Coffee, Murder, & Mystery · Dark and Ominous Entertainment

Did Kathy Hobbs Predict Her Own Death?

·27 min·1 clip

Rick Picoult found Kathy Hobbs’ body near Lake Mead after noticing a strong odor in the desert.

Coffee, Murder, & Mystery takes up the case of Kathy Hobbs, who was born on April 20, 1971, in Oakland, California. She is remembered as a kid who liked reading, writing, and drawing. She also carried a fear that never really went away. At eight, she told friends she would not make it past 16, and she seems to have treated that age like a line she might not cross. The show also notes that her parents divorced when she was eight and that she was very close to her dad, so the custody change was tragic for her. From there, the episode keeps the premonition discussion in a conversational frame, including a remark about one host's sister, instead of treating it like a clean supernatural answer. The conversation then shifts toward Kathy's death and the scene where police found tire prints showing that a vehicle had pulled in, turned around, and pulled out. Investigators also found two rocks with blood splatters on them, and the blood was determined to be the same blood type as Kathy's. The coroner ruled that Kathy died from repeated blows to the head and also found that she had been sexually assaulted. The hosts keep coming back to the same unsettled question: what, if anything, should listeners make of the childhood premonition now that the facts are laid out? The episode leaves that question open rather than forcing a neat explanation.

As heard by us

A restrained true-crime episode that keeps Kathy Hobbs at the center while holding onto the case's hardest facts.

Coffee, Murder, and Mystery follows Kathy Hobbs as a 16-year-old Oakland girl who liked reading, writing, and drawing, and it does not soften the fear she had about dying young.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a case about a childhood premonition that still hangs over the investigation.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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