Welcome back to the Pathway Chili.
I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley.
Let's dive right into this week's case.
June twenty third, nineteen ninety six, Boston, Massachusetts, the dismembered upper body of twenty year old Karina Homer is found inside a plastic trash bag in a dumpster. She was strangled to death before her body was sliced directly in half, and the lower portion of her body is never recovered. Karina hills from Sweden and has spent the past three months wor King is an o pair for a married couple, and she was last seen partying at a nightclub nearby
nearly thirty six hours before she was found. Even though the investigation looks at a number of potential suspects, there's no evidence to implicate anyone and the crime remains unsolved.
After that, the path went Chile. So this week we're going to be covering one of the most brutal unsolved crimes of the modern era, the nineteen ninety six murder of Karina Holmer. This case has often been compared to the unsolved nineteen forty seven murder of Elizabeth Short aka the black Dollia murder, since both crimes involve a young female victim having their bodies literally sliced in half at
the waist. Karina Holmer hailed from a small village in Sweden and traveled to the United States in order to work as an old pair for a family who lived in a suburb of Boston. One night, Krina decided to go to a downtown nightclub with her friends, but she became separated from them and would not be seen until nearly thirty six hours later, when the upper half of her dismembered body was discovered inside a plastic trash bag
in a dumpster. One of the most frustrating aspects of the investigation is that there were contradictory eyewitness accounts about the circumstances of how Karina left the nightclub, and it's unclear if she was alone or in the company of someone who may have been her killer. What further complicates things is that Karina had written letters to her family and friends in Sweden in which she expressed unhappiness with
her situation and seemed anxious to return home. In fact, she told one friend that quote unquote, something terrible had happened, but never revealed what she was referring to, and we have no idea if this statement has any possible connection to her death. Investigators would uncover a couple of potential suspects, but no conclusive evidence to link any of them to the crime. So on this series of episodes, we're going to try and figure out why Karina became the victim of such a sadistic murder.
So question for you when she's writing about something terrible had happened, is that indirect reference of her job as an all pair she.
Never actually said. She just said she was unhappy, but she never specifically said anything about her job or the family she's living with, and they never found any evidence that she had anything going on in the home that could have played a role in her death. So it's just one of those cryptic statements where she didn't offer any context, and now that she was murdered, everybody is wondering what she meant.
And you have to think too, that she's downtown at a nightclub with her friends, and so when she separated from them, she becomes an ideal target.
Right.
You have somebody late at night, possibly intoxicated, but with a lot of other people who might be intoxicated or not paying attention or even not there, and so she could be someone who was a victim of an opportunistic person who's downtown in an area where people are drinking and waiting for somebody to be isolated away from people that they know.
Yeah, as we're going to talk about, this is one of the more frustrating cases I've seen involving eyewitness sightings because we're going to hear a bunch of different accounts from people who might be the last person to see Karina alive, but they provide such differing accounts of what happened that you can't really be sure, Like, she was seen in the company of a number of different individuals, but you're just not sure if she left with them
or where she would have gone. So all we know is she left the club at some point and then thirty six hours later she was found murdered in a dumpster, and we have no idea how.
So our story begins in Massachusetts in nineteen ninety six. Our central figure is twenty year old Karina Homer, who hails from Alarid, Sweden, a small farming village of less than one hundred people, which is located over three hundred and seventy five kilometers southwest of the capital city of Stockholm. Karina grew up there with her parents and three sisters, but had an adventurous spirit and hoped to own or
manage a restaurant someday. Karina received a major break when she won ten thousand krona on a scratch ticket in this Swedish state lottery, which was the equivalent of fifteen hundred American dollars at that time, and decided that she would use the money to finance a trip to the
the United States. Karna's older sister, Johanna, had previous experience working as a no pair, a job which involves traveling to a foreign country to provide childcare and housework for a host family in exchange for room and board and a weekly stipend. Since Karina wanted to follow in her sister's footsteps, she contacted no pair agency that specialized in US placements and wound up receiving a job with an
American family. The couple in question were Frank Rapp, a forty three year old commercial professor, and Susan Niictor, a thirty seven year old artist, and they had a six year old son and a daughter who was still a toddler. The family lived in a condominium complex in a wealthy, upscale suburb of Dover, located about fifteen miles southwest of
downtown Boston. Karina accepted the position and left for the United States in March, but before she boarded her plane at the airport, the last word she said to her family were quote, I hope I doing the right thing. While Karina would spend the week living in this bare room in the family's condo, Frank Rapp gave her the keys to his photography studio, which was located in the four Point neighborhood of South Boston and doubled is a loft. Karina spent her weekends there, and this gave her the
opportunity to explore the city and make new friends. She became acquainted with some other Swedish O pairs who lived in the area and would often invite them to her loft and go out to the night club with them.
