Kendall Hall: The Stage, September 4, 1977

Beyond Michigan · Sigrid Stevenson Case Library
Kendall Hall: The Stage, September 4, 1977

A schematic of the main stage and the first officer’s probable route, drawn from the 1977 first-floor plan, his report, the medical examiner’s scene description, and the published scene photographs. Select a point to see what the record says about it.

Clutch Justice · Compiled by Rita Williams · Last updated October 2026 · 8 points
How to read this map This is a schematic, not a survey. It is not to scale, and positions on the stage are approximate. The dashed pink line is the officer’s probable route, laid over the 1977 plan from the two thresholds he describes. The exact path is not marked on any published record. The original plan and photographs are hosted in the Solve the Case gallery, and some are graphic.
Schematic of the Kendall Hall main stage, September 1977 A not-to-scale schematic based on the 1977 first-floor plan, showing the east side entrance, the corridor past the small auditorium, the stage access, the piano, the belongings, the scarf at the stage lip, where Sigrid was found, the rear loading door, and the officer’s probable route. REAR STAGE WALL Overhead loading door WING WING · NEAR RM 117 MAIN STAGE Stage lip Orchestra pit MAIN AUDITORIUM Corridor H-121 Small auditorium Room 122 · J.B. East side door faces Crowell Hall 12345678
Probable route, unconfirmedOfficer steps back to the loading doorRecorded blood
Point 1East side entrance: The bicycle and the side door

At 11:29 p.m. on September 4, Kokotajlo saw a girl’s bicycle cabled to the railing at the foot of the steps to Kendall Hall’s side entrance, which faces Crowell Hall. He radioed the campus desk and unlocked the side door. He had a key to this door. His report does not say which key, or whether it would have opened anything else.

Sources: Kokotajlo report No. 77-476; 1977 first-floor plan.

Point 2Corridor H-121: Past the small auditorium, room 122

The small auditorium is where the local cast staged J.B. the night before. Kokotajlo wrote that he checked the small theater “as I passed,” which reads as walking the corridor past it rather than cutting through its seats. He then looked through swinging doors facing the auditorium.

Sources: Kokotajlo report No. 77-476; 1977 first-floor plan.

Point 3Stage access near room 117: The doorway onto the stage

His second threshold. He walked through a doorway onto the stage, lit only by emergency fixtures, and from 25 to 30 feet away saw what he first took for a dummy. The exact path between the corridor and this doorway is not marked on any published record.

Sources: Kokotajlo report No. 77-476.

Point 4Where Sigrid was found: Face down, under white material

The heaviest blood on the stage surrounds her body, some distance from the piano. Lividity on the front of her body matches the face-down position she was found in, which means she lay here from soon after death. Her soles were dirty from walking the stage barefoot and showed little blood. Netflix reports her blouse was tied around her mouth and that she was wrapped in a piano blanket.

Sources: Kokotajlo report; Medical Examiner summary No. 77-199; Solve the Case summary of medical findings; Netflix Tudum.

Point 5The piano and the folding chair: Blood under it, not on the keys

The medical examiner recorded blood beneath the piano. The photographs show it pooled on the floor and on the bottom rail, with the upper panels comparatively clean and no blood visible on the keys. One drop ran down the sheet music. The white folding chair sits off the bass end of the keyboard, not in front of it, with no obvious staining. The keyboard cover may have been closed.

Sources: Medical Examiner summary No. 77-199; Solve the Case scene photographs.

Point 6Her belongings: Boots, one sock, bag, and rolled sleeping bag

Lined up beside the piano: brown boots side by side with one burgundy sock tucked into one of them, her canvas bag, and her tan sleeping bag rolled with one white cord trailing. No blood is visible on the boots or sleeping bag. She had been sleeping in the green room, where her purse and diary were found, so why her bedding was on the main stage is unexplained. The second sock, described as bloodstained, is not in the pile, and the sleeping bag may be missing a tie.

Sources: Medical Examiner summary No. 77-199; Solve the Case scene photographs; unsolved.com.

Point 7The scarf at the stage lip: A small pool of blood near the orchestra pit

The medical examiner described a small pool of blood with her head scarf in it, and blood splattered down from the stage edge. The photographs show a line of drops along a floorboard seam. This is the third place she bled, apart from both the piano and her body.

Sources: Medical Examiner summary No. 77-199; 1977 floor plan annotations; scene photographs.

Point 8The rear loading door: Padlocked, raised a foot and a half

After finding her, Kokotajlo stepped back to the large loading door, removed its padlock, and raised it about a foot and a half, then stayed crouched here 10 to 15 feet from her until help arrived. The 2024 episode confirms the raised shutter in the photographs is this door, so the gap is his. Sources familiar with the theater program say the padlock was the theater’s, with few keyholders, and campus police may not have had one. Whether it was locked when he reached it is not recorded.

Sources: Kokotajlo report No. 77-476; Unsolved Mysteries, 2024; sources familiar with the theater program.

What the map cannot show

The green room, where Sigrid slept that weekend and where her purse and diary were found, is not drawn here because its exact position relative to the stage is not established in the records Clutch Justice has reviewed.

The basement-level door that Solve the Case says students could jiggle open is not on this first-floor plan.

The positions of the piano, chair, belongings, scarf, and body are taken from the scene photographs and the annotated plan, and are approximate. A scene diagram with measurements, if the original file contains one, would replace this schematic.

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