbed and flowed over the decades, typically resurging around significant anniversaries. The 5-year mark in 1976 brought a week-long series in the Huntington Herald Dispatch titled Justice Delayed, the Katherine Fitzgerald Mystery. The 10th anniversary in 1981 saw the first television documentary about the case produced by a Charleston station and featuring interviews with investigators and family members.

 By the 20th anniversary in 1991, Catherine’s murder had transformed from recent tragedy to local legend. The Marshall University student newspaper published a retrospective that inadvertently contained several factual errors, illustrating how details had begun to blur in public memory.

 The article prompted a stern letter from Elizabeth Fitzgerald, correcting the record and reminding readers that this is not folklore. This is our ongoing nightmare. The 25th anniversary in 1996 coincided with the emergence of DNA analysis as a forensic tool. This technological development sparked renewed interest in the case with local media speculating whether Catherine’s murder might finally be solved through this revolutionary technique.

 Sheriff William Donovan, who had been a rookie deputy when Catherine was killed, authorized the first cold case review of the Fitzgerald murder in 1996. A team of four detectives spent 6 weeks re-examining every piece of evidence and reinterviewing surviving witnesses. Their findings, while not leading to an arrest, did result in the evidence being repackaged using modern preservation techniques.

 The skin samples from under Catherine’s fingernails were our most promising biological evidence, explained forensic technician Sandra Morris, who supervised the repackaging. In 1971, they were stored in a paper envelope. We transferred them to sterile containers and properly refrigerated them.

 If there was DNA present, we gave it the best chance of survival. The first actual DNA testing of evidence from Catherine’s case occurred in 1998, but the technology was still in its infancy. The tests consumed valuable sample material while yielding inconclusive results.

 A devastating setback that nearly destroyed the biological evidence before it could be analyzed with more advanced techniques. “We were ahead of the science,” Sheriff Donovan admitted in a press conference announcing the disappointing results. But we’ve preserved what remains for future testing. This case will be solved. It’s just a matter of when the technology catches up to our determination.

 As the investigation repeatedly stalled and restarted, Cabell County itself underwent dramatic transformations. The Marshall satellite campus where Catherine had studied expanded into a full-fledged regional center before ultimately being absorbed back into the main university system in 1989. Sycamore Hall, the dormatory where she was murdered, was demolished in 2001 to make way for a modern residential complex.

 An event that prompted another brief flurry of media coverage about the unsolved case. The town of Milton grew from a rural community of 30,000 to a suburban extension of Huntington with nearly 10,000 residents by 2010. The influx of new residents meant that increasingly Catherine’s story was unknown to many who lived where it had occurred.

 Local schools began including the case in West Virginia history curricula, ensuring new generations would remember what longtime residents couldn’t forget. Throughout these decades of change, Catherine’s murder continued to influence local law enforcement procedures and policies. The case became a cautionary tale taught to every new officer in the county, emphasizing the importance of proper evidence collection and preservation.

Before Fitzgerald, we treated evidence like it only needed to last until trial, explained Police Academy instructor Robert Jenkins in 2005. After Fitzgerald, we began treating evidence like it might need to speak for the victim 50 years later.

 That fundamental shift in thinking has helped solve dozens of cases that might otherwise have gone cold. The case also led to significant security improvements at educational institutions throughout West Virginia. In 1972, directly responding to Catherine’s murder, the State Board of Education mandated enhanced security measures for all campus dormitories, including electronic key systems, visitor registration protocols, and 24-hour security staffing.

 These standards, revolutionary at the time, became models for campus safety nationwide. By the 30th anniversary in 2001, the investigation had been officially reviewed five times. Each review incorporating new forensic techniques as they became available.

 Fingerprints were run through automated identification systems. Fibers were analyzed using electron microscopes. Witness statements were evaluated using statement analysis protocols that didn’t exist in 1971. The 40th anniversary in 2011 marked a turning point in how the case was perceived by both the public and law enforcement.

 What had once been discussed as a tragedy that might be solved someday was increasingly viewed as a cold case that might never be resolved. The Herald Dispatch’s anniversary coverage that year carried the somber headline four decades later has justice for Katherine Fitzgerald become impossible. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, then 84 and in failing health, gave what many assumed would be her final interview about her daughter’s case.

