Marc Karun’s murder and kidnapping trial in Stamford, Connecticut, ended in a mistrial on Monday after prosecutors disclosed an allegation that raised questions about whether evidence was contaminated in the 1986 killing of Kathleen Flynn, a sixth grader attacked walking home from her middle school in Norwalk.
The allegation, prosecutors said, came to light through an email recently provided to the case, according to the report. Prosecutors told the court that Robert Fabrizzio, a retired Norwalk police lieutenant, said he had received information shortly after Flynn’s killing from a state crime lab official that the girl had been placed in a used body bag.
Judge John Blawie, ruling on Monday, declared the mistrial because of his concerns about the evidence. Blawie also said he believed he had no choice, while indicating he would not dismiss the case, leaving open the possibility of further prosecution.
In a statement after the mistrial, State’s Attorney Paul Ferencek said prosecutors were “obviously disappointed” and said the office would work with the state crime lab and medical examiner’s office to determine whether the body-bag claim is true. He said the family members of Kathy Flynn had waited “forty years for justice” and for “some degree of closure.”
The report said Fabrizzio identified the state crime lab official as Henry Lee, the forensic scientist known for high-profile work including the O.J. Simpson case, and said Lee headed the crime lab at the time of Flynn’s killing. Lee died last month at age 87, and the report said a message left at a phone listing for Fabrizzio was not immediately returned.
Rick Green, a spokesman for the crime lab and the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection that oversees it, told the court that the claim surprised crime lab officials, and said forensic scientists from the lab stand by their trial testimony.
Karun, now 60, remains detained on $5 million bond, and his lawyer, Francis O’Reilly, declined to comment, the report said. The report also said Karun is charged in the 1986 killing, and it noted that police alleged he killed the girl on Sept. 23, 1986, and that he was later convicted in the 1980s of sexually assaulting or kidnapping four other female victims and served about 10 years in prison.
The state said police developed a case decades later using advances in DNA testing technology, and the reported similarities between Karun’s other attacks and how Flynn was killed, leading to his arrest in 2019. It also said a state forensic lab official testified last week that DNA testing on scrapings from Flynn’s fingernails showed the DNA was 22,000 times more likely to have belonged to Flynn and Karun than from the girl and another person.
The report said that shortly after Karun’s arrest, police found nearly 90 rifles and handguns at his home in Stetson, Maine, and that he was barred from having firearms as a convicted felon. It said Karun pleaded guilty to federal gun charges in 2024 and is set to be sentenced in that case in July, according to federal court records.