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Ten Years Later: The Dayton Community Remembers a Young Girl Gone Too Soon

By Brooke Bickford
May 25, 2023 10:26AM CDT
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Ten Years Later: The Dayton Community Remembers a Young Girl Gone Too Soon
Photo Courtesy of the Dayton Community Club

Last week, the Dayton Community Club put purple lights and flowers at a memorial for a Dayton teen who was kidnapped and killed ten years ago this week.

The Dayton community is honoring the memory of 15-year-old Kathlynn Shepard.

According to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation she and another young girl were kidnapped by a serial kidnapper who had been released from prison.

The DCI reports that the girls were kidnapped by 42-year-old Michael Klunder on May 20, 2013 after they got off their school bus. They were taken to a rural agricultural facility in Pilot Mound. The 12 year old girl was able to escape but Shepard was not. Her body was discovered days later.

Klunder had been released from jail in February 2011 after being convicted of kidnapping in two separate cases one involving a 21 year old woman from Ruddin 1992 and another involving two 3 year old girls from Charles City in 1991.

State corrections officials said Klunder served half of his 41-year sentence in prison before being released. He was found dead by law enforcement before he could be apprehended.

The purple lights and flowers are a show of remembrance to “honor a light extinguished from this community far too soon.”

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