I’ve accepted that I may not live to see Catherine’s killer brought to justice, she told the newspaper. But I believe that day will come. Science advances. People’s consciences trouble them as they age. Secrets become harder to keep. Someone knows something. And someday that knowledge will come to light.

 What Elizabeth could not have known was that the breakthrough was already beginning to take shape through a revolutionary approach to DNA analysis that would transform cold case investigations worldwide. In 2012, the FBI launched the combined DNA index system, KDIS, upgrade that expanded the genetic markers used in DNA profiling from 13 to 20, dramatically increasing the systems identification capabilities.

The following year, the first successful use of familial DNA searching in a US criminal case, demonstrated how investigators could identify suspects through their relatives genetic information. By 2018, genetic genealogy, the technique of using commercial DNA databases to identify criminal suspects through family connections, had emerged as a powerful new tool in cold case investigations.

 The arrest of the Golden State Killer that April, solving crimes dating back to the 1970s, sent shock waves through both the law enforcement community and the public consciousness. In Cabell County, these developments were watched with particular interest by detective Sarah Keller, who had inherited the Fitzgerald case file in 2015. A meticulous investigator with specialized training in cold case methodology, Keller had spent her first three years on the case digitizing all records and evidence documentation, creating the first comprehensive electronic database of the investigation. The Fitzgerald case has

never been about lack of evidence, Keller explained in a department memo requesting funding for advanced DNA testing in late 2018. It’s been about our inability to connect that evidence to a specific individual. The genetic genealogy techniques that identified the Golden State Killer could be our path to finally bringing Catherine’s killer to justice.

 Her request was approved in January 2019, setting in motion the final chapter of a story that had begun nearly 5 decades earlier. As the evidence was carefully packaged for shipment to a specialized laboratory, no one involved could have predicted how quickly Catherine’s killer would be identified, or how shocking that identification would prove to be.

 Elizabeth Fitzgerald, who had maintained her quiet determination for justice across 48 years, would live just long enough to see her daughter’s killer identified. The woman who had founded an advocacy organization, testified before legislators, and kept her daughter’s memory alive through decades of disappointment, would finally get the answer she had sought since that terrible March morning in 1971.

 On February 12th, 2019, Detective Sarah Keller carefully sealed the evidence package containing skin samples from beneath Katherine Fitzgerald’s fingernails. The package, about the size of a paperback book, but treated with the reverence of a sacred artifact, represented the last best hope for solving a case that had haunted three generations of law enforcement officers.

 I remember thinking, this is it, Keller later recalled. Either this works or we accept that Catherine’s case might never be solved. The samples were bound for Parabon NanoLabs in Virginia, one of a handful of private laboratories specializing in genetic genealogy for law enforcement. This revolutionary approach to DNA analysis had emerged from an unexpected convergence of recreational ancestry testing, big data analytics, and traditional forensic science.

 Unlike conventional DNA testing that requires a direct match in criminal databases, genetic genealogy could identify suspects through their distant relatives, people who had voluntarily submitted DNA to commercial ancestry services for entirely different purposes. The technique had already solved dozens of cold cases nationwide since its first successful application in 2018, many dating back decades.

Traditional DNA analysis is like trying to find someone using only their exact address, explained Dr. Elellanar Wright, the forensic genetic genealogologist assigned to Catherine’s case. Genetic genealogy is like being able to locate someone by finding their cousins, then working out where they must live based on those family connections.

 It exponentially expands our search capabilities. The process began with extracting usable DNA from the skin samples preserved since 1971. This presented the first major challenge. The samples had degraded significantly over 48 years despite the careful preservation efforts of multiple evidence custodians. We received approximately 0.

4 nanogs of highly fragmented DNA. Dr. Wright noted in her preliminary report. Under normal circumstances, this would be insufficient for analysis. However, advances in amplification techniques allowed us to work with this limited material. Using a process called whole genome amplification, the laboratory created sufficient copies of the DNA fragments to proceed with analysis.

 The team then generated a DNA profile focusing on hundreds of thousands of genetic markers, far more than the 20 markers used in standard law enforcement databases. This expanded profile was compared against profiles in public genetic databases where users had opted to make their information available for law enforcement matching.

