Meth led from wealth to unsolved Mesa killing

Mesa police have come up empty in solving the slaying of a 44-year-old woman whose nude body was dumped in the middle of the street in a neighborhood near Lindsay and McKellips roads.

Karen Jane Campbell had no permanent address, but she roamed the area of Main Street between Dobson Road and Country Club Drive on foot and on her bicycle, flopping wherever she could. Mesa police also said she associated with drug users.

Her body was found Oct. 24 in the 2700 block of East Leonora Street.

But Campbell did not always live like that. In the early 1990s she had $500,000 in the bank and trust funds set up for her children.

“That half-million is what killed her,” said Michael Rowley, married to Campbell for seven years after she moved to Mesa.

Campbell was pregnant and caring for a baby when her first husband died in a car crash in Florida, Rowley said.

She received a settlement of more than $1 million from her first husband’s crash — $500,000 of which was hers after paying lawyers and creating trust funds for her children, Rowley said.

He said Campbell had mental illness and didn’t like the medication prescribed to her because it gave her a constant low-grade headache, so she turned to methamphetamine.

Court and police records confirm Campbell used methamphetamine, and over the years was jailed for an assortment of other petty crimes.

It’s “just amazing” what one type of drug can do to a person, Rowley said. He said Campbell was a great mother and stepmother and a “top-notch person” who taught Sunday school at her church when she was clean.

“I had people come up to me and rave about how much their daughters loved my wife,” Rowley said.

Campbell started having run-ins with the law after the couple divorced. Once, in June 1997, she was listed as a suspect in a house fire.

A Tribune story from the time quoted police as saying they had received numerous complaints about people coming and going at all hours from the house in the 8000 block of East Colby Street.

She left the state after a 1998 drug conviction and returned in 2004 to regain custody of her children, relinquished to relatives seven years earlier.

“She admits she has made mistakes in the past but has diligently tried to make amends and to lead her life in a simple and upstanding way,” her attorney wrote in court papers in 2004.

Despite the mistakes, Mesa police spokesman Chris Arvayo said Campbell’s background is no reason to dismiss her slaying.

“We owe it to her to solve this crime,” he said.

Police ask anyone with information about Campbell’s death to call (480) 644-2211.