See that's something that's normal for them. It's somebody that
you know. She's acquainted with other people who have similar backgrounds with her, She's able to connect with them on a level that the other people she would see on a daily basis, she wouldn't be able to write her heritage, her culture, the fact that she's an all pair right in this kind of unique, bizarre experience that you have where you're kind of uprooted and repositioned into a family home, you're given responsibilities to actually be basically a second mother
to children, right with people you don't know very well to start. And so I love that she has this acquaintance group of people who do live in the same area that invite her to hang out and go to the night clubs with them.
But it's that moment that she has separated from them.
I'm interested to hear how that night actually went and what people say occurred, because I do, in my gut feel like if she gets separated from these people who are supposed to be, you know, part of her network, she becomes this highly vulnerable person.
Could it have been someone she knows?
Absolutely right, especially when you look at the kind of aggressive nature you're going to describe to me, But also it almost goes even beyond like a anger lust killing and it's more, like you said, one of the most sadistic And I'm wondering does that screen more of a stranger kind of serial killer person than it does just maybe an acquaintance or someone who's interested in her sexually
and maybe got denied. So to me, I almost think it's that extreme stranger situation that would result in such brutality.
To make a lot of parallels to the Black Dolly murder from nineteen forty seven, and of course that one is still unsolved all these years later, and it has always baffled people because Elizabeth Short was sliced in half. That was the only crime that took place in Los Angeles at that time that matched that description. So you're wondering to yourself, was she killed by someone she knew or was just just some serial killer who was experimenting and wanted to murder her in the most brutal, sadistic
manner possible. And that's the same thing with Karina Holmer. Like Boston had never seen a crime like this where a victim was literally sliced in half and had their body their torso dumped in a dumpster. So it makes you wonder, is this someone that has experienced with this sort of thing, or it was it a personal crime by someone who hated Karina so much that they felt the need to slice her in.
Half and to bisect a body like wouldn't that be a lot of labor? I guess it would depend on the tools or the implements used. But it seems most likely that if one was going to do something like that, that they would do it at another location and then dumped the body. Or is it possible that they bisected her out in the public or somewhere close by.
I think it's most likely that she was killed at another location and they just dumped the body there. But yeah, as we're going to talk about, this was a very careful crime where it looked like it was someone with a lot of surgical skill who knew what they were doing, and it makes you think that this is not the
first time they murdered someone. So On the evening of Friday, June the twenty first, Karina and some of her Swedish friends decided to celebrate the Summer Solstice, which is considered to be one of the biggest holidays in Sweden, since they experienced around eighteen hours of daylight. On that date, Karina and her friends went to Zanzibar, a prominent nightclub located on Bolston Place, in an area known as the Alley, which was home to a number of nightclubs and partying spots.
Even though the legal drinking age in Massachusetts was twenty one and Karina was just two month shy of her twenty first birthday, she was able to gain access to Zanzibar and purchased by using a fake ID. At some point during the evening, Creane became separated from her friends
and left the club. And we have a number of different accounts of what happened, which we'll get into momentarily, but no one heard from Kreane over the weekend, and there was no indication that she ever returned to her loft.
At around one thirty pm on Sunday, June the twenty third, just under thirty six hours after Karina was last seen, a homeless man started searching through a dumpster behind an apartment building located in the Back Bay neighborhood, which was a short distance away from the iconic baseball stadium Fenway Park. The man was searching for cans, but accidentally ripped open a black plastic trash bag in the dumpster and was horrified to see what appeared to be a human arm inside.
When the man fetched the police and they arrived at the scene, they discovered that the bag contained the dismembered upper half of a female body, and the victim was eventually identified as Karina Holmer. Her body had been sliced directly in half at the waist, and this was done in such a calculated fashion that the only bone the perpetrator needed to cut through was Karina's spine, though a small piece of her hip was shaved off by the
cutting tool. A medical disc believed to belong to a circular saw was also found in the dumpster.
Dear lord, Okay, so are they thinking that this is somebody with a medical background or somebody who has knowledge of exactly how to dismember the body similar to what they were talking about with the black delia? Is the precision that's needed here?
Is that where people's minds went.
I think. So we're going to talk about a number of potential suspects that pop up on the radar, but none of these people have a medical background. So there have never been any doctors who've popped up into focus that looked like someone who would have the surgical skill to do something like that. But because this was done
so meticulously. You have to think that they had previous experience, because one of the odds that someone for the first time who decides to slice a body in half would be able to do it so thoroughly that they would only cut one bone, the spine.
I think likely this has got to be their second and her third murder. This can't be their first go round. But somebody who was potentially like a hunter, who really understood the body, and they could maybe look at a medical textbook and get a pretty good idea of the human body and then just translate that into what would look like surgical precision.
Also a butcher, that's true as well, So anyone who has experienced just cutting through things would have been capable of doing something like this.
