In the 1990s, a young woman with dreams and goals went to the United States for a new experience, and to work toward her longterm life plans. She never made it back home to Sweden.
Karina Holmer was born on June 23rd, 1975 in a small village tot he southwest of Stockholm, Sweden. She was very close to her family, and especially her older sister. She was described as a very driven person, who had a determination to achieve her goals that many found inspiring. Karina was fascinated by the world, and she wanted to travel as far and wide as possible, and experience everything that she could.
Karina was also very studious, and took her schooling very seriously. She was equally as passionate about the arts, and was drawn to art, poetry, and literature from around the world.
As Karina began figuring out what she wanted from her life and her future, she decided to fulfill some of her travel goals. She decided that she wanted to see the United States (something few of us are willing to do these days), and she knew of a way she could do it, while also getting paid.
Karina had read about joining an agency where she could work in the United States as an au pair. This would allow her to make some money, and travel through the country. Agencies such as this were quite popular, and they helped young travellers see the world, while also making a little money.
The agency would be responsible for providing their au pairs with all of the legal paperwork necessary to work abroad, and acquiring a work visa. This would allow their au pairs entry into the country for approximately 13 months before they would have to either renew their visas, or return home. The process for joining the agency also consisted of a background check, a review of medical records, and a psychological examination in order to ensure the applicant was fit for the role.
As this was a rather lucrative business, some agencies started advertising their services, claiming that they could get things done much more quickly than other agencies. Of course, this was because they were conducting business under the table, and arranging for au pairs to travel less than legally, failing to provide them with visas and paperwork. This also removed some of the safety and security precautions the legitimate agencies were required to adhere to.
Karina was determined to join an agency, and work as an au pair in order to travel to the United States. As her finances were scarce, she knew she would need to come up with the money for the expenses somehow.
Oh a whim, Karina bought a lottery ticket and ended up winning enough money to join an agency, and pay for her travel expenses. Whether she knew or not that the agency she joined was an illegal agency has been highly debated. But in the end, it was through one of these illegal agencies that Karina began her career as an au pair.
In March of 1996, Karina arrived in Boston with no visa, and in the possession of false identification. She was not registered with any official agencies, and she wasn’t registered with the American State Department.
She was placed with a family of four – photographer Frank Rapp, his partner, Boston Globe reporter Susan Nichter, and their two children. By all accounts, the family adored Karina, and the children especially took a liking to her. While she worked and lived in their home in the suburbs of Boston, she was tasked with the care of the children, as well as various household chores.
On weekends, Karina was free to spend her time however she wanted. Often, this meant staying in the loft that Rapp kept in downtown Boston, where she would meet up with friends, and enjoy some of the night life. She had befriended other au pairs who worked in the area, and they enjoyed their free time out on the town.
For a time, Karina seemed to be thriving in Boston. She seemed to really enjoy her work, and was enjoying the experiences she was having. But that all changed about four months into her stay with the Rapp/Nichter family.
She wrote to a friend back home that she wasn’t finding personal satisfaction with her work. She wrote: “There is always so much cleaning and I think I am stressed all the time. So this is not exactly what I thought it would be.” Her personal feelings seemingly didn’t seek into her work, as the family never noticed any change to her work ethic, or how she treated the children.
In another letter, Karina expressed that she was planning on cutting her work experience short. She wrote: “Something terrible has happened. I’ll reveal more when I get home.” But whatever Karina was alluding to would never be revealed, as she never made it home.
Whatever secret Karina may have been hiding, or whatever information she had, has been theorized as a possible connection to what happened on the night of June 21st, 1996.
On June 21st, 1996, Karina went to the Boston loft owned by Frank Rapp and prepared for a night out with friends. She was especially excited as it was the Summer Solstice, which is a largely celebrated holiday in Sweden.
Karina and her friends got ready for their night out at the loft, and walked together towards the Theatre District. They settled on going to Zanzibar, which was a major hot spot at the time. Zanzibar was known for being safe, calm, and relatively quiet, which was appealing to the group as they tended to steer clear of the rowdier clubs and bars in the are.
During the course of the night, Karina was said to have been drinking more than usual. Whether it was in celebration of the Summer Solstice, or in relation to the contents of the letter she’d sent her friend, no one knew why she was drinking as heavily as she was.
