Police in Connecticut announced the arrest of a Maine man in connection with the unsolved 1986 sexual assault and murder of an 11-year-old girl who was found dead after she didn’t return home from school.
According to the Connecticut Post, a tactical team arrested Marc Karun, 53, on a fugitive from justice warrant as he left his Stetson home Tuesday morning. Public records obtained by the newspaper stated that, until 2011, Karun lived in Norwalk, where Kathleen Flynn was strangled and murdered decades earlier.
The Hartford Courant reported that Flynn vanished on September 23, 1986, as she walked home from Ponus Ridge Middle School to her family’s home. She was reportedly last seen a half-mile from the school, on a path in a wooded area she walked every day. Her body was reportedly found 12 hours later between the path and the school’s athletic fields, where soccer and field hockey teams had been practicing.
Karun, who has a lengthy criminal history, is listed on Maine’s sex offender registry for crimes that occurred in Connecticut. Serving 10 years in prison for a 1989 sexual assault, the Post reported that he was also convicted of felony burglary and larceny charges in 1997.
Sources told the Hartford Courant that authorities used DNA from Karun’s other crimes to link him to the cold case.
Karun is being held at the Penobscot County Jail in Maine until he can be extradited to Connecticut. A court hearing is scheduled for Friday.
The slain girl’s family said in a statement released Thursday, “We wish to thank the Norwalk Police Department for bringing Kathleen’s murderer to justice.”
[Featured image: Marc Karun/Norwalk Police Department; Kathleen Flynn/Norwalk Police Department]