So the top half of Karina's body had been thoroughly cleaned and her makeup was removed, and there were no apparent bruises or defensive winds. Since Karina had would appear to be rope or cord marks on her neck, the medical examiner determined that her exact cause of death was strangulation, and this took place before she was dismembered. However, the lower half of Karina's body was never found, so it
was impossible to determine if she'd been sexually assaulted. Swabs of Karna's mouth and fingernails failed to turn up any friends evidence, though a partial fingerprint was found on the trash bag. Even though this print was run through a national database, it failed to turn up a match. The dumpster was located just under two miles away from the Zansavar nightclub, and the medical examiner estimated that Karina had been alive for at least twenty four hours after she
was last seen there. This would have placed her approximate time of death as taking place sometime during the early morning hours of June twenty third, meaning that she may have been held captive, though no one could pinpoint an exact location for her murder. Karina's family was informed a vote her death by the US State Department before her
body was transported back to Sweden. Her friends and family decided to wear colorful clothing at her funeral to commemorate her joyful personality, and they also read out a poem she had once composed titled Life, in which she wrote, quote the richest gift you ever got was life. Don't throw that away or ever step on it, but hold it high in your hands.
How cool is that?
I love that her friends said, you know, look, we're going to honor her joyfulness and her love and the creativity that she is. And so they're wearing this bright color in the darkest you know moments, especially when they start learning exactly what happened to her. I can't even imagine the weight and the grief that surrounded them. This print that they found is really interesting because it failed
to turn up a match. And I'm wondering this, like how significant it truly is, because remember, the person who found her was digging for cans, and had they not ripped into that bag, would they have even found her? And so how many other people were let's say, scrummling, you know, going through that trash or pushing that bag
down to get more trash in the container. So, you know, while it's huge when you find it, you also wonder could it have also just been you know, superposely placed there as well?
That is true. I guess it would depend how long the bag had been in there, Like I'm sure they probably compared to the print of the man who found her and made sure that it didn't belong to him, but they don't know how long the bag was in there, so if other people innocuously touched it, it's possible the
print it does not belong to the killer. And as we're going to talk about, they have checked a bunch of potential suspects over the years and it does not sound like the print has matched any of them either, But that doesn't necessarily rule them out, because we don't know if the print belongs to the killer.
And can we just take a minute to acknowledge just how horrifying a proposition it is that Karina was likely alive for an entire day and held captive by the person that did this grizzly act to her. I can't even imagine what she went through and the terror, Like how horrifying You've got this person who clearly is a psychopath. I mean, to bisect a body like that and to just dump it, and who knows what he did or
didn't do. I mean, it's likely a he, but it's just horrifying, Like I shudder at the thought.
And like you said, when we're thinking about the brutality of this, it has to be someone with experience, it has to be someone who has done this before, who has the confidence and the brazen approach to somebody to say, hey, if they did keep her alive for let's say a whole day and are abusing her and then decide to dissect her, this has to be someone who this is just kind of like another day, another walk in the park for them, which is so disturbing that could it
have been someone she knew and existed beside, or is it somebody again who's waiting and watching and says, there's someone who looks vulnerable.
There are the perfect target for me.
At least, they did establish that she was straggled to death before she was dismembered, so at the very least she wasn't alive when they saw her in half. But because we only found half of her body, we don't know if she underwent any torture during the time period she may have been held captive. So the Boston Police Department wouldlaunch an investigation and interviewed over three hundred witnesses
in an attempt to figure out what happened Karina. Like we mentioned earlier, there would be a number of contradictory accounts from the eyewitnesses who last saw Karina at the Zanzabar nightclub between two and three am on June and
twenty second. Since Karina became separated from her friends, none of them could recall having seen or leave the club, though multiple people reported that she had become heavily intoxicated, and one of the club's bouncers supposedly found Karina passed out in the bathroom shortly before closing and escorted her outside. Witnesses recalled seeing a drunk Karina in an alleyway, where she was complaining about being abandoned by her friends and
unable to get back into the club. She was also seen in the alley talking, singing, and dancing with a homeless man, and there were other reports of her walking away from the club alone on Tremont Street. However, these accounts seemed to be contradicted by a witness who happened to be the boyfriend of one of the women Karina went to the club with. He told police that he had been planning to drive Karina home, but she wound up climbing into a gray Mitsubishi being driven by two men.
When the witness tried to intervene, one of the men made profane threats for him to get away from the car before they drove away. As far as I can tell, this witness's story was never corroborated, though while she was inside the club, Kreina did apparently tell one of her female friends that she was planning to go to an
after hours party with an older man. To add to the confusion, witnesses also reported seeing Karina between three thirty and four thirty am that morning inside a twenty four hour convenience store on Massachusetts Avenue near Havilan Street, a spot located about one block away from the dumpster where
her dismembered body was eventually found. Investigators decided to check footage from Zanzibar's exterior security camera, and while the quality of the footage was very grainy, they were able to make out an image of a woman resembling Krena who was standing outside the club and speaking to a burly man who appeared to be in his forties and was accompanied by a large white dog.
