GUILTY KY - Karen Kappelman, 15, found dead in snowbank, Boone County, 27 Feb 2010

[A_News_Junkie]

Disturbing...however, I'm thinking it was an overdose...when someone ODs or just has a bad reaction, sometimes you can get really hot as a reaction to the drug...that may explain her clothes off and nearby. Ecstasy and coke could both produce those reactions..given her age and lack of income, i'm going to guess she had an adverse reaction or got a bad load of ecstasy.

THANK YOU - that will help hold me off till the autopsy results come in -- help me in that it will allow me to think horrible accident vs foul play.

 

[A_News_Junkie]

I am sorry I don't know how to post the link to the facebook page. If you have a facebook just type in R.I.P. Karen Kappleman,notice the mispelled name, and it should come up. When it comes up there are two headings so check out both, different comments on both from her Mom. I will try and find out about the autopsy, it is not my husband but a friend of mine's husband. I just spoke to another friend this morning and asked if her daughter heard any rumors and she said the girl had taken ecstasy, this is only a rumor she heard. If you are from around here then you know the police do keep a tight lid on investigations and we might never really hear what took place. People seem to think she woke up at her own apartment and went outside and I guess collapsed. I'll post any other things I may hear. Let me know if you are able to find the facebook site, there are several of them but this one with the misspelled last name is the one her Mom leaves a heartfelt comment about.

Yes - I know how the lid is glued on cases around here. Even the news stories show it -- don't you think?
I am still wanting to know about the body they found off the Hebron exit a few months back. I talked to a local EMS type person and they told me that a gag order was issues right away and that I would have to wait for the news to maybe tell me something on that case. Grrrrrrr -- I love the sunshine laws!

 

[Lyn1001]

Disturbing...however, I'm thinking it was an overdose...when someone ODs or just has a bad reaction, sometimes you can get really hot as a reaction to the drug...that may explain her clothes off and nearby. Ecstasy and coke could both produce those reactions..given her age and lack of income, i'm going to guess she had an adverse reaction or got a bad load of ecstasy.

Makes sense. I still wonder about the shoe/boot print by her body though. And she must have died quick from the overdose/bad reaction since they have stated it wasn't hypothermia.

 

[lifethruChrist]

Was that the guy they found dead on the interstate with only his underware on? If so then I heard from the same police officer that it was a drug deal gone bad and they made him get out of the car and shot him. It is a shame the news stations around here don't report follow ups to the stories, we are just left in the dark after the initial story until someone goes to court over it. I hope if some parent let Karen Kappelman drink alcohol that they will face the court system.

 

[A_News_Junkie]

Was that the guy they found dead on the interstate with only his underware on? If so then I heard from the same police officer that it was a drug deal gone bad and they made him get out of the car and shot him. It is a shame the news stations around here don't report follow ups to the stories, we are just left in the dark after the initial story until someone goes to court over it. I hope if some parent let Karen Kappelman drink alcohol that they will face the court system.

Yeah - that is the guy (I did hear three stories on what he was wearing) and they did ID him as being from Cincinnati. So, if you see that go to trial send me a pm and let me know!

I am with you, if it was drugs or alcohol I want whoever bought or supplied them held accountable for snuffing out the life of another bright teen. All I know is that there are still more questions than answers. Like Lyn just said, those foot prints to and from the body have not been explained. The reports said the person who reported it saw the body out the window and never is there a mention that the person walked down to the body to check a pulse or anything. If there is nothing to hide (or no pending charges) then why the veil of secrecy?

 

[swanniee11]

regarding the shoe print. Has it been ruled out that the person who found her body didn't go down there? Could the print be theirs?

 

[lifethruChrist]

The foot prints could of already been there before her body ever ended up there in my opinion. With all the snow we were having the week before any body could of been walking thru the area. I still am undecided on weather someone dumped her there alive or dead or if she just got up out of her own bed once her parents left for church and wondered out side. It seems weird to me she would be alive in the morning after sleeping and then collapse from an over dose but I don't really know much about how alcohol and drugs can kill you. Mostly you hear about someone just never waking up from an overdose.

 

[Angels_Not_Forgotten]

Disturbing...however, I'm thinking it was an overdose...when someone ODs or just has a bad reaction, sometimes you can get really hot as a reaction to the drug...that may explain her clothes off and nearby. Ecstasy and coke could both produce those reactions..given her age and lack of income, i'm going to guess she had an adverse reaction or got a bad load of ecstasy.