 The initial comparison yielded no direct matches, but identified 17 individuals who shared enough genetic markers with the crime scene DNA to be distant relatives of the killer. These weren’t close relatives like siblings or children, Dr. Wright explained.

 They were primarily third and fourth cousins, people who likely had never met the perpetrator, but shared great great grandparents. From these distant connections, the genetic genealogy team began the painstaking process of building family trees. Working backward through historical records, they identified common ancestors among the matching individuals, then worked forward through birth, marriage, and death certificates to construct a comprehensive family structure spanning multiple generations.

“It’s like solving a massive puzzle where you don’t know what the final picture looks like,” said Dr. Wright. We were essentially mapping the killer’s extended family without knowing who the killer was. By late March 2019, the team had constructed family trees containing over 2,400 individuals across seven generations.

 They then began narrowing the field by applying filters based on what was known about the killer male, likely between 18 to 40 years old in 1971, and with some connection to Cabell County, West Virginia. This filtering process reduced the pool to 38 potential suspects. Further refinement based on geographical location during the time of the murder narrowed the list to just seven men who were in the right place at the right time with the right genetic connections.

 Detective Keller received the short list on April 2nd, 2019. When I opened that email, I expected to see a list of names I’d never encountered before, she recalled. Instead, I found myself staring at several names that appeared throughout our case files, including one that made my blood run cold. Third on the list was David Kowalsski, age 78, current resident of Huntington, West Virginia.

 A quick search of the digitized case files revealed that Kowalsski had been interviewed during the original 1971 investigation, not as a suspect, but as a witness. At the time, he was a 30-year-old chemistry teacher at the local high school, who occasionally guest lectured at the Marshall satellite campus. Kowalsski had told investigators he occasionally tutored Catherine in advanced chemistry, though he claimed their relationship was strictly professional.

 His statement indicated he had last seen her 2 weeks before her murder. He provided an alibi of being home with his wife on the night of the murder, which was corroborated at the time. With no physical evidence connecting him to the crime scene and no obvious motive, investigators had quickly moved on to more promising suspects.

 What struck me immediately was how peripheral he seemed in the original investigation, said Keller. He was interviewed as a routine part of canvasing Catherine’s instructors. His name appears exactly twice in over 2,000 pages of case notes. Before approaching Kowalsski directly, Keller needed to confirm the genetic connection. Rather than requesting a DNA sample that might alert him to the investigation, she employed a technique that had become standard in genetic genealogy cases. Covert collection of discarded DNA.

For 3 days, surveillance teams monitored Kowalsski’s movements, waiting for an opportunity. That opportunity came when he visited a local coffee shop, leaving behind a paper cup that was quickly retrieved by an undercover officer. The cup was rushed to the state crime laboratory where technicians extracted a DNA sample from saliva residue on the rim. The results came back on April 7th.

The DNA from Kowalsski’s coffee cup matched the DNA from under Catherine’s fingernails with a probability of 99.9998%. After 48 years, Katherine Fitzgerald’s killer had a name. I remember sitting at my desk, staring at the report, feeling this strange mix of elation and horror, Keller said. Elation because we finally had our answer.

 Horror because of who that answer turned out to be. The horror stemmed not just from solving the case, but from what investigators discovered as they dug into Kowalsski’s life over the five decades since Catherine’s murder. Far from being a shadowy figure lurking at the edges of society, David Kowalsski had become a pillar of the Cabell County community.

After teaching high school chemistry for 12 years, he had joined the Marshall University faculty in 1983, eventually becoming chair of the chemistry department before retiring in 2009. He had served on the Milton City Council for three terms in the 1990s. He had coached youth soccer for nearly two decades.

 The local Rotary Club had named him citizen of the year in 1997 for his community service. Most disturbingly, Kowalsski had maintained connections to the Fitzgerald family over the years. He had attended Catherine’s funeral in 1971. He had made small but regular donations to the scholarship fund established in her name. He had even served alongside Elizabeth Fitzgerald on a 1985 governor’s task force for campus safety improvements.

 looking her in the eye while carrying the secret of her daughter’s murder. “The level of deception required to live that kind of double life for nearly five decades is almost incomprehensible,” said Dr. Ela Cassidy, a forensic psychologist consulted during the final phase of the investigation. “This wasn’t someone who committed a crime and then disappeared.