So in there you have multiple people that we really don't know who they are that are being described the homeless man, which I doubt that it's him because most likely where would he have taken her for hours, you know, and possibly twenty four hours. I don't see that being the case. This idea that there's two men is really interesting because you have such a you know, kind of brazen, I don't know, violent attack on her. Is it possible
two people are doing that. It's possible. There's this older man that she's going to go to an after party with, and then there's that burly man with the dog. So right there you have five people who individuals are saying from the same location right that they're observing all of these things with Karina so highly confusing because it's almost like these people are seeing five completely different bar scenes and only one of them or none of them, is actually the person who came to take her.
What do you guys think The chances are that if say that it was two men, maybe they didn't even abduct her. Maybe she got into that vehicle willingly. If it was indeed the Mitsubishi and they took her to like a quote unquote after party, which may have just been the two of them, things took a turn and
they ended up sexually assaulting her. Potentially that could explain why one of them maybe had killed before or had some kind of knowledge of the human body and was like, oh crap, Like, we've sexually assaulted her DNA as a thing in nineteen ninety six, and we don't want to be tied to this crime. So let's bathe her and bisect the body and then distribute them in different places, and then there's a likelihood that a stronger likelihood that we wouldn't be tied to this.
Forensically, that would make sense because they never did find the lower half of her body, so they were unable to determine if she was sexually assaulted. They never found any DNA, And I do think that the scenario of her leaving with two men who subsequently harmed her seems like one of the more logical ones because it sounded like these eyes were kind of threatening and they were
taking advantage of a girl who was heavily intoxicated. But it's just so frustrating that other than that one witness, no one else has been able to corroborate seeing these men in the Midstubishi taking Koreina away. So it makes you wonder is his account accurate, because if it is, then your scenario probably would make a lot of sense.
And you've got to remember too, Typically you don't have killers who operate in tandem, right, But when you do have two people who are psychotic and mentally disturbed, when they're working together, they can often even escalate each other's depravity. And so it is possible that these two men get together, let's say, even consensually with her at first, and or at least to the max.
You can with an intoxicated woman.
Right, It's not consensual, but willingly she gets into the car with them, and then they proceed to start to, let's say, take advantage of her.
Let's say she resists them.
Do they keep one upping each other with the violence, and it almost gives permission to continue to be more and more violent with her.
If you have two offenders in there, like a Leonard like and a Robert Ang, it's very possible. So it turned out that Karina had been dating a Boston police officer and originally met him at Zanzibar, where he often worked paid details. While his identity was never released publicly, investigators did determine that he was not at Zanzibar and had an alibi on the night that Karina was murdered,
so he was never considered to be a suspect. Police also decided to put some focus on Frank Rapp and Susan Niictor, the married couple whom Karina had been working for in Dover. It was common practice for O pairs traveling to the US to obtain a standard thirteen month work visa through the United States Information Agency, but instead Karina went through an unlicensed Swedish agent named Page Sundin, who'd provided Frank and Susan with O pairs in the past.
This meant the Karina arrived in the US without any work visa or childcare training, and she also had a fake ID which she used to get into nightclubs while under the legal drinking age. Since Karina was technically in the country illegally and never made any contact with the Swedish consulate in Boston, she took her OH pair job without working out a formal legal agreement about pay and responsibilities.
Sundean had previously been fined and convicted on two separate occasions for operating without a permit, and Karina's murder compelled him to take full responsibility for her death and announced that he was planning to close his business.
So do you guys think that it's possible. I want to know more about the family that she worked for. I'm assuming that they were cleared. Is it possible that she could have gotten mixed up in Sundeen's own issues? Is it possible that she was going to speak out, or she was frustrated, or she had made a report. Could she have even done something like that because she's in the country illegally, what do we know about that dynamic with both a family and with the legal issues that her quote boss is in.
Well, I don't have any further information about Page Sun Dean. It sounds like he was living in Sweden at the time, so I don't think he was considered to be a suspect. But at this moment, I'm going to share more details about the family she was living with who were looked at as potential suspects. And on the surface, they don't seem to have a background to suggest that they're capable
of murder. But on the other hand, there's some people who think that there might be something off with them and that they may not be telling everything they know.
And let me just add this about living in Malaysia before we go any further. There were so many instances that you would read about in the paper there where these upstanding couples. They would get made from Indonesia and then somehow that maid would escape and or have help escaping and go to the police. They would be like covered in injuries. They'd either been tortured, held against their will.
It was horrific, and these are people that you wouldn't think would do something like that based on their community standing. It was really shocking.
So it's more like a labor trafficking situation where then they become either a victim of violence or sexual abuse or things like that.
It was there.