Respectfully BBM... I tend to agree. Ecstasy is such a dirty, horrible, melting pot of the worst kind of things. These pills do tend to make you hot, and it's easy to get a bad pill. Also, though, if buying in bulk (a "ten pack") you can sometimes get the pills as cheap as 10 bucks a pill. so it's not like she needed a ton of money to get a hold of those either I'm thinking if it were a party, maybe someone brought them to the party, she had never tried them, and had a VERY adverse reaction so sad.

 

[Lyn1001]

Okay, going on the theory of a bad drug trip/no one else involved (including no one dumping her body): Were her foot print's found leading from her home to where she was found? Was the scattered clothing along the route her footprints were/the path she would have taken to get where she was found? If not, were there any footprints at all near the discarded clothing? If not, could she have thrown them that far in a weakend state?

Do you guys get where I'm going with my line of questions? I haven't been very adept at expressing myself well lately, so I hope it makes sense.

 

[carbuff]

Another possibility with Ecstacy: allergic reaction to the other ingredients. That happened to a kid in the high school here. He survived, thank god, but it was a close call. I don't know whether that fits the circumstances, though -- I think that kind of shock happens very quickly.

 

[A_News_Junkie]

Okay, going on the theory of a bad drug trip/no one else involved (including no one dumping her body): Were her foot print's found leading from her home to where she was found? Was the scattered clothing along the route her footprints were/the path she would have taken to get where she was found? If not, were there any footprints at all near the discarded clothing? If not, could she have thrown them that far in a weakend state?

Do you guys get where I'm going with my line of questions? I haven't been very adept at expressing myself well lately, so I hope it makes sense.

FOOTPRINTS:
1. To the poster that asked if we know if they belong to the person who found her - no. We do not know.
2. We do not know where the prints start and /or end. IE: we have not been told if the prints leading to the body say from the north then back tracked or went S, E , West or some combo of that.
3. As to the location of the clothes - all I have seen is they were found "closeby to the body" (If my memory is correct we had decent wind and the snow that was on the ground had been exposed to days of sun which usually leaves a glaze from the melt effect, so the clothes depending on how heavy could have blown and or skated across surface glaze a fair distance.)

If the prints belonged to a known source then why report them? Irresponsible journalism, sensationalism or a question that needs answered to determine if a crime did occur.
It was reported as a set leading to and from body - the video I saw didn't have prints all over like kids sledding, building snowmen, playing or such. If my memory and eyes work correct - there were no prints in the video I saw, but they didn't show the body or anything distinguishable to me.

 

[lifethruChrist]

While taking my son to get his drivers permit today I ran into the police officer that I know. I asked him about the Kappelman case and what he thought happened. He said she was out partying with an 18 year old boy and doesn't think anyone dumped her body there. I really don't know how much he really knows about the case and he was busy so I couldn't ask him more about it. I hope I can talk with him again in more detail because it still doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

 

[A_News_Junkie]

Still nothing new, but I did find this updated article and especially this quote encouraging that maybe more is happening than appears....
http://www.wcpo.com/news/local/stor...Of-Trauma-To-Teen/Dvu5V6T4GkmzAX-pJj8C1g.cspx

