Norwalk officers spoke Tuesday about a homicide "cold case" that they've now been able to close after three decades. Marc Karun was charged last week with first-degree kidnapping and murder with special circumstances in connection with the brutal 1986 killing and sexual assault of 11-year-old Kathleen Flynn.
Lieutenant Art Weisgerber took over the investigation in 2002 and helped solve the case.
He told reporters during a press conference Tuesday at Norwalk police headquarters that a lot of people worked on the case over the past 32 years.
"It's about an eight or nine three-ring binder case," said Weisgerber. "I probably read it about 40 or 50 times over the years. There are two binders alone that are suspicious persons, one’s suspicious vehicle leads — multiple suspects over the years, some of them were eliminated early on through mitochondrial DNA, then others were later eliminated with nucleic.”
The Flynn family declined to attend the press conference but expressed their gratitude to the police department for staying in contact and solving the case.
Kathleen Flynn’s mother reported her missing Sept. 23, 1986 when she didn’t come home from school. Her body was found the next day near a wooded path she regularly used to walk home.
Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling was a police lieutenant when she was reported missing. He said the crime “shocked the core of the city. It changed the way people lived. People no longer allowed their children to walk to school. People were afraid when they couldn’t hear from their children for an hour or so. It was a very, very difficult time.”
Rilling said when he was promoted to chief in 1995 he held weekly updates on the investigation.
Karun, who was a suspect early in the case, is a Norwalk native and was living in Stetson Maine. He’s currently being held on a $5 million bond and is due in Stamford Superior Court July 10.
