The Skeleton Key Chronicles

18 hours ago

Thirty years ago tonight, Karina Holmer headed into Boston with friends for a night out and never made it home. Originally from Sweden, Karina was living in Massachusetts and working as an au pair when she met friends in the city that evening. During the overnight hours, she became separated from the group near the Zanzibar nightclub in Boston's Theater District. A bar employee later recalled being asked to help her get a cab, but when he turned around after calling for one, she was gone.

The following day, on June 23rd, a a man searching through a dumpster in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood made a horrifying discovery, the partial remains of a woman identified as Karina. That launched an investigation that would eventually become known as Boston's coldest case. Nearly three decades later, investigators are still working to fill in the gaps of Karina's final hours. They have never identified the crime scene, and other portions of her remains have never been located.

Over the years, investigators examined numerous leads and interviewed a number of people connected to the case, including a local man known as "Superman" who was among the last people seen speaking with Karina and a Boston police officer she had been dating. No one has ever been charged. Then there's the letter. Friends later said Karina had written to a friend back home in Sweden saying, "Something terrible has happened. I cannot tell you right now what it is. But I will tell you when I get home." She never got the chance.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

22 hours ago

Nearly 47 years after six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared while walking to his school bus stop in Manhattan, his case is still generating new developments. Earlier today the U.S. Supreme Court restored the conviction of Pedro Hernandez, reversing a lower court decision.

Hernandez was convicted back in 2017 in connection with Etan's disappearance. Last year, a federal appeals court ruled he should receive a new trial, but Monday's decision overturned that ruling and allowed the conviction to remain in place.

Etan's disappearance effectively changed the way Americans learned about missing children. After he went missing back in 1979, his photograph became one of the first to appear on milk cartons nationwide, bringing these cases into homes across the country. For many families, it was the first time a missing child's face became part of their daily routine.

For Etan's parent's, it means they have now spent half a century dealing with legal aspects of this case. It's mind-boggling to wrap your head around that timeline, especially considering new court decisions are still arriving all these years later.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

1 day ago

When Joyce Ann Hinson stopped calling home in late 1983, nobody knew it would take more than 40 years to learn what happened to her. Little did they know the answer to that question had been sitting in an unsolved Texas case file since 1984. That's when the body of an unidentified woman was found at Crow's Landfill west of Fort Worth. Investigators quickly concluded that foul play was involved, but they had no idea who the woman was. First years passed, then the decades. All the while the case remained unsolved, and the woman remained unidentified.

Then in 2025 the Tarrant County M.E.'s office partnered with Othram and submitted evidence from the case for advanced DNA testing. Subsequent genetic genealogy led directly to the Hinson family. They were able to locate Joyce's brother, who told them she had disappeared in late 1983. He said that Joyce frequently hitchhiked around the country and often returned to her parents' home in Tennessee before setting out again. The family's last contact with Jessica was a phone call she made home while traveling through Texas, she mentioned Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth areas. Her brother also provided the DNA sample which helped confirm what investigators had been trying to learn for decades, the unidentified woman found in Fort Worth in 1984 was Joyce Ann Hinson.

More than 43 years after Joyce disappeared, her family finally has an answer. What remains unknown is what happened to Joyce. Now investigators are working to determine who was responsible for her ending up in that Texas landfill. Anyone who knew Joyce Hinson or has information about her time in Texas during the early 1980s is encouraged to contact Tarrant County authorities.

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