A 20 year old Swedish au pair is found murdered inside a Boston, MA trash bin In the spring of 1996, a 20-year-old Caucasian woman named Karina Holmer left her home in Skillingaryd, Sweden, for a new life in the United States. Having won about $1,500 in a lottery, she used the money to travel to Boston, Massachusetts, where she began working as an au pair for a family in the affluent suburb of Dover. For a few months, Holmer embraced her new surroundings, caring for two children and spending her weekends exploring Boston's nightlife with other au pairs.
The night
of June 21, 1996, was meant to be a celebration of the summer solstice, a significant holiday in her native Sweden. Holmer and her friends went to the Zanzibar nightclub in Boston's Theater District, a popular spot for young European au pairs. By all accounts, she became heavily intoxicated and was last seen in the early morning hours of June 22. Accounts of her last known moments vary, with some witnesses reporting they saw her dancing with a homeless man, while others claimed to have seen her get into a car. Her friends left the club before she did, and she was never seen alive again.
Two days later, on June 23, a homeless man searching for cans in a dumpster behind an apartment building on Boylston Street made a gruesome discovery. Inside a black trash bag was the upper half of a woman's torso. The body was later identified as Karina Holmer. An autopsy determined that she had been strangled to death with a rope or cord, and her body had been surgically bisected at the waist. The lower half of her body has never been found.
The investigation into Holmer's murder was extensive, with police interviewing over 300 people, but it has been hampered by a lack of evidence and a clear crime scene. Several individuals were considered persons of interest, but no arrests have ever been made. One man, Herb Whitten, who was known to frequent the area where Holmer was last seen, was questioned by police. However, he had a solid alibi and was later ruled out as a suspect; he died by suicide a year after the murder. Holmer's employers, Frank Rapp and Susan Nichter, also came under scrutiny, particularly after it was discovered that Rapp had obtained a permit to use a trash transfer station the day after Holmer disappeared. Rumors of an inappropriate relationship between Rapp and Holmer circulated, but no evidence was ever found to substantiate these claims, and he has never been charged in connection with her death. The case remains one of Boston's most infamous unsolved murders.
