I remember thinking Tony Danza was a pretty good actor after all in this movie....sad story
She was killed by her father, Tom Bonney, who claimed he did it while possessed by an alternate personality named "Hitman". She had quit school and had taken up with a married man, both of which had angered her father, who had developed a "Waltons" fantasy about his family. According to accounts of the case, Kathy's rebellious actions had destroyed this fantasy. His story to the police was that a man trying to sell a pick-up truck had given Kathy a test-drive and had never returned. In reality, Tom had driven his daughter just across the Virginia border into North Carolina, stopped by the side of the road, and shot her 27 times. After making the scene look like a sex crime, he left her in the Great Dismal Swamp Canal that ran alongside the shoulder of the road. The jury at his trial was not impressed with Tom's tales of multiple personalities and consequently sentenced him to death. However, that death sentence was later lifted from Tom Bonney and the court has declared him incapable of assisting in his own defense. This case was the subject of the book "Deadly Whispers" and the TV-movie of the same name, starring Tony Danza.