CT - Kathleen Flynn, 11, murdered, Ponus Ridge, 23 Sep 1986 *arrest in 2019*

Kathleen Marie Flynn

Her name was Kathleen. She collected Strawberry Shortcake dolls, rode a lavender bicycle and owned a dog named Lady that waited for her to come home after school. She could be shy in public, chatty at home. Every morning, she melted her father's heart by saying, ``Hello, my daddy.''

On September 23, 1986, eleven year old Kathleen Flynn was reported missing by her mother. The sixth grader at Ponus Ridge Middle School had not been seen since she left school that day. Police, firefighters and civilian volunteers searched for the young girl and found her early next morning in some woods alongside the middle school. Kathleen Flynn had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Hundreds of students, teachers and parents thronged the area in the afternoon. No one saw a thing, at least not anything that led to an arrest.

The body was identified by the girl's father, James T. Flynn, owner of Cap'n Henry's restaurant in Rowayton. Her mother, Esther Flynn, teaches mathematics at Stamford High School.

Connecticut is offering a $20,000 reward for information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of Kathleen Flynn's killer(s). If you know anything about this case, please call Norwalk Detective Sgt. Art Weisgerber at 203-854-3028.

http://articles.courant.com/2000-08...0600_1_athletic-fields-police-cruiser-binders

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/25/nyregion/girl-11-found-strangled-near-school-in-norwalk.html

Cold Case Spotlight

Kathleen Marie Flynn Never Made it Home From School in September 1986

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/cold-case-spotlight/kathleen-marie-flynn-never-made-it-home-school-september-1986-n446151

Kathleen Marie Flynn headed home after school like any other day on September 23, 1986. Her walk wasn't far, just about a half-mile on a paved path through the woods to her home in Norwalk, Connecticut. That fall day started off like any other.

But that afternoon, Kathleen never returned home.

Search teams discovered the young girl's body the next morning off the beaten path through the trees. Kathleen had been sexually assaulted and strangled. She had only turned 11 just weeks before.

According to then Norwalk Police Chief Carl LiBianca, who spoke with told the New York Times in the weeks following the murder, the killing was "the most sadistic" in the towns' then history.

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It's hard to believe nobody saw anything. The perp was probably watching her for a few days before the attack. So many children have disappeared on their way to or from school. It's so sad and so horrifying.

Lavender Moon said:

It's hard to believe nobody saw anything. The perp was probably watching her for a few days before the attack. So many children have disappeared on their way to or from school. It's so sad and so horrifying.

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Agreed. The articles say Kathleen was walking half a mile home, on a paved path through the woods, in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. The path was just several hundred feet from athletic fields where students had been practicing the afternoon Kathleen disappeared.

Why would someone come into the area to commit this crime? It would be very risky, unless you lived in the area or had spent a good deal of time there. Otherwise, just choose a lower risk situation.

The perp would have had to have been lying in wait, comfortable in that wooded area, knew if he was seen (and there was a good chance he could have been) he could explain it, and, as mentioned, had probably been doing surveillance for days. JMO.

This sounds like an older teen or young adult to me.

Do these types of killers usually go on to kill again? Do they typically continue molesting throughout their life? Are these people true pedofiles (only attracted to children) or they the types who will take advantage of anyone? Is there a typical age range of the offender?

I read a lot of true crime info, but I don't know much about this "type". It seems like there are lots of these cases that go unresolved, and I don't know much about the ones that have been solved.

Sorry to be so wordy today. I will send some positive energy out in Kathleen's memory.

Any updates on this case?

I was in the same grade as Kathleen Flynn although at a different school in Norwalk. I will never forget the terror of that day.

Also, does anyone know what side of the path they found her body on? I've been down there, but don't know the location and have always wondered. Is it the side near the athletic fields or the side further away. It's a perfect ambush spot.

From 2016
Police Search for Tips in 30-Year-Old Murder of Norwalk Girl



Police have been investigating the murder and sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl in Norwalk for nearly 30 years and they are hoping that advancements in DNA technology will help identify the person who killed Kathleen Flynn.

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/...ear-Old-Murder-of-Norwalk-Girl-382134531.html

Norwalk Police using new DNA technology to solve 30-year-old murder of 11-year-old girl


http://fox61.com/2016/06/07/norwalk...solve-30-year-old-murder-of-11-year-old-girl/

elclarkey said:

Any updates on this case?

I was in the same grade as Kathleen Flynn although at a different school in Norwalk. I will never forget the terror of that day.

Also, does anyone know what side of the path they found her body on? I've been down there, but don't know the location and have always wondered. Is it the side near the athletic fields or the side further away. It's a perfect ambush spot.

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:welcome:

This is so sad, I had never heard about this case. I was only a few months old at the time and living right nearby. Hope they find something with DNA.

She is buried in the same cemetery as my grandparents: https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=20910848

Interesting that they seemed to have a suspect in 2000 and were planning on doing DNA testing -- wonder if they ended up doing the testing or waiting for better technology? http://articles.courant.com/2000-08...0600_1_athletic-fields-police-cruiser-binders

Hume said he always remembers what a Seattle detective told him last fall at seminar on child homicide: ``Chances are the name of the guilty party is already in your case file.''His file has 1,500 names.
One of them belongs to the investigation's ``primary focus,'' in the words of the city's police chief, Harry Rilling. In a recent interview, Rilling disclosed for the first time that police have a suspect, who is incarcerated for another crime.
Using new technology, they hope to link him through mitochondrial DNA testing of hairs found at the crime scene. Mitochondrial testing, not as exacting as nuclear DNA testing, can link the hairs to an extended family, not an individual.
In coming weeks, investigators will meet with prosecutors and forensic experts to decide if they should go ahead with the mitochondrial test, or wait for better technology. Each test consumes some of the evidence.

