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

Norwalk_082400_ Fourth grade school photo of Kathleen Marie Flynn who was raped and murdered in 1986 while walking home from school. contributed photo Norwalk_082400_ Fourth grade school photo of Kathleen Marie Flynn who was raped and murdered in 1986 while walking home from school. contributed photo Photo: Mark Conrad / ST Photo: Mark Conrad / ST Image 1 of / 50 Caption Close Arrest made in Norwalk cold case slaying of Kathleen Flynn, 11 1 / 50 Back to Gallery

NORWALK — The slaying of an 11-year-old Norwalk schoolgirl in September 1986 irrevocably changed the lives of one family, and all those caught in its orbit. But now — more than 32 years later — they all may be one step closer to some sense of closure.

On Wednesday, Norwalk police teamed up with Maine state police to arrest the primary suspect in their case: 53-year-old Marc Karun.

Norwalk police said Karun was detained by a tactical team on a fugitive from justice warrant around 11 a.m. Wednesday as he left his home in Stetson, Maine. The arrest is related to the sexual assault and murder of sixth-grader Kathleen Flynn, whose death has long flummoxed authorities.

Karun, who was raised in Norwalk and lived in the city until at least 2011, has a long rap sheet, including a number of sexual assault and kidnapping crimes, which stretches back before Kathleen’s murder.

His first arrest came five months before Kathleen’s murder, when he was charged with first-degree kidnapping and sexual assault with a deadly weapon, stemming from the rape of a Norwalk woman near the campus of Norwalk Community Technical College, which is now Norwalk Community College.

Karun received six months in prison for the 1986 crime. Less than two years later, though, Karun was behind bars again for more sexual assault and kidnapping-related charges. He was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison and was entered into the sex offender’s registry for life.

He was also convicted on felony burglary and larceny charges in Connecticut in 1997.



Image 1 of / 56 Caption Close Chilling Connecticut crimes 1 / 56 Back to Gallery

According to public records, Karun lived on Princes Pine Road in West Norwalk most of his life — about two miles from where Kathleen’s body was found. Later in life, he had an apartment on 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.

On Thursday, Maine state police used yellow crime scene tape to block the entrance of Karun’s Stetson home, which is not visible from the main road and sits beyond a bend of a long driveway that cuts through thick woods, according to the Bangor Daily News.

Karun’s parents purchased the property on behalf of the trust in their son’s name in 2002, according to Penobscot County records. However, Catherine Fisher, the town registrar, said on Wednesday that Karun moved to Stetson in 2013, the Bangor Daily News reported.

Karun, who was 21 when police say he killed Kathleen, is being held at the Penobscot County Jail in Maine until his terms of extradition are determined. He is to appear Friday in a Bangor courtroom.

Kathleen Flynn’s family released a statement Wednesday, requesting privacy while also expressing relief that an arrest was made.

“We wish to thank the Norwalk Police Department for bringing Kathleen’s murderer to justice,” the statement read. “This continues to be a very difficult time for us and we do not wish to make any further comments.”

‘We never went down that path ever again’

Kathleen was reported missing by her mother at 5:12 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 1986, after she did not make it home from Ponus Ridge Middle School. The mother had driven to the school looking for her two hours earlier, checking nearby neighborhoods and all along the route she usually took home.

Kathleen normally walked home from school using a path that leads to Hunters Lane and then to Fillow Street.

Several of Kathleen’s friends were contacted that day, and one or two said they last saw the girl walking toward the path by some tennis courts a few minutes after school ended.

Teams of searchers scoured the woods on both sides of the path. Eventually, Kathleen’s body was found in a secluded area more than 100 feet off the path. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

The murder took the quiet West Norwalk neighborhood by storm, leaving behind a sense of paranoia and fear that only grew the longer the case remained unsolved.

John Ioannidis was an eighth-grader when the murder occurred, and he says he remembers that day like it was yesterday. That afternoon, his soccer team had practice on the field in front of Ponus, only a few hundred yards from the path Kathleen took.

Middle-schoolers often hung out at a big rock just off that path after school, Ioannidis said. They would smoke cigarettes and hang out. But that all changed when authorities found Kathleen’s body nearby.

“We never went down that path ever again,” he said.

Enes Drake, a substitute teacher at Ponus who lived nearby at the time, said the murder took a toll not only on the schoolchildren, but the people in the neighborhood as well.

“The kids in school were all terrified, as was everyone in the neighborhood. We were all on high alert. The guy was never caught, so we were always looking over their shoulders,” she said.

Robert Fabrizzio, who was the Norwalk Detective Bureau Commander at the time of the murder, said the case is still fresh in his mind nearly 33 years later.

“That case has always plagued me,” said Fabrizzio, who retired in 1991. “Every time I hear of a young girl ... her case comes to mind right away.”

It was an exhaustive investigation, the 77-year-old said, with every detective in the bureau working overtime. While Fabrizzio said he wasn’t sure how they tracked down the suspect, he said he believed some newer technology could have been a factor.

“Thirty-three years, and wow, I’m just amazed,” he said. “With technology, things just show up. I’m amazed, but I’m really glad there’s some closure for the family.”

Over the years, police received numerous leads on possible suspects — some with vague descriptions, others mere hunches. Most descriptions were fabricated by people who thought it would help the investigation, police said.

A flyer was produced at one point with composite sketches of three white men with long, dirty hair in a green vehicle with New York license plates that was seen outside the school. It’s possible the car was not involved in the Flynn case, but rather a group of teenagers that borrowed the car and took off when a teacher approached them.

“I think a lot of people were scared by it, as far as it was so off the normal reality to have this happen to a school child walking home in the afternoon,” Norwalk police Lt. Arthur Weisgerber told ABC 7 of New York in 2016.

In an interview with The Courant in 2000, the Flynn family said police told them that there was a suspect in the murder, and they still longed for some semblance of closure.

“I think that would help with a little bit of wondering, the who. The why, I don’t think we’ll ever know. I don’t think we’ll ever know the answer to why did this happen,” Esther Flynn said. “I think it would be nice to find out who, and have some kind of justice.”

In 2016, the Norwalk Police Department said it hoped recent advancements in DNA technology would lead investigators to the perpetrator. In February, police used DNA to solve 26-year-old mystery regarding a dead body that was found off the Norwalk coast on Shea Island.

Kelly Kultys and Thane Grauel contributed to this report.