Speaker 1: Hello friends, Steve Starkton here with you today. We're going
Speaker 1: to be taking a look at a breaking case out
Speaker 1: of western Massachusetts. Join me, Let's take a walk and see.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: There's a particular kind of silence that blankets the New
Speaker 1: England neighborhood in the pre dawned hours of late summer
Speaker 1: in Worcestern, Massachusetts, where I lived for about a year
Speaker 1: when I moved here. The Commonwealth's second largest city is
Speaker 1: built on a sprawling collection of rolling hills, ould manufacturing corridors,
Speaker 1: and dense suburban pockets. Five am usually brings only the
Speaker 1: earliest commuters, the home of distant highway traffic and the
Speaker 1: slow stirring of residential streets. Wildwood Avenue is one of
Speaker 1: those quintessential Worcester streets, situated in the city's southwest corridor
Speaker 1: talk to, not far from Coast Pond and the winding
Speaker 1: tree line of Mill Street. It's a quiet residential lane
Speaker 1: where neighbors know each other, lawns are well kept, and
Speaker 1: emergencies are rare. But on the morning of Tuesday, August eighteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty six, that silence was shattered shortly before five thirty am,
Speaker 1: at approximately five to twenty eight am, According to emergency
Speaker 1: dispatch records, a call came in requesting first responders to
Speaker 1: a home on Wildwood Avenue for medical incident, reported initially
Speaker 1: as a person down. Within minutes, cruisers from the Worstern
Speaker 1: Police Department pulled up to the curb, the red and
Speaker 1: blue stroke bloods cutting through the lingering morning mist. Officers
Speaker 1: hurd through the front door, expecting a medical emergency, but
Speaker 1: what they found instead instantly transformed the quiet home into
Speaker 1: a high priority crime scene, sending shock waves straight through
Speaker 1: the ranks of the entire department. Lying deceased inside the
Speaker 1: home was fifty seven year old Kurt Solomon. Now, for
Speaker 1: the responding officers, this was not an anonymous call. Kurt
Speaker 1: Solomon was a thirty one year veteran patrolman of the
Speaker 1: Western Police Department, a fixture of the force, a trusted colleague,
Speaker 1: and a man standing just on the threshold of a
Speaker 1: hard earned retirement after more than three decades of patrolling
Speaker 1: the city streets. Now, the tragedy deepened with every passing minute.
Speaker 1: As detectives and crime scene investigators secured the perimeter, another
Speaker 1: critical reality emerged fifty eight year old Karen Solomon. Kurt's
Speaker 1: wife and the co owner of the property was gone.
Speaker 1: Not within hours, an urgent alert was broadcast to patrol
Speaker 1: units across the region. Karen Solomon was officially named a
Speaker 1: person of interest wanted for immediate questioning. By Tuesday afternoon,
Speaker 1: Worcester Police Chief Post Saucier and Worcester County District Attorney
Speaker 1: Joseph d Early Junior stood before a room packed with
Speaker 1: local and regional media, delivering a stark warning to the public.
Speaker 1: Karen Solomon was at large for whereabouts unknown, and law
Speaker 1: enforcement considered her presumed armed and dangerous. Now when someone
Speaker 1: vanishes into the thin air, investigators looked for the timeline
Speaker 1: the very last confirmed point of contact for physical reality
Speaker 1: anchors a person to a map.
Speaker 2: In the case of Karen Solomon, that.
Speaker 1: Anchor point exist as a few fleeting seconds of digital
Speaker 1: doorbell camera footage. At approximately five forty one am on
Speaker 1: Tuesday morning, scarcely thirteen minutes after the initial emergency call
Speaker 1: was dispatched from the Wildwood Avenue residence, a private surveillance
Speaker 1: camera mounted outside a local animal clinic near Mill Street
Speaker 1: and Coast Pond captured a lone figure walking down the pavement.
