The teen on a ten-speed and the murder of 7-year-old Patty Kuzara | True Crime Files

Patty Kuzara spent Saturday, September 28, 1974, at her babysitter's house. When Patty's mother came to get her, Patty had left to play with a friend. Patty's mother got back in her car and drove the nearly three miles home. As punishment for not being at her babysitter's house, Patty's mother told the seven-year-old that she needed to walk home.

Just before dusk, Patty started the long trek home. She knew that she was not to venture off the main street.

But less than a mile from her home, she did just that. 

Sheriff's detectives are not sure if she was taking a shortcut or if she was running for her life...from her killer. 

Despite a frantic search for her through the night, Patty never made it home. 

The next morning her body was discovered; her head was bludgeoned and nearly caved in, and portions of her clothing ripped and torn aside. 

The search for Patty turned to a search for clues including the murder weapon as well as a hunt for the killer.

It took a week to find the two-and-one-half-foot steel signpost used to kill Patty. 

Meanwhile, in the days following Patty's murder, Sheriff's detectives issued a call to the public for help finding a potential witness, a teenage boy with blonde hair who was seen riding a yellow ten-speed in the same area where Patty disappeared at the time of her disappearance.

"Detectives are trying to locate a slender teenage boy with long blonde hair who was riding a yellow ten-speed bike near where Patty was last seen alive," said CBS 8 reporter, Greg LaFave. "[Detectives] say the boy might have witnessed Patty's encounter with her killer."

Watch the brief  1974 clip from CBS 8 calling for help locating the potential witness.

For much of the fifty years that have passed since Patty Kuzara was raped and murdered in the undeveloped dirt lot, there weren't many leads in this cold case. That changed in recent years when the search for the teen on the ten-speed turned from considering him a potential witness to now listing him as a "person of interest."

San Diego Sheriff Detective Brent Spencer is the lead investigator on the Kuzara killing.

Detective Spencer was unable to provide information on the identity of the teen seen near the murder scene that day but confirmed that the teen admitted to being in the area the day of the murder. Detective Spencer also confirmed that the unknown teen has since died.

"We did locate that individual, and we know who that individual is," Detective Spencer told CBS 8. "He is a person of interest and at this point, he is deemed higher than a witness."

Detective Spencer confirmed that the teen on the ten-speed lived in Poway and went to a nearby high school at the time of the killing. 

However, Detective Spencer said no evidence ties the boy or anyone else to the murder, for now. While he confirmed that the killer's DNA was collected from Patty's body as well as other places, the handling of DNA, the collection methods back then, and the testing of it, often present more obstacles than leads.

"There are a lot of hurdles because this case is 50 years old. Some of the witnesses have passed away at this point, the DNA may come from Patricia's clothing or items that were collected on the scene is highly degraded at this point as well."

For Patty's father, Dennis Kuzara, the entire investigation into his daughter's brutal murder has been one obstacle after another. 

"I was walking around the fog for a couple of years," Dennis Kuzara told CBS 8 about the years following the murder. "It's been so long, it's more like a bad dream than anything else and now it's just buried in the past somewhere. But I would like some resolution, yes."

Kuzara told CBS 8 that he had been out of town on a backpacking trip the day that Patty was killed. He returned home the day her body was discovered. 

"The whole thing is kind of buried somewhere in the distant past," said Kuzara about the days and weeks following his daughter's murder.

Kuzara said the only way for him to handle the loss was to put all of his attention on his electrical engineering business. "It's so far buried that I don't get emotional about it. If you want to try and put things in the past, I suppose you get very busy, and it kind of crowds things out of your mind kind. That's pretty much how you have to deal with it, if you dwell on it, you're doomed."

Kuzara said a few years ago was the first he heard about the possible connection between the teen on the ten-speed bike and his daughter's murder. He said a detective called him telling him that the teen was now a person of interest but there were some difficulties in getting the evidence needed to either link him to the murder or rule him out.

"According to the detective, they have DNA samples but they are not compatible with the online databases and so they have to get a new sample. And to exhume the body they need permission from someone, they don't have enough evidence to just do it."

And while Dennis Kuzara waits for new information, Detective Spencer with the San Diego Sheriff's Department said it is premature to name anyone a suspect just yet.

Adding to the intrigue, the late 1960s and mid-1970s saw at least three cases where young girls were found sexually assaulted and murdered in and around Poway.

Spencer said that the nature of Patty's murder makes settling on a suspect a difficult task.

"This does not seem like an accident," said Detective Spencer. "This seems to be perpetrated with thought behind it, with an individual who was watching her or possibly watching her from afar. Patricia wasn't just struck once. She was struck multiple times to the point that this was almost overkill."

Added Detective Spencer, "I want to reach out to the public and ask for their help. This case is extremely important to us. We empathize with Patty's family as well as Patty who never got to live her life. She's forever a seven-year-old girl who had her life taken from her."

Because of that, Spencer urges anyone with any information to call the Sheriff's Department. "If you're from Poway around that time and you saw something, and you may not have come forward, or you know an individual who spoke about this and had knowledge that they shouldn't have, please come forward and speak to us about this case."

For Dennis Kuzara, whether his daughter's killer is dead or alive, identifying the person who did this will mean closure.

"At least he can't harm anybody else. So that would be a blessing."