Kellie Poppleton

Case background and investigation

Kellie Jean Poppleton was 14 years old and attended Conrad Noll School in Fremont, California. According to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, she was last seen near the corner of Darwin Drive and Fremont Boulevard in Fremont. The podcast The Deck, which covered the case with the cooperation of investigators, reports that she had stopped at a nearby liquor store, where she bought matches and used a payphone to call her boyfriend.

On Friday, December 2, 1983, her body was found at a pullout on the side of Kilkare Road in Sunol, a rural community several miles from Fremont. Sheriff's Detective Ed Chicoine told Patch that she died of asphyxiation caused by strangulation and that she also had multiple head wounds; a necktie had been placed around her neck. A 1983 United Press International report stated that authorities said she had also been sexually assaulted. Items recovered at the scene included a man's gray sweater, a red necktie, a length of coaxial wire and a bag printed with the words "Welcome to Korea," according to The Deck.

Within two weeks the case appeared to have been solved. A 13-year-old Fremont girl told police that she and others had taken Poppleton on a drive, beaten and strangled her, because they thought she had informed on a drug ring operating in local junior high schools. Four people were arrested. UPI reported on December 15, 1983 that investigators had serious doubts about the story: school officials said no such drug ring existed, people who knew Poppleton described her as a good student with no involvement in drugs, and one of the girls named was shown to have been somewhere else at the time. Charges against a second 13-year-old girl, a 17-year-old boy and a 27-year-old man were dropped that month. According to The Deck, the confession was false and the charge against the girl who made it was dropped by February 1984.

No one else has been charged. The Sheriff's Office has said that witnesses reported seeing a black Pontiac Trans Am near the place where the body was found, before it was discovered. The vehicle and its driver have not been publicly identified.

The Deck reports that investigators have since had evidence examined by Parabon NanoLabs, which produced DNA-based composite images estimating what an unknown suspect may have looked like at different ages. The case was also featured on the television series On the Case with Paula Zahn.

The Alameda County Sheriff's Office marks the anniversary of the killing each December with a public appeal, most recently reported by Patch in December 2025. The investigation is filed under case number 83-13639, and the office asks anyone with information to call its Cold Case Homicide Unit at 510-667-3661.