Judge keeps Karun’s bond at $5 million
Next hearing scheduled for July 10 in Stamford
NORWALK — Nearly 33 years after 11-year-old Kathleen Flynn was found slain in the woods behind Ponus Ridge Middle School, the man accused of the crime stood before a judge in downtown Norwalk.
Marc Karun, 53, stood with an emotionless stare as Judge Maureen Dennis upheld the $5 million bond at his arraignment Monday afternoon.
State Superior Court in Norwalk was packed with a mix of media members and spectators for the brief hearing. Mayor Harry Rilling, who had been lieutenant in the Norwalk Police Department’s Training Division at the time of the homicide, watched as Karun was arraigned.
“My general rule in terms of any matter where the warrant has been signed out of another district … is to leave the bond set without prejudice, to be able to be argued in that local venue where the case will be heard,” Dennis said.
Defense attorney Todd Bussert did not argue with her decision, nor did the state prosecutor or the. bail commissioner.
Karun would need to put up 7 percent of the bond — $350,000 — in order to be released. Dennis further ruled that in the event he posted bond, Karun would also need to forfeit his passport and be fitted with a GPS tracker. He would also need to do so at a courthouse.
Rilling declined to comment Monday. Instead, he said he preferred to share his thoughts regarding the arrest at a news conference scheduled for 2 p.m. Tuesday at police headquarters.
Bussert also declined to comment on the case.
The case is set to be transferred to state Superior Court in Stamford. Karun’s next hearing is July 10.
Karun was arrested by Maine state police Wednesday at his home in Stetson, a small town outside Bangor. On Friday, he was returned to Norwalk and charged with murder with special
circumstances and firstdegree kidnapping.
Kathleen’s body was found a day after she was reported missing on Sept. 23, 1986. Her mother filed the report after her daughter failed to make it home that afternoon after school.
Karun, who had grown up in Norwalk and lived less than two miles from the school at the time, had been suspected by police as early as two weeks after the middle-schooler’s body was found.
In January 1986 — eight months before Kathleen was killed — Karun was charged with raping a woman at knifepoint in the woods behind what is now Norwalk Community College. He was arrested on charges of first-degree sexual assault and kidnapping, but the kidnapping charge was nolled and the sexual assault was reduced when the victim didn’t testify. As a result, Karun served only a few months in prison.
Between 1986 and 1988, Karun was implicated in at least two other rapes, an abduction and an attempted kidnapping, according to an arrest warrant. During one of these incidents, Karun told a rape victim — a complete stranger — that “he would either have to marry her or kill her if she became pregnant,” the warrant said.
Karun was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison for his two-year crime spree, and was later entered into the sex offender’s registry for life.
It was the similarity between Karun’s other cases and Kathleen’s homicide — along with DNA evidence — that ultimately resulted in his arrest in the nearly 33-year-old case.
“Several of the cases exhibit a similar geographical profile, modus operandi and rituals to the Kathleen Flynn homicide in some form,” Norwalk police Lt. Arthur Weisberger wrote in the arrest warrant.
The warrant details the process on how other suspects in Kathleen’s murder were eliminated through DNA testing and hair samples.
“In reviewing the case that identify Marc Karun as the offender committing some form of sexual assault or kidnapping between January of 1986 and June of 1988, the warrant found noticeable similarities with the details of the sexual assault and the murder of Kathleen Flynn on Sept. 23, 1986,” the warrant states.
Among them was his geographic profile that showed Karun was living or staying as a guest near where the crimes occurred, the warrant said.
“The areas provided Karun with easy access and the ability to reconnoiter and allow for some degree of control,” the warrant stated.
Also, each victim was disrobed below the waist with her hands tied, the investigation revealed. Forensic evidence determined Kathleen’s assault had occurred in a similar fashion, the warrant said. But repeated DNA testing didn’t conclude that Karun was a contributor to evidence found at the scene, the warrant said.
Police said Karun was found illegally possession 10 guns when he was arrested on Wednesday, but Maine authorities dropped the charges so he could return to Connecticut.
The murder with special circumstances charge is an offense defined as a murder that occurred during the course of a kidnapping, sexual assault or other felony or involves the death of a child under the age of 16.
The penalty in Connecticut, if convicted, is a life sentence without the possibility of parole.