 This was someone who remained embedded in the very community traumatized by his actions who crafted an identity as a respected citizen while knowing the truth about himself. With the DNA match confirmed, Detective Keller assembled a team to plan Kowalsski’s arrest. The operation would need to be handled carefully, not only because of Kowalsski’s age and community standing, but because of the media firestorm that would inevitably follow the resolution of such a high-profile cold case.

 On January 15th, 2019, as dawn broke over Huntington, six unmarked police vehicles surrounded the modest two-story home where David Kowalsski had lived for over 40 years. As officers approached his door, none could have anticipated the final twists. this case would take or how the community would react to learning that a monster had been hiding among them all along.

 The identity of the killer will shock you. Comment below with your theories about how David Kowalsski managed to evade justice for so long. Was it calculated brilliance, institutional failures, or simply luck that allowed him to live freely while Catherine’s family suffered for decades? When David Kowalsski opened his front door on that January morning in 2019, he faced Detective Sarah Keller and five officers with an expression that witnesses would later describe as resigned recognition.

 He offered no resistance as they read him his rights, placed him in handcuffs, and escorted him to a waiting police vehicle. His only words were directed to his wife of 47 years. Call attorney Simmons. Tell him it’s about the Fitzgerald girl. News of Kowalsski’s arrest spread through Caball County with the speed and force of a shockwave. By noon, every local news outlet had broken the story.

Many struggling to reconcile the beloved community figure with the cold-blooded killer now revealed. Former students, colleagues, and neighbors expressed disbelief, creating a cognitive dissonance that would define the community’s response in the days to come. It can’t be Dr. K, insisted former student Jason Reynolds in a television interview. He was the gentlest man I knew.

 He wrote my college recommendation letter. He attended my wedding. Yet, the evidence told a different story, one that became clearer as investigators pieced together Kowalsski’s movements on the night of March 15th, 1971, and his life in the decades that followed.

 In 1971, David Kowalsski was a 30-year-old high school chemistry teacher with ambitions of joining the university faculty. Married for just two years to his wife Diane, he supplemented their income by tutoring college students and occasionally guest lecturing at the Marshall satellite campus.

 His reputation was that of a strict but fair instructor with a particular talent for explaining complex concepts. What no one knew was that Kowalsski had developed an inappropriate fixation on Catherine Fitzgerald after meeting her at a campus lecture series. Catherine’s diary, re-examined after Kowalsski’s arrest, contained brief mentions of Mr. K offering extra help with chemistry concepts, interactions she viewed as purely academic, but which investigators now believe Kowalsski interpreted differently.

 Based on the evidence we believe Kowalsski visited Catherine’s room that night under the pretense of discussing an upcoming chemistry exam, Detective Keller explained at a press conference following the arrest. The coffee cups suggest she welcomed him as a trusted instructor. Something during that interaction, likely a rejection of romantic advances, triggered the violence that followed.

After strangling Catherine, Kowalsski meticulously wiped down surfaces he had touched, removed the second coffee cup, which was never found, and exited through the dormator’s main entrance during a shift change when security was momentarily absent. He returned home to his wife, who later confirmed to investigators that she had been taking sleep medication at that time and had no memory of what time her husband came to bed.

 The most disturbing aspect of the case was not the murder itself, but Kowalsski’s behavior in the five decades that followed. Rather than fleeing the area or withdrawing from public life, he did the opposite, embedding himself deeper into the community and constructing an identity that made him above suspicion.

 This wasn’t just a cover, it was a complete reinvention, explained forensic psychologist Dr. Ela Cassidy. Kowalsski didn’t just hide, he transformed himself into someone would trust implicitly. It’s a level of calculated deception rarely seen even in psychopathic offenders. In the years following Catherine’s murder, Kowalsski’s career flourished. He completed a PhD in chemistry through night classes, joined the Marshall University faculty in 1983, and eventually became department chair.

 He published respected research papers, mentored countless students, and received teaching awards. His community service record was equally impressive. youth sports coach, city council member, church deacon, and regular volunteer for local charities. Most chillingly, Kowalsski maintained peripheral connections to the case itself. He attended memorial services on the major anniversaries of Catherine’s death.