Speaker 1: The footage was grainy and muted in the early dawn light,
Speaker 1: but detectives quickly identified the woman as Karen Solomon. Now
Speaker 1: whatte caught the attention of both investigators in the public
Speaker 1: was her appearance. She was dressed entirely in sleepwaar casual
Speaker 1: pajama shorts, a lightweight top, and slip on flipplops. She
Speaker 1: carried no apparent luggage, backpack or over night back. She
Speaker 1: was walking alone on foot, heading toward Westcott Street and
Speaker 1: the heavily wooded Bag's bordering coast pond. She had left
Speaker 1: behind her vehicle and the standard possessions one would typically
Speaker 1: gather if planning an organized journey or long term departure. Now,
Speaker 1: seeing someone walk out into the dawn and flip flops
Speaker 1: and pajamas is the visual hallmark of an immediate, unplanned departure.
Speaker 1: Yet from the moment she walked past the camera's field
Speaker 1: of view, Karen Solomon simply vanished. Within hours, the quiet
Speaker 1: streets surrounding Mill Street, Westcott Street, and Koch Reservoir became
Speaker 1: the epicenter of an unprecedented multi agency tactical operation. A
Speaker 1: reverse nine to one one notification blared across cell phones
Speaker 1: and land lines within a two and a half mile
Speaker 1: radius of Wildwood Avenue, constructing residents to keep their doors locked,
Speaker 1: monitor their outbuildings, and immediately dial one to one one
Speaker 1: if they spotted anyone matching Miss Solomon's description. Police cruisers
Speaker 1: lined the access roads. Tactical officers wearing tactical vests and
Speaker 1: carrying long rifles moved along the perimeter of the woods. Overhead,
Speaker 1: the Massachusetts State Police air wing circled low, sweeping the
Speaker 1: dense forest canopy with forward looking infrared or clear cameras
Speaker 1: to detect any human thermal signatures in the brush. On
Speaker 1: the water, search boats and dive units from local Emergencies
Speaker 1: Response team cut through coast pond, rubbing the shallows and
Speaker 1: weed lines. Bloodhounds and K nine tracking teams worked the
Speaker 1: pavement from the last known siding on Westcott Street, searching
Speaker 1: for a scent trail that might indicate whether she had
Speaker 1: plunged into the wilderness.
Speaker 2: Or entered a waiting vehicle.
Speaker 1: Then, by nightfall on Tuesday and throughout Wednesday and Thursday,
Speaker 1: the search widened. Local police were joined by the Massachusetts
Speaker 1: State Police, the US Marshall Service, US Customs and Border Protection,
Speaker 1: and the Department of Homeland Security. Neighborhood campuses were carried
Speaker 1: out door to door with detectives asking homeowners to check
Speaker 1: their garages, sheds, cross space.
Speaker 2: And ring camera archives.
Speaker 1: Yet despite hundreds of personnel, aerial sweeps, K nine teams,
Speaker 1: and sonar scans across the water, not a single confirmed
Speaker 1: trace of Karen Solomon was recovered. Now to understand why
Speaker 1: this case has captured national media attention and stun law
Speaker 1: enforcement circles across the country, one must look at the
Speaker 1: identity and public career of Karen Solomon herself. In standard
Speaker 1: missing person in manhood cases involving the demise of a
Speaker 1: police officer, suspects are often known to the criminal justice
Speaker 1: system or operate on the fringes of society. Now, Karen
Speaker 1: Solomon was the exact opposite. She was one of the
Speaker 1: most prominent, respected, and nationally recognized advocates for law enforcement
Speaker 1: mental health in the United States. In twenty fourteen, Karen
Speaker 1: Solomon co founded first HLP First Help that stands for Honor, Educate,
Speaker 1: Lead and Prevent, a groundbreaking nonprofit organization created to break
Speaker 1: the historical silence surrounding mental health care within the law
Speaker 1: enforcement and emergency services community. For decades, police culture treated
Speaker 1: psychological strain PTSD and other mental health problems as untouchable topics.
