Marina City murder mystery On Friday afternoon, May 5, 1972 at about 3:20 p.m., Gloria Kirkpatrick, the 25-year-old manager of Marina Cinemas, was stabbed with a large butcher knife nine times outside her office. She ran, screaming for help, to the lobby and collapsed in the arms of a man who worked at Marina City Bank. Within minutes of arrival at Henrotin Hospital, Kirkpatrick died.

Police started looking for a man she was last seen speaking to – 40 to 50 years old, 140 to 150 pounds, dark hair, well-dressed, wearing a dark suit. He was believed to be a business or casual acquaintance of the young woman’s. Her mother remembered that a week earlier, a well-dressed middle-aged man walked by and spoke to Gloria, but Gloria had turned her back on the man and said to her mother, “I can’t stand that man.”

Robbery did not appear to be the motive. A safe in Kirkpatrick’s office was open and $200 inside the safe was undisturbed. Her purse was still on her desk.

Kirkpatrick, described as beautiful and nice, had lived at Marina City for seven months, on the 39th floor of the west tower. She had been manager of Marina Cinemas for about two years. Before that, she was a secretary at Bertrand Goldberg Associates.

This diagram, based on a Chicago Tribune illustration, shows the path of Kirkpatrick from where she was stabbed outside her office to where she collpased onto the floor of the building lobby.

Police questioned several people. Within a few days they had a suspect, a newspaper proofreader who had quarreled with Kirkpatrick over projection equipment breaking down, and what he said were misleading advertisements. He had been banned from the theater for being an unruly patron. He took a polygraph test but the results, said police, were inconclusive. Although he had an alibi, he was not ruled out as a suspect.

But the murder weapon was never found and the crime was never solved.

Pepe Martina walks from west tower to east tower

Pepe Martina was the only person to walk from the west tower to the east tower without using the plaza or lower levels.

He used a tightrope suspended 60 feet up between the two towers. He performed a variety of tricks along the way. Pepe, who performed around the world, was in town in November 1975 to promote newly expanded facilities at Chicago Health and Tennis Club, located at Marina City.