``Right now, mitochondrial DNA can tell us certain things,'' Rilling said. ``With other information we have and things that we investigated in the past, it might be enough to get an arrest and a conviction. However, a year from now, two years from now, what might be available to us that might be able to identify a person to the exclusion of everybody else in the entire world?''
It is a gamble.
``We have to roll the dice at some point. That's where we are now,'' Rilling said.
To evaluate the evidence, Rilling invited the assistance of the chief state's attorney's cold case squad, a step local department are sometimes reluctant to take. Rilling said he has no turf concerns.

``One thing is very, very clear. This is not a territorial thing,'' he said. ``The important thing for this case is to get it solved. And I don't care if it's solved by another agency. If they can help us solve this case, that's what's important to me.''
Rilling and his officers will not release any further details about the suspect for fear of tainting a prosecution.
``I fully expect to go to trial at some point,'' Gale said.

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I hope DNA resolves this case. I am surprised I never heard about it despite being close in age and living not that far from Norwalk at the time of her disappearance.

Any updates that anyone is aware of? This one hits home for me because I was in the same grade as Kathleen and living in the same town. I remember how terrifying it all was and how people were freaking out. I will never forget that day.

elclarkey said:

Any updates that anyone is aware of? This one hits home for me because I was in the same grade as Kathleen and living in the same town. I remember how terrifying it all was and how people were freaking out. I will never forget that day.

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Dave Altimari (@davealtimari) | Twitter Dave Altimari posted that an arrest has just been made.

Arrest made in Norwalk cold case murder of Kathleen Flynn, 11

More here.

Stetson man arrested in connection with 1986 rape and murder of CT girl

According to Maine's sex offender registry, Karun was convicted of a sexual assault in Connecticut in 1989.
He was sentenced to ten years.
Officers from Norwalk Police were here in Bangor with a warrant for Karun's arrest for the rape and murder of Flynn.
Karun is scheduled to appear before a judge tomorrow in Bangor.

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rbbm.
Arrest made in Norwalk cold case murder of Kathleen Flynn, 11
"According to Maine's sex offender registry, Karun was convicted of a sexual assault in Connecticut in 1989. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and is a lifetime registrant on the registry. He was also convicted on felony burglary and larceny charges in Connecticut in 1997"

"According to public records, Karun lived in Norwalk until at least 2011, in apartments on Princes Pine Road in West Norwalk and Van Zant Street in East Norwalk. He is also listed as having Connecticut residences in Manchester, Rocky Hill and Shelton before moving to Maine in 2012.

Maine state police helped the Norwalk Police Department in Karun's arrest. Karun is being held at the Penobscot County Jail in Maine until his terms of extradition are determined. He is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow."

Three decades after a child’s brutal murder, police made an arrest. His neighbors weren’t surprised.


Marc Karun, 53, was arrested for the 1986 murder and sexual assault of 11-year-old Kathleen Flynn.

Washington Post Article
By Antonia Noori Farzan
June 14 at 6:24 AM

For years, Marc Karun unnerved neighbors in the small New England town where he lived in a log home that was surrounded by acres of thick woods and couldn’t be seen from the road.

The Connecticut native had showed up in Stetson, Maine, a rural community of roughly 1,200 people, in 2013. Right away, residents told the Bangor Daily News, he began to exhibit peculiar behavior. He would stand at the top of his driveway and salute passing drivers for no apparent reason, show up at town meetings to make snarky comments, and walk around with a blank stare that left some uneasy. It was well known that he was a lifetime registrant on Maine’s sex-offender registry, with an anonymous vandal painting the word “pedophile” in red paint on the road outside his home one summer.

So when the white-haired 53-year-old was arrested on Wednesday for the brutal 1986 murder and sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl, residents weren’t exactly shocked to see yellow crime-scene tape blocking off his long driveway...

... On the afternoon of Sept. 23, 1986, Kathleen Flynn left school and began walking home on a paved footpath that cut through a wooded area, the same route that she took every day. Several hours later, her mother called to report her missing. The sixth-grader’s body was found in the woods early the next morning, not far from the path she had taken home and the athletic fields where soccer and field hockey teams had been playing when she disappeared. She had been raped and strangled.

At the time, Karun was living within a few miles of the school. He had previously been convicted of sexual assault and was questioned within weeks of the murder. Though he denied having anything to do with the crime, he also made a bizarre admission. Four days before Kathleen was killed, he claimed, he had gone to her middle school to “see some teachers.” ...

LINK:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...bors-werent-surprised/?utm_term=.41e94e814d6d

[QUOTE="dotr...
"According to Maine's sex offender registry, Karun was convicted of a sexual assault in Connecticut in 1989. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and is a lifetime registrant on the registry. He was also convicted on felony burglary and larceny charges in Connecticut in 1997"...
"[/QUOTE]

What's wrong with this picture? A little basic math would indicate that if this dirt bag was sentenced to 10 years in 1989 - and put on a lifetime sexual offender list - he should have still been in prison in 1997.

Richard said:

sentenced to 10 years in 1989

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RSBM
Ehhh just because he was sentenced to 10 years doesn't mean he actually served 10 years. He may have gotten out early for time served or "good behavior"

ETA and wait, I've been back and forth this morning on a few different threads so pardon the question but what does 1997 have to do with anything? Kathleen was taken in 1986
Ugh sorry yall, editing again, I see now 1997 is when he was convicted on felony burglary and larceny charges

The point is that he was (finally) sentenced to 10 years for sexual assault and out in society in less than 8. Would "good behavior" for a pedophile in prison be due to him having seen the light and mended his ways - or possibly be due to his lack of opportunity?