Speaker 1: First Help became the nation's leading independent repository tracking law
Speaker 1: enforcement cases, compiling data that had previously gone and recorded
Speaker 1: by official government statistics. Organization not only track the numbers,
Speaker 1: but also provided hands on, emotional and financial support to
Speaker 1: the surviving families of follen officers advocating for mental health
Speaker 1: to receive the same dignity recognition and mental health resources
Speaker 1: as line of duty fatalities. So Karen Solomon was not
Speaker 1: merely a behind the scenes administrator. She was a public
Speaker 1: voice and the face of the movement. She was a
Speaker 1: published author. She authored widely read books inside the law
Speaker 1: enforcement community, including Hearts Beneath the Badge in twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: and The Price They Pay, exploring the invisible psychological tolls
Speaker 1: paid by patrol officers and their families. She had a
Speaker 1: national media presence. She appeared on major television broadcasts, including
Speaker 1: The Doctor Phil Show, as an expert on first responder
Speaker 1: trauma and police mental health awareness. She was a federal
Speaker 1: policy adviser. She served directly on an FBI task force
Speaker 1: charge of shaping and implementing the Federal Law Enforcement Mindal
Speaker 1: Health Health Data Collection Act, and she was a technology
Speaker 1: developed She spearheaded initiatives to develop mobile applications and crisis
Speaker 1: networks allowing officers in psychological distress to connect anonymously with
Speaker 1: peer support specialists. So you see, her entire public life
Speaker 1: was dedicated to understanding the psychological pressure points of police officers,
Speaker 1: protecting police families, and navigating the internal dynamics of law
Speaker 1: enforcement culture. Now, not a woman who spent more than
Speaker 1: a decade educating police departments nationwide on crisis intervention and
Speaker 1: mental wellness would suddenly become the target of an active
Speaker 1: police manhunt following the violent or unexplained demise of her
Speaker 1: own veteran officer her husband is a tragic paradox that
Speaker 1: has left investigators and mental health advocates stunned. Following the
Speaker 1: news of the investigation on Tuesday, First Help release the
Speaker 1: formal statement indulging the tragedy quote. Our first concern is
Speaker 1: for the officer who lost his life, his family, his
Speaker 1: colleagues in the Western law enforcement community. We extend our
Speaker 1: deepest condolences to all those affected by this tragedy end quote.
Speaker 1: Now amid the intense focus on the ongoing search for
Speaker 1: Karen Solomon, the Western community and the brotherhood of law
Speaker 1: enforcement have mourned the loss of Kurt Solomon. Kurt had
Speaker 1: dedicated thirty one years of his life to wearing the
Speaker 1: badge of the Worster Police Department, and, in a profession
Speaker 1: marked by high stress and high turnover, serving more than
Speaker 1: three decades on active patrol in an urban department is
Speaker 1: an extraordinary milestone. Indeed, his colleagues described him as a steady,
Speaker 1: reliable and deeply committed veteran officer who had earned the
Speaker 1: respective generations of younger patrolmen coming up through the ranks.
Speaker 1: Thomas Duffy, president of the New England Police Benevolent Association
Speaker 1: of the NEEPBA Local nine to one one, spoke candidly
Speaker 1: about the profound emotional weight of Kurt's demise placed upon
Speaker 1: the entire department. Quote, when you serve thirty one years
Speaker 1: with an individual, you become more than co workers, you
Speaker 1: become family. And today we lost a member of everyfort family,
Speaker 1: just a tremendous human being end quote. Then, in a
Speaker 1: broader statement released by the union leadership echoed debt sentiment,
Speaker 1: offering condolences to Kurt Solomon's two adult sons, Nicholas and Brandon,
Speaker 1: his mother Shirley, his brother's Karl and Eric, has extended
Speaker 1: circle of family and fellow officers. They said, quote thirty
Speaker 1: one years of service represents an extraordinary commitment to community
Speaker 1: and to the profession of law enforcement.
Speaker 2: Officer.