I mean, it got to the point where I think Indonesia made a statement that, like Malaysia had to change things or they weren't going to let people come there and work as nanny's and housekeepers because it was clearly a real danger for some of these people. I mean, the percentages of the people that came stuff like that happened, it was smaller, but there was still it seemed to be a decent percentage where they were taken advantage of, and like you said, labor trafficked in some kind of a way.
So Karina wrote a number of letters to her friends and family in Sweden, and even though she had originally been planning to return home in August, she told them that she was going to cut her trip short because she had become homesick and did not enjoy the cleaning and housework that were a part of her old pair job. But curiously, in a letter she mailed to one of her friends in the weeks prior to her death, Karina wrote, quote, something terrible has happened. I'll reveal more when I get home.
End quote. It does not appear that Kreina revealed any specific details about this situation before she was killed, and for their part, Frank and Susan maintained that Krena always seemed happy while she was working for them and never
raised any complaints. The couple told the media they had an alibi during the approximate time period of the crime, as they spent the evening of Friday, June the twenty first going to McDonald's and a drive in movie screening of The Hunchback of Notre Dame together in order to celebrate the last day of school for their son. Frank's parents were also visiting the condo and could pretty much account for their whereabouts for the rest of the weekend.
On Sunday, June the twenty third, one of Karina's friends called Frank to ask if he knew where Krena was, as no one had heard from her for a day and a half. Even though Karina was not scheduled to return to his condo until Sunday evening, Frank stopped by his loft in order to see if she was there. When he could not find Kreana, Frank called the police in order to report her missing, unaware that Karina's body had already been found in the dumpster by that point.
Bizarre incident would occur at around nine pm on the evening of June the twenty fourth, when a fire took place in a dumpster located about two hundred feet away from Frank's condominium complex. In another odd bit of timing, it turned out that in the evening of June the twenty third, Frank had visited Dover's Transfer and recycling station in order to get a permit to dump garbage there. Police performed a search of this transfer station with cadaver
sniffing dogs, but didn't find any evidence. While burnt clothing and other items were recovered from the dumpster. They turned out to have no connection to Karina's case. Even though Susan told the media that both she and her husband had been cleared as suspects, law enforcement never publicly confirmed or denied this. The couple eventually decided to stop speaking to the police and the media and directed all questioning to their attorney.
I can see this both ways.
I can see this idea of a family who is worried about her. Frank goes and does exactly what friends ask him to do to check on her. He reports her missing, which draws attention to his home. So we have recently rented a large dumpster and gotten rid of things. We've hauled goodies down to a dump site. We've even done local burns, like that's the thing out in the country, right, that you can do burns in a burn pit and get rid of big old trash. So are those things oddly timed?
Yes?
Is it normal for the police to start to get frustrated with someone who quote refuses to talk to them or wants to kind of back away from the case. Yes, you can get a lot of frustration. So the fact that they didn't just say, oh yeah, they're cleared. Maybe there's a tension there even if it's not that their main suspects right that there's just a frustration of you made it harder for us to do our job. Even though the couple could have also been grieving somebody who
was part of their family. This is someone they trusted with their kids usually in all Paris, spending you know, immense amount of time with you socially, emotionally at they're part of your family. And so could they also just be grieving and finally get fed up and say that's enough.
That would make sense because she had been living there for a while. I mean, we have contradictory accounts. Frank and Susan said that Karina was happy, she never made any complaints, whereas Krena and her letters was implying that she was unhappy, though she never specifically said it was because of the family or because they did anything bad
to me. And I know if you look at online discussions about this case, there has been suspicion about the fact that Karina lived in this loft on the weekends that belonged to Frank, and they wondered could Frank and Karan have been doing something on the side having some sort of affair, even if he had nothing to do with her murder, and that could provide a reason why he just didn't want to speak to the media or the police and just wanted to keep his family out of the spotlight.
Or it could be I'm not suggesting that this is based in fact, but the potential that he was like so generous to share this loft with her because he planned to predate on her in some type of a way, and that was the horrible thing that happened. I mean, we were never going to know what that is unless somebody comes forward and says, oh, I know what this is. She told me, or I'm the person that did it
to her. I mean, we don't know. But for her to say that something really terrible happened, it's hard not to think that there's a potential that it could be tied to the mail in the home.
Who is frank absolutely, and also how old is she twenty? Okay, So think about a twenty year old who's in another country, who is with a family that she really had never met. There hadn't been a baseline of wages and things discussed
and all of that. Right, there's no contract and so as a twenty year old, right, how many twenty year olds love having to work all the time, love having to deal with a bunch of kids that aren't being away from their family, maybe not making friends the way they thought that they would.
I could all.