 He contributed quotes to newspaper articles about the impact of the unsolved murder on the community. In 1991, he even participated in a panel discussion about campus safety improvements implemented since the tragedy. He didn’t just get away with murder, said Margaret Fitzgerald after learning of Kowalsski’s arrest.

 He used my sister’s death to build his reputation as a concerned citizen. The performative cruelty of that is almost harder to comprehend than the murder itself. Searches of Kowalsski’s home following his arrest revealed a hidden collection of newspaper clippings about the case, carefully preserved in acid-free sleeves and organized chronologically.

Investigators also discovered a small box containing what appeared to be the missing coffee cup from Catherine’s room, wrapped in a handkerchief, and concealed behind a false panel in his basement workshop. He kept trophies, Detective Keller noted, not prominently displayed, but hidden where only he could access them.

 It suggests he revisited the crime mentally throughout his life. As the community grappled with these revelations, many struggled to reconcile the David Kowalsski they knew with the monster now revealed. Former students recalled his patience and encouragement.

 Neighbors remembered his reliable snow shoveling and lawnmowing for elderly residents. Fellow church members pointed to his generous donations to mission trips and food pantries. The hardest part for many people to accept, said Mayor Robert Jenkins, who had served on the city council with Kowalsski in the 1990s, is that both versions of this man are true. The mentor who helped countless students succeed and the killer who took Catherine’s life existed in the same person. Our community is struggling with that contradiction.

 What’s the weather like where you are today? As this story unfolds in all its complexity, I’m curious about the conditions where you’re watching from. Perhaps a reminder that while we’re connected through this narrative, we’re experiencing it from different places. Just as the people of Cabell County experienced different versions of the man they thought they knew.

 The Cabell County courthouse had never seen a media presence like the one that assembled for David Kowalsski’s arraignment on January 17th, 2019. News vans lined the streets, satellite dishes crowded the courthouse lawn, and journalists from national outlets jostled with local reporters for limited seating in the courtroom.

 The case had transcended regional interest to become a national story about justice delayed but not denied. Inside the courtroom, Kowalsski appeared a diminished figure. His academic regalia and community accolades replaced by an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. At 78, his once commanding presence had given way to stooped shoulders and thinning white hair. Yet his eyes remained alert, scanning the courtroom with the same analytical gaze that had assessed chemistry experiments and student potential for decades.

 Judge Martha Simmons, herself, a former student of Kowalsskis, recused herself immediately. The integrity of these proceedings must be beyond question. she stated before turning the case over to Judge William Harmon from neighboring Wayne County. Kowalsski entered a not-uilty plea, but his attorney’s subsequent actions suggested this was merely procedural.

Within days, defense lawyer Thomas Simmons had initiated discussions with prosecutors about a potential plea agreement. Discussions that intensified after DNA results were confirmed by a second independent laboratory. Meanwhile, the community’s reaction evolved from initial shock to something more complex.

 Cabell County found itself divided between those who could not reconcile the beloved teacher with the cold-blooded killer and those who felt betrayed by decades of deception. Impromptu memorials appeared at two locations. Flowers at Catherine’s former dormatory site and angry messages taped to the chemistry building that bore Kowalsski’s name on a donor plaque. Marshall University moved swiftly to distance itself from its former faculty member, removing his name from an annual chemistry scholarship and establishing a new fellowship in Katherine Fitzgerald’s memory. The city council voted unanimously to rescend his citizen of

the year award from 1997. Former colleagues issued statements expressing horror and disbelief. “We’re all questioning everything now,” said Dr. Robert Chen, current chemistry department chair. How many students did we send to his office hours alone? How many young women sought his mentorship? The betrayal extends beyond Catherine to every person who trusted him over five decades.

For the Fitzgerald family, Kowalsski’s arrest brought a complex mixture of emotions. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, now 92 and in assisted living, received the news from Detective Keller personally. She just nodded very calmly, Keller recalled. Then she said, “I knew I would live to see this day.” It wasn’t triumphant or emotional.