Speaker 1: Kurt Solomon answered that call for more than three decades,
Speaker 1: and his service, friendship, and dedication will not be forgotten
Speaker 1: end quote. So for the officers working the search grids
Speaker 1: around Coast Pond, the operation is personal. Every lead, every tip,
Speaker 1: and every wood thicket searched involves the case with the
Speaker 1: victim was one of their own.
Speaker 2: Now, as the.
Speaker 1: Days pass without an arrest or citing, journalists and observers
Speaker 1: have pressed local officials for basic details regarding what actually
Speaker 1: transpired inside the house on Wildhood Avenue before that Bragick
Speaker 1: nine to one one call was made at five twenty
Speaker 1: eight am, Yet the authorities have maintained strict silence regarding
Speaker 1: key pieces of fiscal evidence because of the demise has
Speaker 1: been held pending the completion of an official autopsy from
Speaker 1: the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the weapon
Speaker 1: While police have repeatedly stated that Karen Solomon has presumed
Speaker 1: to be armed. Officials have not publicly confirmed what type
Speaker 1: of weapons she may possess, or whether Officer Solomon's duty
Speaker 1: weapon or others were missing from the residents, or even
Speaker 1: the nature of the scene. Authorities have not confirmed whether
Speaker 1: others were inside the home during the early morning hours,
Speaker 1: though District Attorney Early noted in a press briefing that
Speaker 1: other individuals have been present around that time frame, declining
Speaker 1: to provide names or details.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: A major reason for this investigative silence stems from Massachusetts
Speaker 1: statutory protections. Under Massachusetts general law, specific details police reports
Speaker 1: and domestic records regarding domestic violence or demasst incidents are
Speaker 1: subject to strict privacy exemptions to protect victims and maintain
Speaker 1: the integrity of ongoing criminal proceeding. So in any high
Speaker 1: profile disappearance where person vanishes from a suburban neighborhood on foot,
Speaker 1: investigators must evaluate multiple working hypotheses as the timeline stretches
Speaker 1: from hours in to days. The working theories in the
Speaker 1: Karenslomon case fall into three primary categories. Number one, concealment
Speaker 1: in the immediate wilderness through waterways now the initial concentration
Speaker 1: of tactical assets focused on the dense woods surrounding Mill
Speaker 1: Street in the waters of Coast Pond. Coast Pond is
Speaker 1: a forty acre body of water bordered by heavy vegetation,
Speaker 1: residential plots, and marshy shorelines. If Solomon fled directly into
Speaker 1: the woods in the early morning darkness, wearing only flip
Speaker 1: flops and shorts, navigating through thick brush, thorn tickets, and
Speaker 1: rough terrain would present severe physical challenges. Starch specialists know
Speaker 1: that individuals experiencing intense secure crisis who enterdenced woodland often
Speaker 1: see commediate concealment in natural depressions, culverts, abandoned out buildings,
Speaker 1: or heavy groundcover. However, given the intensive multi day deployment
Speaker 1: of state police splear helicopters, canine tracking units, red search
Speaker 1: ground teams, and marine units, the complete absence of a
Speaker 1: scent trail or thermal signature raises the possibility that she.
Speaker 2: Did not remain in the immediate.
Speaker 1: Brush for law then two pre arranged flight, or third
Speaker 1: party transportation. Now, the surveillance footage captures Solomon walking on
Speaker 1: foot near Mill Street at five point forty one AM.
Speaker 1: One critical theory is that she walked only far enough
Speaker 1: to reach a designated pickup location, a rideshare vehicle, or
Speaker 1: even an acquaintance's vehicle parked away from Wildwood Avenue. Now,
Speaker 1: if Solomon obtained vehicle transport within fifteen to thirty minutes
Speaker 1: of leaving the house, her radius of travel expands exponentially.
Speaker 1: For example, within one hour, a vehicle traveling on the
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Turnpike, High ninety or I two ninety can reach
Speaker 1: central Connecticut, Rhode Island, or the outer boundaries of Greater Boston.