Also see a letter from a twenty year old being pretty like distraught or frustrated more just with like the responsibility and the life that she signed up for and then got here and went ooh, that's not actually what I thought I was signing up for. Now, when you say something really bad happened, yes, that indicates to me more like taking advantage of assaulted those kinds of things,
which is horrifying. But also the unhappiness could also be more of that young adult learning what it's like to have to actually be a responsible individual doing a job you didn't really know what you were signing up for, and realizing.
Maybe this is not what I want to be doing.
It's kind of a big job too, if you think about it. You're doing childcare, you're cooking a lot of meals, and you're doing the cleaning. You're kind of doing the job of like three people, or I guess one really busy mom. So I could see how she could be overwhelmed because who knows what she was doing in Sweden in her own home, but likely not this much work. Investigators eventually identified two of the men who'd been seen speaking to Karina after she left the Zanza Our nightclub
on the morning she disappeared. The man Karina had been singing and dancing within the alley was a thirty one year old, unhoused panhandler named Juan Polo. Polo had an extensive criminal record, which included allegations that he once participated in a gang right. In fact, in April of nineteen ninety five, an ex girlfriend of Polo's named Evelyn Alvarez was found dead next to a dumpster behind a bowling alley in the town of Lakeville, located over forty miles
south of Boston. She'd been strangled and beaten and died of bluntfor's trauma to the head, and while Polo was questioned in relation to the case, he was ruled out since he had a strong alibi. Police also questioned Polo about Karina's murder, but no evidence could be found to implicate him. The man scene speaking to Karina in the club surveillance footage was identified as forty nine year old called Herb Witten, who lived in the nearby town of Andover.
Witten was known for being a colorful character who often traveled to Boston with his one hundred and twenty pound Great Pyrenees dog. He would dress both himself and his dog in Superman costumes and stand outside nightclubs in order to attract attention and strike up conversations with women. At the time, Witten was unemployed and had a history of
struggles with depression and mental illness. In fact, one month before Karina's murder, his sister filed a restraining order against him after he kicked her in the foot during an argument. After Witten was identified as the man on the surveillance footage, his attorney intervened to prevent him from being formally questioned by police, as he felt that this might exacerbate his
mental health issues. Witten did seem to have an alibi, as shortly after his encounter with Karina, he was pulled over by police while driving home to Andover and received a speeding ticket. However, on January ninth, nineteen ninety seven, Witten's body was found inside the bathroom of his residence after he took his own life by slitting his throat.
Even though Witten had never been identified as a suspect or person of interest in Karina's case, his mental health was already in a fragile state because his own father had passed away. Witten's attorney believed that being associated with a murder investigation might have been the breaking point which caused him to become suicidal.
And think about the precision and almost calmness and accuracy it would take to complete the act that was committed against Karina's body. Would it be somebody who might be experiencing a lot of mental health issues and be distraught in those kinds of things I'm wondering. I mean, yes, he's dressing up in a superman costume and dressing his dog up. I don't know that that would have been enough to make Karina feel comfortable. I almost think it
would make her feel awkward and uncomfortable. Like as silly as it would be at first, I don't think that would be the person she'd trust to get in the car with. She said she was going to go to an after party with an old I don't know that a superman with his Superman dog would be the one that she'd run back in and be like the guys, they're capes, you know, like we're going, I'm getting I'm a wonder woman. I just don't see that being it.
I'd think it would need to be someone who was very cunning, that was very sharp, that was, you know, trying to manipulate her, whereas this man seems to be someone who's basically really lonely and might really be struggling mental health wise. Is he going to have the precision and the accuracy to do what was done to her?
I would also like to know if he was and I'm not asking in a funny way, but like seriously, if he was ever successful at getting dates or having women respond to him in a favorable way dressed to Superman with his dog.
Well, I know women can't resist men with dogs sometimes, and I'm sure that even if they were an attracted with and they see like one hundred and twenty pound dog in a Superman costume, they're probably going to go over and say ah and strike up a conversation.
King. Talking's one thing, though, right, but it's a whole other thing to on a date.
Yeah, right, right, right?
I think it would be something that it would be charming and funny and silly. And then I wonder what extent of his mental health issues were present when you would start talking to him. But I mean a lot of people I think would go up and have the brief, you know, quick talk with him and like, oh cute dog.
Can I pet your dog? Oh yeah, chat chat, chat in and leave.
But I'm wondering, like we said, would it be enough to get someone to feel confident to actually go to another.
Location with you? I think it would be a little off putting.
I agree, Like I if at that age, like the Karina was, I can picture myself and if a guy was in a Superman costume and he had his dog dressed like that, would I talk to him outside a club, make conversation and pet the dog? Absolutely? Would I go on a date or get into a vehicle with him? No, there's no way.
So Another individual who was looked at as a possible suspect was John McSweeney, an industrial music performer who went by the name John's Whiz and fronted a fairly popular industrial band called Sleep Chamber, who often put on controversial performances containing s and M and bond routines. Zowiz popped up on the radar because he lived a few blocks away from the dumpster where Karina's body was found and was also struggling with a heroin addiction at that time.
