Retrial for man accused in 1986 killing of 11-year-old Norwalk girl scheduled for March
Marc Karun, now 61, is accused of killing Kathy Flynn as the sixth grader walked home from school over 40 years ago.
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The former Norwalk man charged with killing an 11-year-old girl in 1986 will be retried in March.
A frail-looking 61-year-old Marc Karun appeared in Stamford Superior Court on Thursday, where Judge John Blawie scheduled jury selection to begin March 15 and evidence to start March 29. Karun's second trial comes after the first ended in a mistrial in April due to an allegation of possible evidence contamination 40 years ago.
The case dates back to September 1986 when Kathy Flynn was killed as she walked home from Ponus Ridge Middle School. The sixth grader's mother reported her missing after she failed to return. Norwalk police found Kathy's body in the woods about 100 feet off the path she used daily. She'd been strangled and sexually assaulted, according to police.
The case was cold for decades, but in June 2019, police arrested Karun on charges of murder and kidnapping, citing advancements in DNA technology.
At his first trial this past spring, jurors heard from forensic experts who linked Karun to a hair found on Kathy's body and fingernail scrapings from her autopsy. But the case never went to the jury. A few days in, the prosecution received an email from a retired Norwalk officer who said back in 1986, a state crime lab official told him Kathy was placed in a used body bag. The judge noted there was no record corroborating that but said he had to grant a mistrial to give Karun's legal team ample time to investigate the claim. It's unclear, at this point, how it will factor into the retrial.
On Thursday, Blawie also laid out deadlines for filing pre-trial motions, disclosing witnesses and holding evidentiary hearings. The case is not due to return to court until March 1.
Karun remains in custody on a $5 million bond. He was 21 at the time of Kathy’s death and on investigators’ radar early in the case because the crime resembled a previous sexual assault in which Karun was charged. In that case, the charges were reduced after the victim decided not to testify. That was just weeks before Kathy was killed.
Court documents show that in the years after Kathy’s death, Karun was convicted of multiple sexual assaults, which police said were similar to Kathy's case.
Though Karun was charged in 2019, the case took a while to get to trial, in part, because of superseding federal gun charges brought against Karun. Police said when they arrested Karun at his home in Maine, they found dozens of guns and nearly 15,000 rounds of ammunition, which Karun wasn't allowed to own because of his prior felony convictions. In 2024, he pleaded guilty to the federal charges, which allowed the homicide case to move forward.
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