Kimberlie Kay Kantonen

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Siskiyou County Sheriffs Department (CA)

Missing From:

Hornbrook, CA

Summary:

Kimberlie Kay Kantonen, 19 and four months pregnant, was last seen on March 8, 1989, at the Hornbrook property of Arnold Aggas Sr., where she lived in a trailer with his son. Aggas was arrested in 2011 and charged with her murder; in 2014 he pleaded no contest to manslaughter counts for Kimberlie and her unborn child and was sentenced to 13 years. He was released in 2019. Her remains have never been found and she remains a missing person.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

Kimberlie Kay Kantonen, known as Kim, was 19 years old in March 1989 and living in Hornbrook, a small community in northern Siskiyou County near the Oregon line. She was four months pregnant and living with her boyfriend, the father of the baby, in a trailer on property belonging to his father, Arnold Aggas Sr. The last time she saw her mother, Kim said that her boyfriend's father had a bad temper and had made unwanted sexual advances toward her. After Aggas learned she was pregnant he was reportedly angry and prevented her from seeking prenatal care. Her mother tried to convince her to move out, but Kim wanted to marry her boyfriend and stayed. Kim was last seen on Wednesday, March 8, 1989, at the Aggas residence in Hornbrook. She was wearing a blue sweatsuit, a tan corduroy jacket and white sneakers and carrying a black purse. It was Aggas who reported her missing, and he produced a four-page letter that he said she had left beside his son's bed. The letter said she had met a truck driver, was moving to Washington State and would raise the baby on her own. Her mother thought the handwriting looked like Kim's but did not believe her daughter would leave without telling her, or cut the baby's father out of the child's life. She distributed missing-person fliers and spoke with law enforcement, and later reported receiving anonymous telephone calls warning her to stop talking to police. The Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office classified the disappearance as suspicious. The case went cold for more than two decades. In June 2011, Arnold Aggas Sr. was arrested on charges stemming from a 2007 rape case. Detectives of the sheriff's Major Crimes Unit searched his property, and on June 23, 2011, the sheriff's office announced that Aggas, then 66, had been arrested for Kim's murder, saying investigators had determined he was responsible for her disappearance and death. The sheriff's office said at the time that it did not believe Aggas was connected to the 1997 disappearances of Hannah Zaccaglini and Karin Mero from the McCloud area. In April 2014 the case was resolved by plea in Siskiyou County Superior Court. The Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office describes the outcome as Aggas pleading guilty to the murder of Kim and her fetus; court reporting describes a no-contest plea to two counts of manslaughter, one for Kim and one for her unborn child, plus one count of preventing a witness from testifying, with a sentence of 13 years in state prison. In January 2019 Sheriff Jon Lopey said Aggas had shot and killed Kim and her unborn child, that the killing may have been sexually motivated, and that with credit for time served and work credits Aggas would be released on February 23, 2019. He was released in February 2019. Kim's body has never been found. Because her remains have not been recovered she is still carried as a missing person by the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office and the California Department of Justice, and her case remains open for the purpose of locating her.

Additional Details:

Anyone with information about the location of Kimberlie Kantonen's remains is asked to contact the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office at (530) 841-2900.

Case Last Updated:

Oct 23, 2026