Shortly before the murder took place, Zuwiz threw a party at his apartment in which he showed off some ritualistic artwork he owned, as well as a collection of human and animal bones. After the discovery of Karina's body, the mother of one of the guests who attended the party became concerned enough to contact the police. Even though Zowiz was questioned, no evidence could be found to link him
to the crime. On December eighth, nineteen ninety six, Gregory Hummel, a thirty four year old real estate broker from Brookline, was arrested for attacking a twenty four year old woman he had picked up at the Zanzibar nightclub. After offering her a ride home, Humble drove the woman to an apartment he kept in the Roxbury neighborhood, where he proceeded to punch her in the face and attempted to sexually
assault her. The woman managed to grab Hummel's mobile phone and locked herself inside the bathroom in order to call the police, and Hummel was subsequently arrested. It turned out that Hummel had a history of drunk driving and allegations of violence towards women, and given that he had met this particular victim at Zanzibar, investigators looked at him as
a potential suspect in Karina's case. When he went on trial in nineteen ninety eight, Hummel was found guilty of his attack on the woman and received a one year prison sentence, but no evidence could be found to link him to the murder. On May the sixteenth, nineteen ninety nine, a similar crime took place in Hollywood, Florida, when a thirty four year old sex worker named Delia Lorna Mendez was found inside a dumpster in the parking lot of
a pet supermarket. Delia's body had been dismembered and sliced completely in half at the waist, though unlike Karina's case, the lower half of Delia's body was also found in the dumpster. Investigators looked into possible connections between the two crimes, but ultimately concluded that they were likely not related. Though
Delia's murder continues to remain unsolved. It sounds like there have been no further developments in the investigation during these past two decades, so there's still no answers about who was actually responsible for the murder of Karna Holmer. So I guess you could say the path went Chile, Okay.
So a couple of questions.
One, it's hard to actually rule out a connection in a case when you don't know the perpetrator in either right, Yes, Boston and you know when you get down to Hollywood, Florida, those are two very far away places. But we've seen killers that kill in Florida and then kill in Washington State. So Ted Bundy made a cross country you know, trek of his killings, So what's to say somebody couldn't have
gone from Boston down to Hollywood, Florida. But also what's interesting is that I think it was very purposeful that her lower half was not included. There was likely sexual abuse that occurred, and so to remove the lower half of her body and to then destroy it in another way or discard it somewhere else, I think is an important fact here. And then in the Hollywood case, you do have both pieces found together. Both parts of her
body are found together. Now, also, when we talk about that first man who is seen at that bar assaulting another woman and convicted of that, do we know what kind of car he drove?
They don't specifically say that, but I have to think that if he was driving Oh, I got to look up what's the name of the first.
The Mitsubishi Amidspeci.
I have to think that if the Humble was driving amid Subishi, they probably would have mentioned that and made him extra suspicious. So I'm guessing that it wasn't a match.
Okay, because that was my first thought. I thought, is it a Midsubishi, Because then I'm gonna get really interested. Remember too, now that that bar is the last time we've seen a bisected woman. Now, anytime somebody's going to be heard at that bar, there has to be that suspicion, like, is it someone who's lurking around this same location? There is a chance that there's absolutely no relationship.
What's so, However, with Hummel, it feels like he's a little bit hamhanded to have been so precise to do something like this because Karina didn't have contusions or abrasions on her face, it would have indicated that she'd been punched in the face and had no defensive wounds.
Correct, that is correct. Yeah, I mean they only had one half of her body, but as far as I can anyone can tell she didn't have any defensive wounds on her upper torso.
And just to like what Ashley said, I feel like with the Black Dahlia there had to have been like the element of wanting those people who discovered her to be in shock seeing this bisected body, whereas with Katrina it feels like they're trying to cover up evidence.
