Member-only story
Who Is Tempe Girl?
On April 27, 2002, an employee of a shopping center on East University Drive in Tempe, Arizona, was having a fairly ordinary morning. At 5:40 a.m., the employee was coming in to work when they stumbled upon the body of a young woman.
The victim, likely of Hispanic or Native American descent, was a teenager who had died within 24 hours. She was fully-clothed and had no obvious wounds or injuries. With little to work from, authorities began an investigation into the identity of Tempe Girl.
The Autopsy
An autopsy found that Tempe Girl died of cocaine intoxication. She had a large amount of cocaine, but the medical examiner claimed it was not an extreme amount. The autopsy determined Tempe Girl was likely not the victim of a homicide. But who was she?
Tempe Girl was between the ages of 15 and 19, and she was about 5'1" and 120 pounds. She had a scar shaped like the letter ‘L’ on the back of her left hand. But authorities had no other information to work from.
While Tempe Girl’s physical appearance did not catch any leads, the items surrounding her would help investigators paint a picture of Tempe Girl’s final night alive.
The Story
While investigating the scene on East University Drive, authorities found a CD not far from Tempe Girl’s body. The CD had clear fingerprints on it, and investigators were able to trace the fingerprints back to a woman living in Phoenix. When they found her alive, they had more questions — especially when her boyfriend claimed he had seen Tempe Girl the night before.
The woman’s boyfriend, who remains unnamed, claimed that he picked up Tempe Girl at 32nd and Greenway Road the following night. She was hitchhiking to Tempe and was trying to buy some concert tickets. He said she spoke primarily in Spanish and asked if he could help her procure drugs. He obliged.
The man picked up another passenger, a drug dealer who sold Tempe Girl cocaine. Soon after she ingested the drug, she had a negative reaction and began convulsing in the back seat.
The two men panicked and decided to drop her off in a nearby shopping center. They dragged her out of the car and left her. They drove to a nearby gas station, where the passenger called 911…
