By  Seamus McGraw   

March 28, 2006

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MCKEESPORT, Pa. (Crime Library) — You can almost see it from the window of the house in McKeesport where Tanya Kach was, by her account, figuratively entombed; kept as a virtual sex slave throughout her teens: a secluded cemetery where, authorities say, another young girl's life may have ended, and a mystery certainly began.

House Where Kach was Kept

In was there, authorities say that the decomposed body of young Kimberly Krimm, a troubled teen, was found eight years ago. She was just 14 when she disappeared after leaving home on a June day in 1998. Her body was found several days later, though it was so decomposed that investigators had to use dental records to make sure that the remains were hers. In fact, to this day, authorities are not certain how the young girl died or precisely where. They know this much: She was a victim of homicide.

Kimberly Krimm

The details of Kimberly's death remain a mystery. What authorities do know is that Kimberly, an outgoing young girl who dreamed of one day becoming a carpenter, had a rocky time during her adolescence. Like Kach, the 14-year-old girl from the neighborhood who vanished without a trace had difficulties in school. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post Gazette not long after the girl's body was discovered, Kimberly's mother, Jeanie Krimm, said that her daughter, like many teens, had a defiant and rebellious streak and was, on occasion, influenced by a rougher crowd. That, Jeanie Krimm told the paper at the time, had first surfaced when Kimberly was 12, not long after the family had moved to a public housing project in McKeesport.

While there, Kimberly, a bright and generally articulate girl, began having academic and personal troubles and drifted, the paper reported, toward delinquency. The family made an effort to intervene. The girl was sent to attend alternative education classes run by a local agency, and it appeared that the efforts were starting to pay off. Her grades had improved, and the family started to hope that perhaps Kimberly had turned a corner.

Those hopes were fanned by the fact that Kimberly was scheduled to begin regular classes at McKeesport High School in the fall of 1998.

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