Speaker 1: Then within three to four hours, an individual could reach
Speaker 1: northern New Hampshire, Maine, Upstate New York, or the international
Speaker 1: border crossing into Canada. Now, because Karen Solomon had an
Speaker 1: extensive national professional network across multiple states through advocacy work
Speaker 1: and speaking tours, investigators are scrutinizing digital communications, phone records,
Speaker 1: and toll plaza transponder logs to determine if anyone assisted
Speaker 1: her departure from Western Massachusetts and number three an acute
Speaker 1: mental health crisis. Given Solomon's career focus on psychological trauma
Speaker 1: and the high stress nature of the events unfolding at dawn,
Speaker 1: investigators cannot rule out that she may be experiencing an acute,
Speaker 1: disordining psychological crisis of her own. When individuals experience these
Speaker 1: severe trauma or emotional breaks, their behavior often becomes erratic
Speaker 1: and unpredictable. Fling into unfamier terrain without a p your clothing, footwear,
Speaker 1: or provisions can quickly lead to hypothermia, physical injury, or exposure,
Speaker 1: particularly if an individual remains hidden in a concealed outdoor
Speaker 1: area overnight. So as the search for Karen Solomon enters
Speaker 1: its next space or into day four as this is
Speaker 1: being recorded, the case leaves behind the landscape filled with
Speaker 1: pressing questions. What occurred inside the Wildwood Avenue home between
Speaker 1: the midnight hours and five twenty eight am, What was
Speaker 1: the nature of the nine to one to one call
Speaker 1: that brought first responders to the door, What type of weapon,
Speaker 1: if any, is Karen Solmon armed with? And does she
Speaker 1: have access to financial resources, secondary identification or shelter. And
Speaker 1: how does someone dressed in sleep wear and flip flops,
Speaker 1: caring nothing, vanish from the suburban streets of massachusetts second
Speaker 1: largest city without leaving a single verifiable trace and elude
Speaker 1: all the departments that are looking for for over four
Speaker 1: days now, for the community of Worcester, for the men
Speaker 1: and women of the Worcester Police Department morning a thirty
Speaker 1: one year old brother in uniform, and for the family
Speaker 1: members seeking answers. The priority remains finding Karen Solomon. Authorities
Speaker 1: continue to urge anyone throughout New England and surrounding states
Speaker 1: to remain watchful. If you see Karen Solomon, please do
Speaker 1: not attempt to approach or engage her. Immediately dial nine
Speaker 1: to one one or contact the Worcester Police Department Detective
Speaker 1: Bureau have five zero eight seven nine to nine eight
Speaker 1: six zero six. Any tip is appreciated, no matter how
Speaker 1: small or inconsequential it may seem, it might be the
Speaker 1: one needed to break the case. Now Here's a briefcase
Speaker 1: summary and official descriptions the subject, Karen Solomon, fifty eight
Speaker 1: years old, described as a light female, approximately five to
Speaker 1: two to five to five, medium build, dark brown hair
Speaker 1: and brown eyes. Last known clothing a gray or dark
Speaker 1: top pajama shorts and dark flip flops. Sighting Tuesday, August eighteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, five point forty one am walking on
Speaker 1: foot near Westcott Street in Mill Street in Worcestern mass
Speaker 1: At this point, she has considered a person of interest
Speaker 1: and is presumed to be armed and dangerous. The investigating
Speaker 1: agencies Worcester Police Department, Massachusetts State Police, Worcester County District
Speaker 1: Attorney's Office, and the US Marshall Service. Now, as I
Speaker 1: stated when this was being recorded, there have been no
Speaker 1: further updates, but we'll let you know in the future
Speaker 1: if anything happens. And again, if you see something, say something.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening and I'll look forward to your comments.
Speaker 1: I'm Steve Stockton. I'll see a little further on down
Speaker 1: the trail. Please tell your animals I said, Hi,