On Sunday June 23, 1996, a dumpster diver found the severed upper body of a young woman in the Back Bay section of Boston. The body belonged to a 20 year old Au Pair from Sweden named Karina Holmer. She was last reported being seen outside the Zanzibar nightclub located at Boylston Place. Police reports state she was was intoxicated and alone walking up Tremont Street between Bolyston and Park Street. Her employer stated she was allowed to stay at a South Boston studio on the weekends.
While Police interviewed 300 witnesses, including a BPD officer she had dated, no substantial leads developed. Adding to the investigators' frustration, the only physical evidence that police could gather was a partial fingerprint found on the inside of the garbage bag her body had been wrapped in and rope marks left around her neck. There was a person who eventually pleaded guilty in two separate cases involving decapitated victims, but police concluded the cases were not linked.