The group stayed together as much as possible, but they also split up sporadically throughout the night, meeting up with other people, and dancing with other patrons of the bar. But they noticed that every time they ran into Karina, she was showing increasing signs of intoxication.
At 3:00 AM when the bar closed, some patrons reported seeing Karina allegedly “passed out” in the bathroom. She was then seen being escorted outside by a bouncer, who led her to the back alleyway rather than through the front door. Karina then tried to find her friends. When she couldn’t find them, she tried to re-enter the bar, but she was denied.
Her friends were also looking for her, and couldn’t find her anywhere. They waited for her, hoping she’d wander her way to them, but she never arrived. The friends split up from there, and went their own separate ways home, or to other parties. They all assumed that she’d simply done the same – that she walked back to the downtown loft where she stayed most weekends.
Some witnesses stated that they overheard Karina discussing going to an afterparty with a group of people she’d met at the bar, but this has never been confirmed.
Other witnesses stated that they saw her speaking to an unhoused man, and another man who was out walking a dog.
Another witness had a much more sinister story to tell. The man told investigators that he was a friend of Karina’s, and he had seen her getting into a grey Mitsubishi with a group of men. The “friend” allegedly walked up to the car, leaned into the window, and told Karina: “Let’s go, you came here with us.” The men in the car didn’t take kindly to this, with one of them allegedly responding: “Get away from the car you little shit, or I’ll crush your fucking head.”
The identity of this “friend” has never been revealed, and the men in the grey Mitsubishi have never been identified.
The final sighting of Karina reportedly occurred between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM. She was seen walking between Tremont Street, and Boylston and Park streets.
On the morning of Sunday, June 23rd, 1996, an unhoused man was rifling through dumpsters looking for aluminum cans that he could exchange for cash. He then came across a green garbage bag that was very heavy. The man continued to pull at it, eventually ripping open the top. It took the man a moment to realize that he was seeing the naked upper body and torso of a young woman.
The man jumped out of the dumpster, and ran down Boylston Street. He was screaming for help, which caught the attention of a police officer. After seeing the discovery, the officer called in for backup. It didn’t take long for the Boston Police Department to swarm the scene.
The investigation into the discovery was led by Detective Thomas O’Leary. The first thing he noticed when the bag was removed from the dumpster was a manicured hand. This was followed by the severed torso of a young woman. The body appeared to have been washed clean, and bisected above the hips. A further search of the dumpster did not uncover the woman’s bottom half.
The woman’s throat bore signs of strangulation, and it was speculated that she had been strangled with a rope or cord of some sort. This was later confirmed during the autopsy. The autopsy also suggested that the young woman’s body had been bisected using an electric saw.
The autopsy also confirmed the woman’s identity as Karina Holmer, the Swedish au pair for the Rapp/Nichter family in Dover, a suburb of Boston.
A search of dumpsters all over the city was conducted, with the intent of finding Karina’s bottom half. To this day, the rest of her body has never been found.
Investigation of the bag she’d been found in uncovered a partial fingerprint which was lifted. This print has never been identified, and has never led to a solid lead on a suspect in the murder.
Investigators also searched all local bodies of water, and had cadaver dogs investigate the Boston loft owned by Rapp. Neither avenue of investigation led to any information about what happened to Karina the night she left without her friends from Zanzibar’s.
Her purse and Nokia cell phone have also never been found.
As the investigation continued, investigators thought they may have had a solid lead. Authorities in Marshall, Virginia reached out to Detective O’Leary saying they’d found a pair of legs belonging to a woman between the ages of 20 and 40.
This lead was quickly ruled out, as the legs were proven not to be Karina’s.
As the nature of the murder seemed extremely violent, the FBI’s Behavioural Sciences Unit were called in to analyze the crime scene and provide a profile for the killer. Boston Police were worried about a potential serial killer being free to kill again. But the analysis offered up a different perspective.
It was theorized that other than Karina being bisected, there were no other signs of a serial predator. They believed that the bisection was done to potentially hide evidence of a sexual assault, but it could have also been done out of necessity for disposing of Karina’s body. The profile theorized that the perpetrator was likely inexperienced, possibly a first time offender, and may be suffering from a mental illness.
