Cold Case: Young woman’s 1972 killing is oldest in the deck

MILL CREEK — Maybe she would spend afternoons painting in a funky art studio. Maybe she’d be a grandma who always remembered to send birthday cards. Maybe she’d still listen to Led Zepplin records.

She’d probably have a hodgepodge of animals. She never could turn away a stray. She might even still ease herself into a saddle, ignoring the creaks of middle age, grab the reins and nudge her horse into a gallop.

Jody Loomis would have turned 57 next month.

She only lived to see her 20th birthday.

Loomis was riding her bicycle from her Mill Creek-area home to the pasture where her horse Saudi was boarded. She didn’t make it to the field. A couple found her in some woods east of the Bothell-Everett Highway.

She’d been sexually assaulted and shot. Loomis died on the way to the hospital.

Police have never caught the killer.

Loomis is featured on the 10 of hearts in the state’s first deck of cold-case playing cards. Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives are hoping the cards will generate new leads in dozens of unsolved homicides and missing persons cases.

The cards are provided to inmates in the state’s prisons and jails. A reward is offered for tips that lead to arrests in the cold cases.

Loomis died Aug. 23, 1972. Her homicide is the oldest in deck.

Jana Smith was 12 when she watched her sister pedal away. She saw her mom collapse when detectives came to the door with news that Loomis wasn’t coming home.

Her parents didn’t talk much about what had happened to her sister. She couldn’t miss their grief.

“We left Jody’s room as it was for a long time. You could still smell the patchouli oil. Her leather purse was where she left it,” Smith said. “My parents hurt so much.”

Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.