Polly Hannah Klaas (January 3, 1981 – October 1, 1993) was an American murder victim whose case garnered national media attention. On October 1, 1993, at age 12, she was kidnapped at knifepoint during a slumber party at her mother's home in

Petaluma, California Petaluma is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 according to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. ...

, and strangled to death. Richard Allen Davis was convicted of her murder in 1996 and

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

Background

On October 1, 1993, Polly Klaas and two friends were having a slumber party. Around 10:30 pm, an intoxicated man named Richard Allen Davis entered her bedroom, carrying a knife from Eve Nichol's kitchen. He told the girls that he was there to do no harm and was only there for money. Davis tied up both of her friends, pulled pillowcases over their heads, and told them to count to 1,000. He then kidnapped Klaas. Over the next two months, about 4,000 people helped search for Klaas. Davis was arrested two months after the kidnapping and led the police to Klaas' body, which was buried in a shallow grave in

Sonoma County Sonoma County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 488,863. Its seat of government and largest city is Santa Rosa. Sonoma County comprises the Santa Rosa-Petaluma ...

Conviction

After a long and tumultuous trial, Davis was convicted on June 18, 1996, of first-degree murder with four special circumstances (robbery, burglary, kidnapping, and attempted lewd act on a child) in Klaas's death. A San Jose Superior Court jury returned a verdict of death. At his formal sentencing, Davis provoked national outrage by taunting his victim's family, extending both middle fingers at a courtroom camera and later saying that Klaas's last words just before he killed her implied that her father molested her. Judge Thomas Hastings then formally sentenced Davis to death, telling Davis that his conduct in the courtroom made the decision to pass the death sentence significantly easier. Davis has been on death row since 1996.

Winona Ryder

Actress

Winona Ryder Winona Laura Horowitz (born ), known professionally as Winona Ryder, is an American actress. Having come to attention playing quirky characters in the late 1980s, she achieved success with her more dramatic performances in the 1990s. Ryder's L ...

, who had been raised in Petaluma, offered a $200,000 reward for Klaas's safe return during the search. Ryder starred in a film version of ''

Little Women ''Little Women'' is a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes, in 1868 and 1869. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters— Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—and details th ...

'' after Klaas's death and dedicated it to her memory, because it had been Klaas' favorite book.

Aftermath and legacy

Klaas's body was cremated and her ashes were spread over the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

by her friends and family. In the wake of the murder, Klaas' father, Marc Klaas, became a child advocate and established the Polly Klaas Foundation (formerly the KlaasKids Foundation). He has made himself available to parents of kidnapped children and has appeared frequently on ''

Larry King Live ''Larry King Live'' is an American television talk show broadcast by CNN from June 3, 1985 to December 16, 2010. Hosted by Larry King, it was the network's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly. Ma ...

'', ''

CNN Headline News HLN is an American basic cable network. Owned by CNN Worldwide, the network primarily carries true-crime programming, recently drifting away from limited live news programming. The channel was originally launched on January 1, 1982, by Tur ...

'' and ''

Nancy Grace Nancy Ann Grace (born October 23, 1959) is an American legal pundit, commentator and television journalist. She hosted ''Nancy Grace (TV program), Nancy Grace'', a nightly celebrity news and current affairs (news format), current affairs show ...

''. The all-points bulletin was broadcast on the CHP (

California Highway Patrol The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is the principal state police agency for the U.S. state of California. The CHP has primary jurisdiction, including patrol and Criminal investigation, investigations, over all California Controlled-access highw ...

) channel, which only CHP radios could receive. CHP practice changed after the case. The radio system was upgraded and such bulletins are now broadcast on all police channels through a centralized 911 dispatch system. In October 1998, a performing arts center was named in her honor in Petaluma, but was closed in 2000 because of building safety issues and a lack of funding. In November 2022, after years of fundraising and building improvements, the Polly Klaas Community Theater reopened. In the wake of the murder, politicians in California and other U.S. states supported

three strikes law In the United States, habitual offender laws (commonly referred to as three-strikes laws) have been implemented since at least 1952, and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require a person who i ...

s and California's Three Strikes act was signed into law on March 8, 1994.

Media

Investigation Discovery Investigation Discovery (stylized and branded on-air as ID since 2008) is an American multinational pay television network dedicated to true crime documentaries, similar to corporate sibling HLN. It is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery's netw ...

re-enacted the kidnapping and murder in ''Motives & Murder: Cracking the Case: Who Took Polly Klaas?'' (Season 4 Episode 4, 10/22/2014). The A&E television series ''

American Justice ''American Justice'' is an American criminal justice television program airing on the A&E Network. From 1992–2005, the show was hosted by television reporter Bill Kurtis. The show features interesting or notable cases, such as the murder o ...

'' released the episode "Free to Kill: The Polly Klaas Murder". The episode exposes the challenges of the penal system to rehabilitate inmates. Davis had been in and out of jail, his convictions ranging from kidnapping to burglary. The episode originally aired October 23, 1996. The

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

crime series '' The FBI Files'' first episode's topic was the Polly Klaas case. The episode reveals the details of the FBI agents' collection of evidence and their hunt for the criminal, and originally aired October 20, 1998. On May 9, 2022, '' Crime Junkie'' released an episode on Polly Klaas and discussed how the case set a precedent for California's Three Strikes law.

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

aired an episode of ''

20/20 Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of visual perception, vision, but technically rates an animal's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity depends on optical and neural factors. Optical factors of the eye ...

'' centered on the Polly Klaas case called ''Taken In The Night'' on September 22, 2023. On January 8, 2024, ''The New York Times'' published a guest essay by Polly Klass's older sister, Annie Nichol, titled "My Sister Was Murdered 30 Years Ago. True Crime Repackages Our Pain as Entertainment." In the essay, she criticizes media coverage of the kidnapping, problems with the subsequent Three-Strikes law, and encourages media to be attentive to helping survivors heal. ABC-7 News Bay Area (KGO) aired an episode of ''ABC7 Originals'', "Struck by Justice: The Impact of Polly Klaas" on March 11, 2024. This documentary marked 30 years since California's Three Strikes and You're Out Law.

References

External links

Polly Klaas FoundationKlaasKids Foundation
The Foundation's mission is to stop crimes against children. *

Crime Library Crime Library is a website documenting major crimes, criminals, trials, forensics, and criminal profiling from books. It was founded in 1998 and was most recently owned by truTV, a cable TV network that is part of Time Warner's Turner Broadcast ...

br>Article on Polly Klaas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Klaas, Polly 1990s kidnappings in the United States 1993 in California 1993 murders in the United States Murder in the San Francisco Bay Area History of Sonoma County, California Capital murder cases Deaths by person in California Child sexual abuse in the United States October 1993 crimes in the United States Female murder victims Child murder in California Incidents of violence against girls