Nearly three years ago, I decided I was going to write about Brenda Keller, the 12-year-old pastor’s daughter who was murdered in tiny Dover, Kansas, for my capstone project in grad school.
Before I started, I called the Kellers and asked for permission. It’s the only way I’d write about Brenda, who grew up a few miles away as I was growing up in Burlingame. We had mutual friends, and I was fascinated by the case.
At first, Bob Keller said he wasn’t ready. A few hours later, he called me back and said he and his wife, Tracy, would like to work with me. That conversation launched a project that has become one of my passions: Writing about a wonderful young lady who died far too young, her incredibly kind and gracious family, quintessential small-town America in a great community and the man who committed this awful crime.
I have not shared much of what I’ve written for a number of reasons. Oct. 19 is the 28th anniversary of Brenda’s passing, and, as I continue to work on this story, many people ask “How’s that book coming?” In honor of her life, I’m sharing an excerpt of what I’ve written:
Everybody knew Brenda as the pastor’s daughter with bright red hair, freckles and warm, welcoming blue eyes. At 5-foot-4 and 108 pounds as a seventh-grader in 1991, she was blossoming into a gorgeous young woman, smart and devoted to a faith learned from loving parents. Her father called Brenda his “Strawberry.”
“She was so innocent, so innocent, and so sweet,” said Crystal Danko, a friend of Brenda’s who lived on Douglas Road and attended school with her for several years. “And she had this beautiful voice. I remember just sitting around and making her sing. We’d say, ‘Sing so we can hear your voice.’ I think it was realizing that she is special, there’s something special about her. She was kind and happy and smiled all the time.”
Brenda excelled at Dover Junior High, earning A’s and B’s while participating in several sports. She wrote short stories and drew pictures of animals, one of which was good enough to win the “Artist of the Month” award, and played volleyball.
According to her mother, she spent the entire summer before seventh grade playing basketball to prepare for her first season in that sport.
“Brenda practiced all summer long with John and with her friend Jill, and I’d look out the window and she’d be practicing by herself,” Tracy said. “Because the kind of person that she was made her want to improve in every area of her life. She wanted to give her best to God, and she worked very hard to improve in every area of her life, and basketball was something she needed to improve in.”
Like her mother, Brenda took to animals. She rescued countless birds, turtles and other tiny creatures, nursing them back to health.
“She had all kinds of different critters at her house,” said Jana Phillips, a friend and classmate. “She had different rodents, like guinea pigs, and I know she had a rat. She’d let the rat crawl on her, and that always freaked me out!”
The rat did cause one moment of heartbreak for Brenda.
“I remember being at her house, and she had a little, bitty pet turtle in a dish, and the rat bit the turtle’s head off. She was so distraught,” Danko said. “I was laughing because it was kind of funny, but she was so upset.”
Phillips and Danko were among several girls who joined Brenda on the morning of Oct. 19, 1991, in riding a school bus from Dover Junior High to Mission Valley High School for a volleyball tournament.
Dover Junior High principal Traci Anderson also made the 17-mile trip across the Wabaunsee County line to Eskridge on a cool Saturday morning. A typical autumn day in Kansas, the temperature was above freezing, but the wind, ranging from 9 mph to 20 mph, made for a cold morning.
“As a principal at a school that size, you really do everything,” she said. “What I remember most about that day is the last time I saw her, going up to the high school. I remember her turning around, that she looked at me, our eyes locked, and she smiled. That’s always going to remain in my memory.”