Former L.A. Journalist Found Beaten to Death in Apartment

A former Los Angeles journalist working as a television reporter in Temple, Texas, was found beaten to death Thursday morning in her apartment, authorities said.

Kathryn L. Dettman, 36, apparently was getting out of the shower when she was attacked by an intruder, said Tony Hennes, a Temple Police Department spokesman.

A suspect was arrested, identified by neighbors as another resident of the apartment complex. The victim’s friends told police he “had been calling her a lot. But she seemed unconcerned about it,” Hennes said.

There was no sign of forced entry and no apparent motive for the slaying, Hennes said.

Dettman’s neighbors called police about 8:30 a.m. to complain of loud noises coming from her second-floor unit, Hennes said. Arriving officers knocked on the door but got no response, so an apartment manager let them in.

“They found a white male inside with blood splattered on his clothing,” Hennes said.

Dettman’s body was found on the bedroom floor.

The suspect, whom police would identify only as a man in his 20s, was arrested on suspicion of murder and taken to Temple city jail, Hennes said. Formal charges are expected to be filed today after the cause of death is determined by a medical examiner in Dallas.

Hennes would not say whether a weapon was found. However, he did say blood was found on several pieces of furniture that could have been used in the beating.

Dettman was single and lived alone in the Wildwood Apartments in Temple, an enclave near Waco.

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Dettman earned degrees from Santa Barbara Community College and UCLA before attending Cal State Northridge as a graduate journalism student from 1989 to 1991. She left to take an internship and later a paid broadcast newswriting job at Associated Press in Los Angeles, said Tom Reilly, chairman of Cal State Northridge’s journalism department.

She later moved to the AP Broadcast News Center in Washington, D.C., before taking a television reporting job with KWTX-TV in Waco in July 1993.

“Kathryn was highly intelligent, a fast learner and someone with a deep personal motivation to be a journalist,” Reilly said.

Dettman’s last day at KWTX-TV was to have been today. She intended to start a new job as a general assignment reporter for KTVT-TV, a larger station in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, on Monday.