 It was a simple statement of fact from a woman who had never stopped believing justice would come. Margaret Fitzgerald, now 64 and recently retired from her legal career, became the family’s public voice. At a press conference following the arraignment, she spoke with the measured precision of someone who had spent a lifetime in courtrooms. For 48 years, we’ve lived with an absence.

 the absence of Catherine and the absence of answers, she told the assembled reporters. Today, half of that void has been filled. We now know who took Catherine from us. But the greater absence remains, and no arrest or conviction can restore the decades of life stolen from my sister or from our family as we knew it.

 When asked about her feelings toward Kowalsski, Margaret’s composure momentarily faltered. I sat across from him at community functions. I exchanged pleasantries with him at university events. I once thanked him for his donation to Catherine’s scholarship fund. The calculated cruelty of his deception is almost harder to process than the murder itself. On March 15th, 2019, exactly 48 years after Catherine’s murder, David Kowalsski accepted a plea agreement.

 In exchange for pleading guilty to first-degree murder, prosecutors agreed not to pursue additional charges related to evidence tampering and obstruction of justice that could have extended legal proceedings for years. The sentencing hearing on April 30th drew an overflow crowd. The courthouse opened two additional rooms with video feeds to accommodate those who wished to witness this final chapter.

 Among them were former students, colleagues, neighbors, and dozens of cold case detectives from across the country who had traveled to witness the resolution of a case that had become legendary in law enforcement circles. Judge Harmonowed impact statements from the Fitzgerald family before pronouncing sentence. Michael Fitzgerald Jr., Catherine’s nephew, who had never met the aunt he was partially named after, spoke of the inheritance of grief that had shaped his family across generations. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, too frail to attend in person, had her statement read

by Margaret. To the man who took my daughter, you stole not only Catherine’s future, but pieces of all who loved her. For 48 years, I have carried the weight of her absence, while you built a life of freedom and respect. I do not hate you. Hate would only take more from me than you’ve already taken.

 Instead, I pity the emptiness inside you that allowed such cruelty to exist alongside such pretense of goodness. When offered the opportunity to speak, Kowalsski rose slowly to his feet. The courtroom fell silent as he adjusted his glasses, a familiar gesture to former students that now seemed sinister in context.

 I have no explanation or justification to offer, he said, his academic’s voice steady despite the circumstances. I have lived two lives, one visible to all, one known only to myself. I cannot undo what I did to Catherine Fitzgerald. I can only acknowledge it now at the end of my life, when such acknowledgement comes far too late to matter to anyone but historians of this case.

 Judge Harmon sentenced Kowalsski to life imprisonment without possibility of parole, the maximum sentence available. At 78, with developing health issues, everyone understood this meant Kowalsski would die in prison. As he was led from the courtroom, several observers noted that he turned briefly toward the Fitzgerald family, making eye contact with Margaret before deputies escorted him through the side door.

 In the months following the sentencing, Catherine’s case transformed from an unsolved mystery to a teaching tool. The FBI added it to their training curriculum as an example of how genetic genealogy could resolve decades old cases. Forensic science programs incorporated it into discussions about evidence preservation. Law enforcement agencies nationwide reviewed their own cold case files with renewed hope.

 For Cabell County, the case prompted a communitywide reckoning. The university established an ethics center focused on professional responsibility and moral courage. Local schools developed curriculum units on the case, teaching students about both the tragedy and the scientific advances that eventually solved it.

 The dormatory site where Catherine died was transformed into a memorial garden dedicated to victims of violence. Katherine Fitzgerald’s legacy extended beyond her tragic death to include the scientific progress her case inspired, the advocacy organization her mother founded, the legal career her sister pursued, and the countless cold cases that would find resolution through techniques pioneered in solving hers.

 On the first anniversary of Kowalsski’s sentencing, Elizabeth Fitzgerald passed away peacefully in her sleep. Her obituary written by Margaret noted that she died having witnessed the justice she sought for nearly five decades. Her life’s mission completed. If you want more solved cold cases like this one, subscribe to our channel.

 Every week we explore how modern science and dedicated investigators are bringing closure to families who have waited years, sometimes decades, for answers. From genetic genealogy breakthroughs to advanced forensic techniques, we’ll take you inside the investigations that are rewriting cold case history one DNA strand at a time.