Through the course of the investigation, over 300 people were interviewed. But only a few theories stood out as possibly the most likely potential scenarios.
The most popular theory was that Karina had been murdered by a man named Herb Whitten.
Whitten was known for walking his dog around the downtown area of Boston, as he believed using his dog was a good prop for picking up women. As Karina was seen speaking with a man with a dog the night she went missing, he seemed the most likely suspect.
Whitten had an alibi which was hard to disprove – at the time Karina was believed to have been murdered, Whitten had been driving back home. He even received a speeding ticket. It was unlikely he would have had the time to commit the murder, and then rush back home, based on the timeline of events.
Whitten was under intense investigation, and his life was ripped apart and torn upside down by investigators. A year after Karina’s murder, Herb Whitten committed suicide, being unable to handle the pressure the police continued to put on him. His name was never formally cleared. And though his involvement is the most popular theory, it’s just that – a theory. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest Herb Whitten had anything to do with Karina’s murder.
The Monday following the discovery of Karina’s body, police were called to the home of Frank Rapp and Susan Nichter. They were called for a fire that had started in a dumpster on their property. It was here that they were informed of Karina’s murder, which seemingly distressed the family.
The ashes of the fire were tested for traces of human remains, but none were found.
By all accounts, the family were incredibly cooperative during the investigation, but they were high up on the list of suspects. Neither Frank nor Susan had an alibi for the night of Karina’s disappearance, and Frank had often been described by other au pairs and nannies as “creepy”.
Despite this, they were soon cleared of any suspicion. They have never spoken publicly about Karina’s murder, and have basically fallen into obscurity.
Another man who was investigated for Karina’s murder was John Zewizz.
Zewizz lived near where Karina’s upper body was found, and was known for hanging around that area of the city. He was an industrial musician who was struggling with a heroin addiction during the time of the murder and the investigation. While his band, Sleep Chamber, was known for having highly controversial performances, there was nothing linking Zewizz to Karina’s murder.
Six months after Karina’s murder, in December of 1996, a man was arrested for kidnapping and attempted rape in Boston.
Gregory Hummel was known to police for being a violent man, and for being especially violent towards women. And while this could be true for a lot of men, what caught the interest of investigators was the fact that Hummel had taken a young woman from Zanzibar, the same bar from which Karina disappeared.
Hummel looked more and more promising as a suspect the more investigators dove into his background for his current legal troubles. Hummel seemed to have the opportunity and resources to commit Karina’s murder, and it was looking more and more likely that he had.
Hummel worked in real estate brokerage, and he managed several of his own properties. As a landlord, he had the tools required to make all kinds of repairs when tenants put in requests. He certainly had the tools, and several open locations, where he could have murdered Karina, cleaned, and bisected her body for disposal.
Hummel was later released on bail for the kidnapping and attempted rape charges, and the inquiry into his possible involvement in Karina’s murder was all but dropped.
There were also rumours that Karina had been casually dating an unnamed Boston police officer, who was cleared of suspicion just about right away.
Over time, Karina’s case went cold.
In May of 1999, Delia Lorna Mendez was found bisected in a dumpster in Hollywood, Florida. The similarities between the disposal of her body and Karina’s body drew the interest of Boston police, and they reached out to law enforcement in Florida to compare notes.
In the end, it was determined that there were too many discrepancies between the two cases for them to be related. The similarities appeared to simply be a coincidence.
The murder of Delia Lorna Mendez remains unsolved.
Sergeant Detective Gary Mitchell and Detective Charles Daniels of the Unsolved Homicide Unit have taken over the unsolved murder of Karina Holmer. They are actively seeking tips, leads, and information that could lead to the resolution of this case.
Anyone with any information is asked to call the Boston Police Department Homicide Unit at 617-343-4470. For anyone who wishes to remain anonymous, they can call the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at 1-800-494-TIPS, or they can text the word “TIP” to CRIME (27463).
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Sources:
Karina Holmer – Cold Case New England
Who killed Karina Holmer? Twenty-five years later, Swedish nanny’s grisly murder remains unsolved – Emily Sweeney – The Boston Globe
Who Killed Karina Holmer? And Where’s The Lower Half Of Her Torso? – Joshua N – Thought Nova
Trace Evidence podcast – Episode 060 – The Murder of Karina Holmer