Cathleen Dennis

• Missing Since 07/10/1995
• Missing From Grand Rapids, Michigan
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race Black
• Age 28 years old
• Height and Weight 5'3, 135 pounds
• Associated Vehicle(s) Light-colored Chevrolet, possibly a 1965-1968 model
• Distinguishing Characteristics Black female. Red hair, brown eyes. Dennis's ears are pierced. Some agencies spell her name "Kathleen". Her nickname is Cathy.

Details of Disappearance

Dennis was last seen in Grand Rapids, Michigan on July 10, 1995. She and her sister, both of them sex workers, had traveled there from Omaha, Nebraska a few days earlier and gotten a hotel room. That night they had a few drinks at a nightclub, then parted ways to find clients.

Dennis's sister saw her once during the night, getting into a light-colored Chevrolet, possibly a 1965-1968 model, at Division Avenue and Putnam Street Southwest. At 4:00 a.m., when she was ready to quit work, she could not find Dennis. She has never been heard from again. She left behind two children.

Authorities believed Dennis's disappearance was related to 16 other missing or murdered women who disappeared or were killed in the Grand Rapids area between late 1993 and late 1996. Most of the victims were drug addicts and sex workers.

The prime suspect in her case is Garry Artman. Artman, a former long-haul trucker, who is believed to have been responsible for the murders of at least eleven women besides Dennis, all of them in the Grand Rapids metropolitan area. In 2023, he was convicted of the 1996 rape, stabbing and strangulation murder of another woman and was sentenced to life in prison. He had also been charged in the 2006 death of another woman.

Before he could stand trial in the 2006 murder, in December 2023, Artman died of lung cancer in a prison hospital. On his deathbed he admitted to nine killings besides the ones he was charged with, but he didn't identify his victims by name. He said he had killed a black woman whom he first spotted leaving a bar on Division Avenue and that she had a cast or sling on her arm; this description matched Dennis. He said he disposed of this woman's remains in a dumpster.

Investigators believe Artman was indeed responsible for Dennis's death, but her remains have never been found.