So, like I mentioned in the intro, this case has often been compared to the Black Dolia murder, which took place in Los Angeles in nineteen forty seven. And the ironic thing is that the victim, Elizabeth Short, originally hailed from Boston, and to make another parallel to Karina Holmer's case, both these victor were murdered after leaving their hometowns to travel to a faraway location. But of course, given the notoriety of the Black Dolly murder, you have to wonder
why Karina Holmer's story is not more well known. I mean, it was a pretty big deal in the Boston media back when it happened in nineteen ninety six, and has received fairly consistent coverage since then, but I wouldn't say
it has full mainstream recognition. In a morbid turn of events, the case did actually get referenced on a two thousand and four episode of Jeopardy, where the clue was Boston cops were baffled by the murder of Karna Holmer, a Swede working as this French name type of domestic and the correct response was what is an au pair? Obviously, one of the main reasons the Elizabeth Short and Karna Holmer murders stand out is that both victims literally had
their body sliced in half at the waist. The whole thing was done with such precision that you had to wonder if the killer was a medical professional or at extensive knowledge of human anatomy, and of course you get the impression that this might not have been their own crime. But a key difference between the two cases is that both halves of Elizabeth Short's body were left right out in the open for the police to find, whereas Krina
Holmer's upper half was found inside a trash bag. And a dumpster, and her lower half has still not been found to this day. When you think about it, it might be blind luck that Karina's torso has found at all, as it was uncovered when a homeless man accidentally cut open the trash bag while searching the dumpster. If this hadn't happened, the dumpster might have been picked up and Karna's torso taken to a landfill, and she would still
be a missing person to this day. This is why I think it's possible that the lower half of Karna's body may have been disposed of in an entirely different dumpster and picked up without anybody noticing. Theoretically, Krana's killer may not have intended for anyone to ever find out what happened to her. I just mentioned that when Delia Lorna Mendez's dismembered body was discovered in Florida three years later, there was instant speculation that the crimes might be related.
Since slicing some somel one's body in half at the waist is still a rare method of murder, but putting aside the geographical distance of fifteen hundred miles, there are enough dissimilarities between the two cases to feel they are not connected. In addition to both halves of Delia's body being found together inside the dumpster, the crime seemed a lot more disorganized, as her killer did not go through the trouble of cleaning her body or placing it inside
a trash bag. Karina's murder definitely seemed a lot more calculated and meticulous, and since the lower half of her body was never found, we have no idea if she was sexually assaulted before she was killed, and does not sound like there is any available DNA evidence.
I think you have to step back and look at this. I absolutely agree with what we kind of mentioned at the beginning, and you just referenced again this person had to have some knowledge of the human body.
I also think they.
Had to have some knowledge of what it is to complete a crime of this magnitude, because it was very sophisticatedly done. And so when you look at the procedure itself, when you look at the sophistication, when you look at the fact that to this day we still don't have an answer, I think this is someone who's killed before.
I think that it's somebody who has like I didn't even think about the hunter's background, like Jules mentioned, but medical butcher hunter, those kinds of things that know exactly how you could actually cut through a spinal cord and the spinal bone and then you wouldn't have any other damage to the body. That is knowledge, that's not just happenstance. And you know convenience right that they knew what they
were doing. And again, like you said, I think that lower half missing shows that there was something else, not just that act, but a sexual component where they were trying to hide exactly what they did.
That DNA evidence.
And so I'm intrigued by those two men who supposedly fought off somebody and said you'll get away, almost aggressive, as if they knew they had a vulnerable target and they were trying to get her away. Remember she had said that she was going to go with an older man. What if she had only met one, or what if her goal was I'm only going with this one. But she knew there were two, and she willingly.
Got in that car and everything went downhill.
Like we said that those two up there anti they kept getting more aggressive because each other was egging the other on. I think there's a real possibility to that angle.
That does make sense. And the whole idea of them getting rid of the lower half of her body to get rid of DNA evidence or signs of sexual assault could explain why there haven't been any other crimes like this in the Boston area because you're instantly thinking, oh, this is a serial killer who's got a calling card. He's cutting his victims in half because he wants to
be well known. But if it was just done for the purpose of destroying evidence and he didn't really enjoy the act of slicing your and half, that could explain, like why there have been no other victims just like this in the past thirty years.
Question for you guys, this is a little bit off topic, but it's on the topic of the Black Dahlia. Do either of you remember the name of the guy that's the prime suspect that there was like the whole podcast.
About uh George Hodell.
Yes, yes, Didn't he go and live like in Asia or Southeast Asia and another body ended up in a similar way?
I can't remember, but I do know that people have said about that podcast like his son is convinced that his father is the Black Dolia killer, and he does make a convincing case for it, but he also say that he loses credibility because he has also tried to accuse his father of being the Zodiac Killer and being responsible for virtually every unsolved crime on the West Coast
during that time period. But yeah, if that story is true about him like going to Asia and another body being found in that fashion, then that is a convincing case for him being the Dalia killer.
I just couldn't remember if that detail was actually tied to this case or if it was like another case, but it just seems like it must have been tied to this one. But I just searched it on AI and I couldn't find any case in like Southeast Asia or Asia that would have been in that same time period that seems to match. But if it was this case, and I remember hearing it on the podcast and thinking like, WHOA, that's weird, Like it's really odd to bisect a body
and then to have it happen again. But maybe I'm just incorrectly remembering.
So I think that about brings an end to Part one. Join us next week as we present part two of our series about the murder of Katrina Holmer.
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our highest tier tier three, the
ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsaved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was
the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor then be sure to join Tier three.
So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jules and n Ashy patreons.
So there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those, so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
We'll link them in the show notes.
So I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share us on social media with a friend or d rate and review is greatly appreciated. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold trails and Chili pass call for warm clothing.
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy