MA MA - Karina Holmer, 20, Boston, 21 June 1996

[MadisonS]

Wondering if they ever brought cadaver dogs into the club, would there be a place that such a murder could occur given how loud a club can be?
total speculation, imo.

The video surveillance showed she had left the club before it was locked up for the night. The police used cadaver dogs at least twice. Once at Frank Rapp's A Street loft and also at a Dover trash/recycling facility for which Rapp purchased a permit on the Saturday that Karina disappeared. Nothing was found.

There was a photo in the Boston Globe of the cadaver dogs searching Rapp's loft, but unfortunately I can't view it because the newspaper databases that I'm using only supply a text format for archived Globe articles.

 

[MadisonS]

Great info..Thanks! I've always assumed he carried the remains to the dumpster because the murder and dismembering happened locally. If he was driving why would he stop at such a public place? Also a car stopped at that location would be more obvious then someone dropping something off into a dumpster. I suspect the murderer carried one half of the body from the murder scene, dropped it off in this dumpster, returned to get the other half and drop it off in another dumpster.

OK. I always assumed the killer owned a car and that her body was cut in half because she was too long and too heavy to pack into garbage bags for transport/disposal. Her upper torso weighed 48 pounds. There was no info on its length. Not to sound ghoulish, but packing an intact body (between 5 and 6 ft in length and over 100 lbs.) into a single large bag would be a challenge. It also might be obvious to anyone observing the killer carrying the trash bag that it contained a body.

I assume the killer had a car because a 48 pound torso is a lot to lug around the neighborhood for several blocks looking for a dumpster. And it looks suspicious. Everyone at 1091 Boylston was questioned so I doubt she was killed at that address.

I totally agree that 1091 Boylston was a bad move on the killer's part, but she was probably put there at 3 or 4 am Sunday when the crowds and traffic had long disappeared.

 

[MadisonS]

For Fred,

Here are a couple cases in which victims were murdered/dismembered inside a medical school. It has happened, but it's rare, and in both of these cases, the killer was quickly identified.

The first occurred inside Boston's very own Harvard Medical School. Around Thanksgiving 1849, Dr. John Webster, a Harvard professor murdered Dr George Parkman in Webster's office/lab. He dismembered the body and attempted to hide the pieces in a basement vault. There is a documentary and a few books on the subject. I was fascinated by this case when I first heard of it ~15 years ago.
Murder at Harvard Medical School: The 1849 slaying that shocked Boston | Boston.com | Boston.com

The second occurred at the University of Toronto in 1998. It is a much more obscure case, and I wouldn't even be aware of it, if one of my friends hadn't known both men (killer and victim). They were her instructors for a gross anatomy class that she took at Toronto.
Murder mystery in Toronto | Maclean's | APRIL 27, 1998

 

[Fred52]

Why do you assume he had a car? I think carrying a dark garbage bag wearing dark clothes late at night is not very conspicuous. Even less conspicuous then using power tools late at night to dismember a body in a crowded city. I believe KH left with her killer voluntarily murdered her at a place he felt safe and disposed of her body on foot. My opinions are based on nothing but my own beliefs.

Even more recent is the murder of Annie Le at Yale Med School lab during the day with high tech surveillance cameras for security.

 

[MadisonS]

Why do you assume he had a car? I think carrying a dark garbage bag wearing dark clothes late at night is not very conspicuous. Even less conspicuous then using power tools late at night to dismember a body in a crowded city. I believe KH left with her killer voluntarily murdered her at a place he felt safe and disposed of her body on foot. My opinions are based on nothing but my own beliefs.

Even more recent is the murder of Annie Le at Yale Med School lab during the day with high tech surveillance cameras for security.

I agree that she left with her killer voluntarily. But, I think he might have owned a house and lived farther out in the suburbs. Apartment/condo dwellers have little to no need for power saws, but home owners do. Also, this is somebody who was very skilled with such tools. (Reports said the cut was very clean). It wasn't some novice who purchased the saw that Saturday morning just to dispose of Karina.

As far as carrying heavy corpse-laden trash bags around, I assume a killer would try to limit direct physical contact with such an item. Fingerprints, DNA and fibers could get transferred to bag if he carried it in his arms for too long. Her killer was too meticulous for that.

I think he wore disposable gloves, possibly lined the trunk of his car with trash bags, put the bags containing Karina on top and drove around in the dark looking for a dumpster. Why he chose a downtown Boston dumpster perplexes me. Maybe her lower half was put in a second dumpster much further away. Since she was found on a Sunday, the Boston police had ample opportunity to halt garbage pick-up and search every dumpster within a few miles radius.

 

[MadisonS]

I want to add that I wasn't trying to be argumentative when I posted the stories about murders that have indeed occurred inside of med school buildings, I just thought Fred (and others) might find them interesting. Especially the Parkman-Webster murder.

 

[dotr]

I want to add that I wasn't trying to be argumentative when I posted the stories about murders that have indeed occurred inside of med school buildings, I just thought Fred (and others) might find them interesting. Especially the Parkman-Webster murder.

The stories were very interesting, had forgotten about the TO. crime!

 

[dotr]

Did they ever release an FBI profile of the perp?
Half a body in a dumpster
"They searched countless apartments in the Fenway. They checked bodies of water where the rest of her body may have been dumped. They spent two days conferring with experts from the FBI Behavioral Sciences Team, compiling a profile of the kind of person who would commit such a heinous crime. All to no avail."

“It’s extraordinary how she just vanished,” he says."

"Meier has had his own thoughts over the years. On a nearly daily basis, really. Sometimes, he thinks there must have been more than one assailant. Then he thinks there could be only one, because multiple people could never keep such an explosive secret for so long.

“Every time I have a hunch or rationalize what might have happened with a reasonable mind, I conclude that that’s crazy and I go down some other path and then I conclude that’s crazy,” he said. “I think I learned long ago that no murder makes sense, particularly something like this. How can you make any sense out of this?”
“There’s nothing about this case that’s ordinary, and there’s everything about this case that extraordinary.”

 

[MadisonS]

I wish that they would release the profile, but I haven't come across one.

Detective Meier's description of his personal frustration and indecision with this case mirrors my own. Sometimes I think her killer was a complete stranger(s). Sometimes I think she called someone from a pay phone whom she knew to get a ride back to the loft.

Based on the cadaver dog searches, the detectives really zeroed in on her employer. I wonder what came of the investigation into the unpleasant men in the grey Mitsubishi.

 

[Fred52]

I don't believe he had a car because why would he come back to the city to dispose of the body? Too dangerous with so many other more secluded places to drop the body. Also I assume the body was dismembered to make it easier to carry and dispose of. If he had a car he could easily(easier then cutting a body in half)put it in the trunk.

Love all the info guys keep it coming.

 

[U2387]

New to the forum and websleuths in general. I am a lifelong resident of the Boston area. I was 9 in the summer of 1996 and very aware for my age. Especially when it came to my surroundings and crime. I visited my grandparents in the city every week growing up and can remember many details, even down to the day, of the summer of 1996. All that being said, I did not come across this case until March 2013 when I was reading some article detailing unsolved crimes in Boston. I was amazed then, and I still am now, at how little coverage and notoriety Karina's brutal unsolved murder gets in the press, online....you name the means of discussion. Especially given the fact that solved cases and unsolved cases that point very strongly in a particular suspect's direction (in other words, they aren't that interesting) get so much more attention.

To say it has haunted me ever since is an understatement. I really have nothing groundbreaking to add, but I saw recent posts and wanted to keep the discussion going. I am a police dispatcher who has worked in two communities in the immediate Boston area for the last 10 years. Many officers I've worked with were working in 1996 and I asked a few of them about Karina when I first read about her. For what it's worth, I asked maybe 8 of them and they were evenly divided between Hummel, the real estate broker mentioned previously in this thread, and Mr Rapp. Many had dealt directly with Hummel going back to the 1990s and believed, beyond a doubt, that he was capable of a crime like this. Hummel seemed to be educated speculation based on the woman he kidnapped and raped later in 1996 at Zanzibar. He also had a history of violence toward women, is still very strong, and was a known steroid user in the 1990s. Physical strength plus volatility.

To say he is a "real estate broker" was and is an understatement. He actually owns a lot of middle to high end apartment, condo and single family properties and is quite well off. This is someone who, despite being a city dweller, would have a need for tools like high powered saws as well as access to countless properties where a crime could occur. Of those buildings, he'd have a pretty good idea which one is best to commit a murder in and where in the building you'd do it. Where the vacant units are, when people come and go, etc. Furthermore, since he didn't become a person of interest until he was questioned in December 1996, the police weren't looking at him in the days following Karina's murder, never mind developing probable cause to search any of his properties. Although I have no idea how extensively he was eventually looked at, I highly doubt that police had enough to search his properties for anything beyond possible evidence of the crime he was charged with in the South End. That's assuming even that more evidence than initially found (clothing, weapons, etc) was needed to prosecute that case.

As for Mr Rapp, the employer, it was interesting. The patrol type officers I talked to always mentioned Hummel while the ones with detective backgrounds always mentioned Rapp but never elaborated. I don't have any speculation on Rapp beyond what many have already said about a possible affair/pregnancy. One of the towns I worked in was right next to Boston and our detectives knew their detectives very well. The fact that the people around in 1996 and working in investigations all mentioned Rapp always led me to believe that the information on this case withheld from the public (and there is always some as we know), all points to him. The last thing I'll add is a younger detective, not working at the time but nonetheless very familiar with Boston detectives told me that one of his friends over there told him there's a ton of information on Karina. He even said he'd probably write a book on it when he retires.

I have no idea how much of this is good information, but I will say for damn sure that way too little is known or discussed about this case. I would just like to add this in hopes of sparking more.

 

[dotr]

New to the forum and websleuths in general. I am a lifelong resident of the Boston area. I was 9 in the summer of 1996 and very aware for my age. Especially when it came to my surroundings and crime. I visited my grandparents in the city every week growing up and can remember many details, even down to the day, of the summer of 1996. All that being said, I did not come across this case until March 2013 when I was reading some article detailing unsolved crimes in Boston. I was amazed then, and I still am now, at how little coverage and notoriety Karina's brutal unsolved murder gets in the press, online....you name the means of discussion. Especially given the fact that solved cases and unsolved cases that point very strongly in a particular suspect's direction (in other words, they aren't that interesting) get so much more attention.

To say it has haunted me ever since is an understatement. I really have nothing groundbreaking to add, but I saw recent posts and wanted to keep the discussion going. I am a police dispatcher who has worked in two communities in the immediate Boston area for the last 10 years. Many officers I've worked with were working in 1996 and I asked a few of them about Karina when I first read about her. For what it's worth, I asked maybe 8 of them and they were evenly divided between Hummel, the real estate broker mentioned previously in this thread, and Mr Rapp. Many had dealt directly with Hummel going back to the 1990s and believed, beyond a doubt, that he was capable of a crime like this. Hummel seemed to be educated speculation based on the woman he kidnapped and raped later in 1996 at Zanzibar. He also had a history of violence toward women, is still very strong, and was a known steroid user in the 1990s. Physical strength plus volatility.

To say he is a "real estate broker" was and is an understatement. He actually owns a lot of middle to high end apartment, condo and single family properties and is quite well off. This is someone who, despite being a city dweller, would have a need for tools like high powered saws as well as access to countless properties where a crime could occur. Of those buildings, he'd have a pretty good idea which one is best to commit a murder in and where in the building you'd do it. Where the vacant units are, when people come and go, etc. Furthermore, since he didn't become a person of interest until he was questioned in December 1996, the police weren't looking at him in the days following Karina's murder, never mind developing probable cause to search any of his properties. Although I have no idea how extensively he was eventually looked at, I highly doubt that police had enough to search his properties for anything beyond possible evidence of the crime he was charged with in the South End. That's assuming even that more evidence than initially found (clothing, weapons, etc) was needed to prosecute that case.

As for Mr Rapp, the employer, it was interesting. The patrol type officers I talked to always mentioned Hummel while the ones with detective backgrounds always mentioned Rapp but never elaborated. I don't have any speculation on Rapp beyond what many have already said about a possible affair/pregnancy. One of the towns I worked in was right next to Boston and our detectives knew their detectives very well. The fact that the people around in 1996 and working in investigations all mentioned Rapp always led me to believe that the information on this case withheld from the public (and there is always some as we know), all points to him. The last thing I'll add is a younger detective, not working at the time but nonetheless very familiar with Boston detectives told me that one of his friends over there told him there's a ton of information on Karina. He even said he'd probably write a book on it when he retires.

I have no idea how much of this is good information, but I will say for damn sure that way too little is known or discussed about this case. I would just like to add this in hopes of sparking more.

Welcome to Ws U2387, thanks for the very interesting and enlightening post!
Any ideas about where the rest of Karina's body might be and why it was not dumped in the same spot?

 

[U2387]

Welcome to Ws U2387, thanks for the very interesting and enlightening post!
Any ideas about where the rest of Karina's body might be and why it was not dumped in the same spot?

Thank you very much for the warm welcome and kind words, dotr! I appreciate it.

As for your question on the rest of the body, that's what we are all here to determine. I wish I could say I had more insight than the next person on that , but I really don't. All I'll say is that I lean far more toward the "utilitarian" /done out of necessity theory than the sadistic/ritualistic theory. Whether that necessity was to hide evidence of a sexual assault or to make the body easier to conceal and transport is obviously anyone's guess. I think there's a good chance that the other half was put in another dumpster somewhere like many here have mentioned. Just never found. We can never forget, it was a stroke of luck that the top half was found.

My brainstorming recently has led me to 2 random thoughts on this case:

1) If it's Mr Rapp, the employer, the location of the dumpster becomes somewhat interesting. We know Karina is out...... We know he knows where she frequents and we know he's often in the city himself at his loft. Let's say for the sake of argument they are carrying on an affair and he's waiting for her there. Only she takes off for an after hours party over in the Fenway area somewhere. She calls Rapp to pick her up over there a couple hours later. He commits the crime God knows where- maybe a place he has access to in the city or closer to Dover- then goes home to Dover in the morning. Covering himself with his wife and family. Now, let's say maybe he's got Karina in the trunk or stashed somewhere. He's going to wait until late Saturday night/ early Sunday morning, drive back to the city , to the Fenway, because he knows that will place all the suspicion on who she may have met there.

So now the location comes in. In 1996, just as is the case today, you would utilize the Mass Pike Eastbound from either I-95 or route 16 to access Boston. To get to the Fenway neighborhood, you'd get off at the Prudential/Copley exit in the Copley square tunnel. To access the dumpster, you'd follow the "prudential " signs, get dropped onto Huntingotn Av, take a quick right on Belvidere St, go to the end and follow Massachusetts Av one block to Boylston St. Here, you are right in the busy area so often discussed with this case. A left and a right on Ipswich and you are there.

Now, most importantly, to get back on the Pike westbound to head to Dover , you leave the dumpster, turn left on Boylston and a quick left northbound on Mass Av toward Cambridge. In less than a city block, at the end of Newbury St, you see on your left the ramp for the Mass Pike.

So the location fits PERFECTLY with someone from west of the city making a quick on and off dump. Entirely circumstantial but something to think about.

2) In 1996, Boston was in the middle of the big dig. The biggest infrastructure project in the history of the U.S. A lot of it took place over near the loft as a new airport tunnel was going under the neighborhood. . Obviously, Karina wasn't killed at the loft, but Rapp knew plenty of people in the area. And due to this project, loud power tools being used at night wouldn't have drawn all that much suspicion if they were heard but half asleep neighbors or passers by.

 

[MadisonS]

U2387

Your theory on Rapp is interesting and thanks for the many observations about driving in/out of Boston.

One of Rapp's A Street neighbors (who had made previous noise complaints regarding Karina) said that they never heard Karina return home that night -I'll look for that article and post it. I also understood that Rapp's wife had her own art studio at the time but I don't know where it is/was.

If Rapp killed her, I doubt that the murder was planned in advance. However, the cleanup/disposal was so meticulous that it is hard for me to believe that this was a crime of passion committed by an inexperienced killer. Her killer obviously did not panic after the fact and did a disturbingly thorough job of cleaning up and disposing of her.

The detectives must be suppressing a lot of info on Rapp if he is considered a main suspect. A lot. Maybe the cadaver dog search did yield something but it wasn't enough for an arrest.

 

[MadisonS]

I wonder if Greg Hummel was ever connected to the 1091 Boylston condo where David McCarthy was strangled with a sock 10 years earlier. (See the article posted below. Scroll to the very bottom to read the relevant portion in bold.)

JAMAICA PLAIN MAN DIES OF GUNSHOT WOUND

Weidmann, Gerard . Boston Globe 26 June 1986: 67.

Boston police yesterday recorded the fourth homicide in as many days and its 46th of the year to date.
The latest victim, a 21-year-old Jamaica Plain man, died of a gunshot wound in the chest after he allegedly was shot while in a motor vehicle near his home.
Boston police said Jorge Valentine of Horan Way was pronounced dead at 3:10 a.m. at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Investigators said a woman drove a station wagon up to MBTA police officer Gloria Kinkead, who was working a paid detail at Huntington and South Huntington Avenues in Roxbury, and said that Valentine, who was in the wagon, had been shot and that she was taking him to a hospital. The officer radioed her dispatcher for an ambulance, police said.
The woman, identified as Mabel Perez of Iffley Road, Jamaica Plain, told police Valentine was in a motor vehicle on Horan Way when he was shot by a man with a long rifle, according to investigators. They said there was no further description of the assailant.
On Sunday, Howard E. Spann, 20, of Dorchester, was dead on arrival at Boston City Hospital of chest and left arm wounds sustained when he was shot in the parking lot of the Patrick F. Jones Community Center on American Legion Highway in Dorchester by one of several people who allegedly crashed a graduation party at the facility, police said. Two other persons were wounded.
On Monday, Nelida Negron, 32, was pronounced dead at Brigham and Women's Hospital after she was beaten on the head with a baseball bat in a bedroom of her Smith Street, Roxbury, apartment while her three children slept, according to investigators. Her husband, Hermino, 41, was arrested on a murder warrant later in the day in Framingham, where he allegedly crossed a center line and crashed his vehicle head-on into garbage truck, police said.

On Tuesday, David C. McCarthy, 22, was found by a maintenance man to have been strangled in his condominium on Boylston Street, Back Bay. The victim's hands and feet were bound behind him with telephone cord and he apparently had been strangled with a sock, according to police.

 

[MadisonS]

PROBE WIDENS IN AU PAIR'S SLAYING

Ric Kahn and Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff . Boston Globe 26 June 1996: 1.

Globe staff reporters Matt Bai, Richard Chacon, Matthew Brelis, Ellen O'Brien, David Armstrong and Shirley Leung, and correspondents Kim Lyons and Michele McPhee contributed to this story.

The investigation into the murder and mutilation of a Swedish au pair last weekend expanded yesterday to an airy artist's loft in South Boston, a trendy downtown nightclub and the smoldering remains of a dumpster fire in Dover. Police had not named a suspect yesterday, but the au pair's employer, Frank Rapp, a successful commercial photographer from Dover, was questioned for a second time about the killing of Karina E. Holmer, according to law enforcement sources.

In a telephone interview with the Globe last night, Rapp, 43, said he had been cleared of suspicion in the killing. "I am definitely not a suspect," he said. "I answered questions and cooperated with authorities because we want to get this case solved."
"My family is completely devastated," he said.

Rapp answered only a few questions from investigators Sunday before refusing to respond further without a lawyer, according to the sources. Yesterday afternoon, Rapp returned to homicide headquarters for more questioning in the company of his attorney.
Rapp rents a South Boston studio at 327 A St., where Holmer, 20, spent some weekend nights after frequenting Boston's popular nightclubs with friends.

The gruesome discovery Sunday of Holmer's upper body, severed at the waist and tossed in a Fenway dumpster, has shocked Sweden and stunned her friends.
In other developments yesterday:
- Boston police seized several items from a dumpster outside the Dover condominium where Holmer tended the two small children of Rapp and his wife, Susan Nichter. A small fire was set in the dumpster Monday night, Dover police said.
- Homicide detectives brought a specially trained dog to search Rapp's fifth-floor A Street loft for possible evidence.
- Authorities seized videotapes of patrons entering and leaving the Zanzibar nightclub on Friday night and early Saturday morning. Holmer's friends said the victim visited the Boylston Place club that evening, and one of them told the Globe that she saw Holmer leave with "an older man."
- A law enforcement source said that Rapp initially raised suspicions when he called the Boston morgue on Sunday to report Holmer missing and inquire whether the severed body found in the Fenway was hers -- hours before she was expected at work in Dover. Rapp, however, said he called police, not the morgue.

Boston police Lt. Robert O'Toole said at a news conference yesterday that "no one has been named as a suspect at this time. We have named no one. I cannot say this more emphatically."
Police are trying to identify the man reported to have been with Holmer as she left Zanzibar at about 2 a.m. Saturday. A 21-year-old Swedish nanny who had been at Zanzibar that evening said Holmer and the man were "going to an after-hours party." "The next time I saw her was to identify her body," said the woman, who asked that her name not be used.

Holmer, who came to Massachusetts in March, was an athletic and outgoing woman from a small town in the Swedish countryside who apparently divided her time between quiet Tisdale Drive in Dover and the lively social scene that some young foreigners have created in Boston.
According to artists who rent space at 327 A St., Holmer would sleep at Rapp's studio on weekends, using the apartment as a place to gather with friends before and after a night on the town.
Neighbors told police yesterday that they heard Holmer arrive at the loft Friday night before heading out for the evening, but that they did not hear her return. Typically, they said, Holmer would be heard arriving in the early morning hours, sometimes with friends. One tenant said he had phoned Rapp on several occasions to complain about the noise in the loft.
Rapp said he was surprised by stories of Holmer and her friends holding parties at his loft. "They were allowed to meet there from time to time on the weekend," he said in an interview with the Globe. "That was it. There were no parties. This is getting exaggerated way out of line."
Rapp and Nichter, an artist who also maintains a studio in the Fort Point Channel area, bought their $180,000 condominium two years ago in a quiet, immaculately landscaped complex.
Residents described Holmer as gentle and caring. Carolee Brown, who lives in the complex, said Holmer seemed great with the children. Neighbors said that the couple have a son in first grade and a younger girl.
Holmer had been preceded at the condo by at least one other au pair from Sweden, said Jeremy Alliger, a friend of Rapp's and Nichter's. The couple had their condominium unit built to accommodate a nanny, he added.
Alliger, who founded Boston's Dance Umbrella, said he has known the couple for many years, and that he has always been impressed by the balance they have found between their artistic and family lives.
Nichter, in a telephone interview last night, said Holmer was picked up by a friend in Dover Friday afternoon and was supposed to return Sunday night. Nichter said she and Rapp hosted Rapp's parents and on Friday night took their children to McDonald's and to see the movie "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
After a friend called Sunday to report that Holmer was missing, Rapp went to his studio to see if she had been staying there and found her things, Nichter said. He then called police.
"We want this person caught and we're giving police as much information as we can," she said.
At about 9:30 last night, half a dozen homicide detectives emerged from the building on A Street in South Boston carrying several grocery-size paper bags.
Investigators say that Holmer was strangled, and that her body was severed afterward, possibly with a saw. Forensic experts who study homicide say that severing bodies is a rare occurrence.
One theory being investigated is that Holmer may have been forced to have sex by someone who then panicked and strangled her when she threatened to report him, a law enforcement source said. The killer may have disposed of the lower half of her body to hide traces of semen that could be traced through DNA, the source said. Some forensic experts also speculated that the body could have been severed for easier transport.
Authorities declined comment on whether the dumpster fire in Dover is connected to the Holmer investigation. The blaze occurred outside Rapp and Nichter's condominium.

Dover police Chief Joseph Griffin said the fire is being treated as arson. "A couple of items were retrieved from the debris. They were removed and coincidentally will be reviewed by the Boston Police Department," he said.
The dumpster has been transported to the Dover Highway Department garage, where it is being kept under guard. Illustration

PHOTO MAP; CAPTION:1. GLOBE STAFF PHOTOS/BILL BRETT / A New Hampshire state trooper and his specially trained dog search the fifth-floor A Street loft where Frank Rapp kept his studio. 2. An officer from the Boston Police Crime Lab (left) unloads equipment yesterday to be used in the search for possible evidence in the studio rented by Frank Rapp at 327 A St. in South Boston. Above, another officer stands guard at the front door. 3. GLOBE STAFF PHOTO MARK WILSON (LEFT)/WBZ-TV PHOTO / Police yesterday seized several items from a dumpster at the Dover condominium of Frank Rapp (right). 4. GLOBE STAFF PHOTO/BILL BRETT / Police yesterday search the South Boston studio where murder victim Karina E. Holmer spent some weekend nights.

 

[MadisonS]

Does anybody know if there is a folder for Karina Holmer in which I can drop all of the articles I've collected on this case?
I think I have about 15 of them and don't want to clog the thread with lengthy newspaper article posts.

 

[U2387]

I wonder if Greg Hummel was ever connected to the 1091 Boylston condo where David McCarthy was strangled with a sock 10 years earlier. (See the article posted below. Scroll to the very bottom to read the relevant portion in bold.)

JAMAICA PLAIN MAN DIES OF GUNSHOT WOUND

Weidmann, Gerard . Boston Globe 26 June 1986: 67.

Boston police yesterday recorded the fourth homicide in as many days and its 46th of the year to date.
The latest victim, a 21-year-old Jamaica Plain man, died of a gunshot wound in the chest after he allegedly was shot while in a motor vehicle near his home.
Boston police said Jorge Valentine of Horan Way was pronounced dead at 3:10 a.m. at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Investigators said a woman drove a station wagon up to MBTA police officer Gloria Kinkead, who was working a paid detail at Huntington and South Huntington Avenues in Roxbury, and said that Valentine, who was in the wagon, had been shot and that she was taking him to a hospital. The officer radioed her dispatcher for an ambulance, police said.
The woman, identified as Mabel Perez of Iffley Road, Jamaica Plain, told police Valentine was in a motor vehicle on Horan Way when he was shot by a man with a long rifle, according to investigators. They said there was no further description of the assailant.
On Sunday, Howard E. Spann, 20, of Dorchester, was dead on arrival at Boston City Hospital of chest and left arm wounds sustained when he was shot in the parking lot of the Patrick F. Jones Community Center on American Legion Highway in Dorchester by one of several people who allegedly crashed a graduation party at the facility, police said. Two other persons were wounded.
On Monday, Nelida Negron, 32, was pronounced dead at Brigham and Women's Hospital after she was beaten on the head with a baseball bat in a bedroom of her Smith Street, Roxbury, apartment while her three children slept, according to investigators. Her husband, Hermino, 41, was arrested on a murder warrant later in the day in Framingham, where he allegedly crossed a center line and crashed his vehicle head-on into garbage truck, police said.

On Tuesday, David C. McCarthy, 22, was found by a maintenance man to have been strangled in his condominium on Boylston Street, Back Bay. The victim's hands and feet were bound behind him with telephone cord and he apparently had been strangled with a sock, according to police.

Excellent posts yourself and I wonder the same thing re: Hummel and 1091 Boylston St. Unfortunately, neither I nor anyone I've spoken to has ever been able to figure this out. As best as my research tells me, it has always been owned by various large property management companies. As for the cadaver search maybe turning up something but not enough for an arrest, that is as likely a source of the suspicion on Mr Rapp as anything else.

Also, great job on finding and posting those articles! I thought I had read everything about this case that was publicly available until I read the linked articles. For me, anyways, the articles contain one absolute bombshell that I haven't heard of, never mind seen discussed. The fact that Rapp called the morgue on Sunday- presumably at least 12 hours before Karina was due back in Dover. If true, that's a big, big deal. Of all the women it could have been- and with no information to suggest Karina is out of place, he's calling to see if the body belongs to her? If in fact the law enforcement source is incorrect or misquoted, and Rapp is truthful in saying he called the police, that only makes it slightly less suspicious than the morgue. How would the unidentified A street neighbor be familiar enough with Karina's comings and goings to confidently claim (and for Rapp to take their word for it) that Karina not being there for 24 or 36 hours was cause for concern?

I'd love to know more about when Karina normally returned to Dover. Was it Sunday afternoon/evening or Monday morning. That would send me one way or the other on the Rapp angle. If she was normally expected, say, Sunday late morning to mid afternoon, then Rapp's call, wherever he placed it, looks like genuine concern. If she was normally expected Sunday evening or Monday morning, well, that call starts to look a whole lot more suspicious.

To be clear, I can, like the police, the former DA Meier and everyone else who has looked at this case, find any number of ways to call any theory crazy. Including my own and all theories concerning everyone. Including Mr Rapp obviously. So I'm certainly not saying he did it or even that he probably did. However, he's far and away the character I want to see looked at further.

 

[U2387]

Also, I did locate Herb Witten's address in Andover where his alleged suicide took place in 1997. 3 Delphi Circle. It's an older wealthy suburban neighborhood. From the time when upper middle class houses were starting to show their size compared to typical post WW2 suburban developments. The houses were built in the mid late 1970s whereas many houses in Andover/North Andover were built in the 1980s to mid 2000's. I took a ride by the other day. Not too much to see. The only feeling I got was that the back yard was nowhere near secluded enough to not draw suspicion if you're burying a body. Especially given the fact that his name surfaced so quickly and neighbors already thought he was a volatile, potentially violent man.

Another random thought. And I don't mean to be graphic or hurt anyone's reputation- especially a dead person's. A lot of suggestions seemed to be made that Karina was a "party girl" and/or promiscuous. Though it does seem she got into the clubbing a bit more than average, underage drinking itself is plenty common as we all know. Most importantly, I have never seen anything to suggest she had a particularly active sex life or more than normal number of men in her life. It's just something that seemed to be accepted as an article of faith and never backed up. When I told my friend, who's almost 60 now, about my interest in the case, he immediately recalled his Dad making a comment about Karina being a "real " or some other derogatory word. He remembered it so well because he strongly pressed his Dad on why he was saying that and asked him, angrily, if that made what happened to her right.

Also, the next couple foreign nannies or exchange students that went missing, authorities would immediately draw a contrast to Karina by saying something like "she was a good girl, a book worm, no boys, etc, etc." Always kind of bothered me.

So help me out- and keep in mind- even coming up with multiple men does not indicate anything wrong with a person- Karina was a young adult free to be intimate with whomever she chose- what do we have to back this up?

Men associated with Karina:

-Mr Rapp- employer and never any more than speculation about anything sexual.

-Mystery Boston Police Officer- Met Karina at Zanzibar, confirmed to have dated her briefly.

Anyone else?

 

[yeshax]

Half a body in a dumpster


Holmer was an unlikely homicide victim. She was almost a tourist, really — an innocent woman from the tiny village of Alaryd. The seeming randomness of the case is part of what drives Meier crazy.

“There probably could be no more innocent a victim or random a victim than Karina Holmer,” Meier said. “By all accounts, it seemed like there wasn’t a person in the world who wanted to harm her.”


Not everyone saw her as a party-girl, or promiscous. She was also referred to as innocent. Maybe that was her flaw, she was innocent and naive and made an easy prey after a few drinks, MOO