"I guess I want to say we know more than we are willing to tell," said Scheben. "We are keeping a lot closer to the vest right now because we don't want to jeopardize our case by prematurely releasing information."
~~~~~~~

(Scheben is from Boone County Sheriff office)

 

[cluciano63]

When LE clamps down and refuses to release info about a case, it often makes a death seem suspicious even if it was not. they may be trying to protect family, i.e. if it was an overdose but instead their lack of info causes people to think that LE is hiding something, so it backfires in a way, causing rumors. But I do know that some drugs can very suddenly bring about death; not sure why she would be partially undressed unless she was hallucinating or something like that. Parents probably feel bad enough about not looking in on her that AM I would imagine, if that is the case. Not sure why assumption is that adults provided drugs, as kids are perfectly capable, unfortuntely, of obtaining them on their own, I guess that came from what her mom wrote?
I do think the truth from LE is better in these cases, as look at all of the specualtion anyway. If it was a drug overdose it is more important to let other teens know the danger than to hide the cause.

 

[lifethruChrist]

Why is the Toxicology report not out yet?

 

[lifethruChrist]

Karen Kappelman's toxicology report and facts surrounding her death are finally in. You can find it on NKY.com.

 

[2goldfish]

http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100329/NEWS0103/303290020/Cold++alcohol+tied+to+teen+s+death

from article

The 15-year-old Ryle High School student who was found dead lying in the snow last month was drunk when she died of exposure after being dropped off outside her apartment after a party, officials said Monday.

Karen Kappelman died of hypothermia and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.128, said Boone County Coroner Doug Stith.

“She was intoxicated and was exposed to extreme temperatures outside for a period of time,” Stith said. The low temperature the night of Feb. 27 was 29 degrees.

 

[Missizzy]

I've been watching this story with interest as we had a young woman almost die of hypothermia after walking away from a New Year's Eve party in our town. She left a party after drinking (but was reported to not seem intoxicated) and was found partially unclothed and near death the following day. Temps had been in the low 30s. At first, as she had no memory of the incident, it was thought that she'd been raped and left for dead. It is just a miracle that a jogger came upon her as she was in a very odd place and it was a holiday and no businesses were open. The forensics results came back yesterday and I think everyone might be interested in reading them.

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100330/NEWS/3300317

"ASHLAND, OR — Police no longer suspect that an Ashland woman who was found unconscious and hypothermic on Clear Creek Drive on New Year's Day was abducted and sexually assaulted, the city's police chief said Monday.

Detectives believe the woman was partially naked and appeared badly beaten not because of an assault, but as a result of extreme hypothermia, which can lead sufferers to remove their clothes and can cause their skin to become blue and puffy, Ashland Police Chief Terry Holderness said.

None of the evidence submitted to the Oregon State Police forensic laboratory and returned to Ashland police late last week suggested that the woman had been sexually assaulted, he said.

"It is still possible that something else happened to her that night, but at this point, it appears everything we know about was all a result of the hypothermia," Holderness said....."

more at link

 

[Lyn1001]

http://www.local12.com/news/local/story/Teen-Girls-Death-Not-a-Homicide/0TbLCWTC3EutP-DXDGnjWA.cspx

An autopsy done today shows no signs of sexual assault or trauma. Hypothermia is also ruled out as a cause of death and now investigators are left to wait for toxicology results, which could take two to three weeks. However, investigators can say with certainty that Kappelman's death was not a homicide.

http://www.wkyt.com/home/headlines/85826297.html

http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100329/NEWS0103/303290020/Cold++alcohol+tied+to+teen+s+death

from article

The 15-year-old Ryle High School student who was found dead lying in the snow last month was drunk when she died of exposure after being dropped off outside her apartment after a party, officials said Monday.

Karen Kappelman died of hypothermia and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.128, said Boone County Coroner Doug Stith.

“She was intoxicated and was exposed to extreme temperatures outside for a period of time,” Stith said. The low temperature the night of Feb. 27 was 29 degrees.

So, how was hypothermia ruled out at the beginning and is now a contributing cause of death?

 

[elle1919]

Very sad, I found this beside the article linked above. It sounds as though her parents are having a hard time, as well should be expected. Prayers for them.

http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100329/NEWS0103/303290020/Cold++alcohol+tied+to+teen+s+death

snip~Provided
Karen Kappelman
Family releases prepared statement

Following is the full text of the statement released by the Kappelman family Monday through the Boone County Sheriff's Department:

The parents have chosen not to come public as they do not want to interfere with the investigation involving the death of their daughter. We must have faith that truth will prevail.

We are living an unbelievable nightmare with the loss of our daughter, Karen Clarice Kappelman. Her sister and her were close, and she is devastated. Karen’s life and her death have forever changed our lives. Those individuals that contributed to her demise will have to live with that for the rest of their lives. Karen and her friend made some poor choices that night that resulted in devastating consequences. A teenage girl was taken advantage of and no one came to her aid. Her death, like many others, was senseless and could have easily been prevented.

The support from the community has been overwhelming during this time of grief. Our friends and co-workers continue to be there for us as we move forward. We want to specifically thank the Boone County Sheriff Department, Union Baptist Church, Ryle High School, The Legends Apartment Community and Nexxus Properties.

Karen grew up in a Baptist church in Montgomery. Looking back through photos, the family can reflect on the many experiences and places they shared with Karen: From DisneyWorld to NYC, from white water rafting on the Ocoee River to riding a tractor on a farm in Arkansas, from watching fireworks in Vancouver to visiting the Amish country in Pennsylvania. The family would like the public to know Karen was loved beyond her immediate family.~ end