The rope and duct tape that tied a slumber party to a killer

The pillowcases were printed with cartoon cats.

Two girls sat up in their sleeping bags while a man tied their wrists with rope.

He used duct tape over their mouths, and the tape pulled at the corners of their skin.

Polly Klaas was twelve years old.

It was October 1, 1993, in Petaluma, California, and the slumber party was at her mother's house.

The intruder came through a window, or a door, or the dark between them, and the record does not say which.

He bound all three girls.

He took only Polly.

The two friends were left on the floor, still tied, still taped, and they were the ones who told the police what they had seen.

They described a man with a knife, a man with a voice, a man who moved through the house like he knew the rooms.

They were children, and they were the first witnesses.

Later, they would pick Richard Allen Davis out of a lineup.

But on the night itself, they had only the rope and the duct tape left behind.

Investigators collected those materials from the scene.

The rope was cut, the tape was torn, and both were bagged as evidence.

What kind of rope?

What brand of tape?

The exact type and brand are not in the record.

What the record does show is this: the rope and the duct tape found at the slumber party were matched to materials in Davis's possession.

Not to a store shelf.

Not to a general description.

To his possession.

That match is the physical link, the thing that ties a stranger to a child's bedroom.

The girls were tied up but not taken.

They were the ones who survived to describe the hands that held the tape.

They were the ones who survived to point at a man in a lineup.

And the rope sat in an evidence bag, waiting to say the same thing.

THE SEARCH AND THE BREAK

The search for Polly Klaas became one of the largest in California history.

Local police, the FBI, and thousands of volunteers combed fields, roadsides, and abandoned buildings.

They followed tips that led nowhere.

The investigation initially focused on local sex offenders, a list of names checked and rechecked.

For sixty-four days, the case produced no body and no suspect.

The break came in late November 1993, when Richard Allen Davis was arrested on an unrelated parole violation.

Davis was already in custody when a woman who had recently been with him contacted authorities.

She reported that he had been acting strangely and had mentioned being involved in the kidnapping.

She led police to Davis, who was already in custody.

The exact date of her contact is not in the record.

What is in the record is what her tip set in motion.

Under questioning, Davis confessed to the kidnapping and murder, leading investigators to Polly's body.

She was found on December 4, 1993, in a wooded area near Cloverdale, California.

She had been strangled.