Dawn Koons Murder & Wikipedia – The 18-year-old Dawn Koons was found dead in January 1979 in her bathtub. A cloth covered her face, and her wrists were tied behind her back. Before Bakersfield police retested DNA evidence from the homicide scene in 2012, the case had been unsolved for more than 30 years.
The article provides information on the case’s specifics, the perpetrator’s identity, or where they are right now. Learn more about the viciously murdered teen.
Who Is Dawn Koons? Details On Dawn Koons’s Wikipedia
There is no existing Wikipedia page for Dawn Koons. Koons was the family’s middle child and only daughter, born on April 27, 1960. Her older brother, David Koons, called her “the light of our family” because of her extraordinary beauty and intelligence.
She was particularly protective of her younger brother, and the Yonkers, New York, Koons family, which was close-knit, used to share in holiday celebrations. Dawn Ellen Koons was a teenager who was 18 years old when she was sexually assaulted and killed in Bakersfield, California, in January 1979.
But it would take more than 40 years of effort and hope for her family to receive the reparation they so well deserve. In-depth coverage of this tragic case is provided in Investigation Discovery’s “On the Case with Paula Zahn: Shadow of Suspicion,” which guides viewers through the different complexity and periods until the murderer is finally apprehended.
Until the eighth grade, Dawn attended St. Mark’s Lutheran School in Yonkers before transferring to Lincoln High School. According to her brother, David, Dawn was bored with education and did not finish high school. Instead, she started pursuing modeling.
Dawn Koons’s Murder: Look Into The Case And Her Murderer
Dawn Koons relocated to Bakersfield, California, in 1978, where she later met and married her high school sweetheart, Steve Scherle. Before their breakup, they shared a home for a while; then, Dawn moved out to an apartment on South Real Road.
According to Steve, Koon intended to start over in California by continuing her education and pursuing her goals. She used to work at a nearby restaurant, and on January 12, 1979, at around 10:15 p.m., a coworker had dropped her off at her apartment.
Nevertheless, her coworker became suspicious when she failed to attend her duty or other appointments the whole weekend and did not even return her calls.
Following this event, she called the authorities, and when the Bakersfield police entered Dawn’s apartment and found her naked and dead in the bathtub on January 16, 1979.
Dawn’s hands were bound with the phone cable from her apartment while she lay her legs apart with her head under the faucet. A pillowcase covered her head, and she had ligature marks on her neck and wrists. Her cause of death was ruled asphyxiated, but her autopsy report revealed that she had been sexually assaulted.
Scherle, the ex-boyfriend, was initially suspected by the police. However, he was exonerated after they failed to uncover any proof connecting him to the crime.
Where Is Prentice Foreman Now?
According to official court records, Prentice Foreman, the criminal for assaulting and killing Dawn Koons, is being detained in a cell at the Salinas Valley State Prison in California.
After finding the dead body of Dawn Koons, police interviewed her neighbors, including Prentice Foreman, who said that although living in the same complex as her, he had never been to Dawn’s apartment.
Steve and Dawn’s coworker told police about a “creepy” black man who was allegedly stalking and harassing Dawn. However, the case remained unsolved because no new leads materialized.
Before the detectives ultimately discovered a match from the DNA obtained at the crime scene, forensic technology had not advanced significantly during the early 1980s. Bakersfield Police’s cold case squad reopened the case in 2010, and DNA samples were sent to the Kern Regional Crime Laboratory for analysis.
The California Department of Justice reported finding a CODIS hit on the national database in October 2017. By getting samples from Prentice Foreman in December 2017, the investigators confirmed that they belonged to him.
Furthermore, Prentice Foreman, a long-distance truck driver, had 15 prior offenses on his record. He was taken into custody on December 20, 2017, and was charged with first-degree rape, burglary, and murder.
A jury found Foreman guilty in June 2019. On June 10, 2019, he received a sentence of 25 years in jail. In February 2022, he filed an appeal against his sentence, but it was denied. His jail records show Foreman will be eligible for parole in December 2032.
