Who Killed My Daughter

Who Killed My Daughter: The True Story of a Mother's Search for Her Daughter's Murderer (1992) by American young adult novelist Lois Duncan is a memoir-suspense story about the author’s journey to apprehend her daughter’s murderer. Its themes include apathy, violence, and grief. Duncan is best known for I Know What You Did Last Summer (1973).

As the memoir begins, Duncan states the facts of the case: on July 16, 1989, her eighteen-year-old daughter Kaitlyn “Kait” Arquette was shot to death in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico. Duncan describes the last time she saw her daughter alive. She replays the conversation they had. Other than some slight disagreement with an ex-boyfriend, Kait, a normal teen set to start college that fall, seemed her normal, cheerful self.

Before midnight, the parents receive a call from the emergency room (ER) at the University of New Mexico Hospital saying Kait has been gravely injured. Duncan prays that it’s not a head injury because she has personally seen how awful life after a head injury can be. When they arrive at the ER, a nurse says Kait has been shot in the head; she’s not dead, but critically wounded. A homicide detective interviews them.



From the ER, Duncan frantically calls her other children and family friends. The doctors say Kait is likely brain dead at this point. The family says its goodbyes. The next day, Kait dies.

From detectives, Duncan learns that they found Kait at the steering wheel of her car. Right now, the only evidence they have to find the killer is the bullet shells left at the scene of the crime.

Because the author is well known, Kait’s death receives more press than other deaths. Many of the news reports note that random drive-by shootings have statistically increased in downtown Albuquerque. But in talking to her husband, the two know this death wasn’t an accident. Three shots were fired, not one, as would be the case in a random accident. Kait had also just left her friend’s house; unlike some traffic fights that turned fatal, there wasn’t enough traffic or time for Kait to engage in a verbal altercation. Though she had no alcohol in her blood at the time of her death, detectives did find an empty beer can in her car.



Duncan’s family flies in and her friends do their best to comfort her. They help her write a beautiful obituary. They prepare for the funeral. Duncan and her family work through their grief.

The author quickly judges the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) to be callous and lazy in finding her daughter’s killers. She hires a private investigator, but he doesn’t find anything.

Duncan starts talking to Kait’s friends, searching for any clue that would lead to the killer. She learns that Kati’s ex-boyfriend, Dung Nguyen, was involved in an insurance fraud scheme. But the crime doesn’t seem large enough for anyone to kill Kait, and Kait wasn’t the type of person to involve herself with illegal activities. When Duncan tells the APD about this, they record it but don’t (from what she sees) investigate it. Her entire family starts distancing themselves from Dung until they can be sure he didn’t murder Kait.



After reading a book called Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss, Duncan decides to talk with psychics and, if required, be hypnotized. The psychics are Betty Muench, Noreen Renier, Nancy Czetli, and Greta Alexander. Duncan recorded these conversations, and they appear throughout Who Killed My Daughter?

Betty, a channeler, says that Kait can’t speak directly to Duncan through her, but she can gradually point to clues. Throughout their sessions, Duncan encounters many different tips, scenarios, and possibilities. Betty says that Dung may have been involved in drugs, too, and the shooting retribution for money he owed. Noreen says the get-away vehicle was painted a different color and had false signage on it (a Ford posing as a Volkswagen).

Duncan relays these (and other) clues to APD. They don’t act on any of them. Instead, they continue to advance their own interpretation, that this was a random shooting, which Duncan thinks is unlikely and unfruitful.



Later, the police learn that Dung isn’t only involved with insurance fraud; he also assists with smuggling drugs across the border (Albuquerque is just five miles from the Mexican border). The police seriously question Dung’s involvement with the gang. Dung insists it was minimal, but the author suspects there are many things Dung isn’t saying.

Two years pass before the police say they have a probable suspect. But the judge says the evidence against the man is far too weak. After this book was published, the APD cracked down on insurance scams and arrested two lawyers who were involved with a local ring of scams.

To this day, a culprit has not been found. Duncan founded a nonprofit for victims of violent deaths. Before her death in 2016, Duncan primarily wrote children’s books rather than her popular thrillers that placed young women in perils situations.