Police reopen 1989 hotel killing case

The precaution would be meaningless. Minutes after she checked into the Back Bay hotel on June 1, 1989, an intruder attacked the 34-year-old Florida lawyer in her room, stabbing her three times, twice in the chest and once in the neck. The assailant fled with $200 from her wallet and left her to bleed to death. No arrest was ever made.

Twenty years later, as the anniversary of Edwards's slaying approached, an old classmate who had lost touch with her when she was alive began seeking resolution about her death. Spurred by the April 14 shooting of Julissa Brisman at the Copley Marriott and the arrest of a suspect a week later, Brad MacDonald began calling on friends, colleagues, and other classmates to reach out to Boston police and tell them it is Edwards's turn for justice. Boston police said their cold case squad has reopened the investigation and is following leads.

"Here was this case that seemed to be solved so quickly," MacDonald said, referring to the arrest of Philip Markoff, the 23-year-old Boston University medical student accused of killing Brisman. "Karen's case has been going on so long because of lack of evidence . . . It just doesn't seem fair that the person who did this to her is still at large."

Edwards was killed at a time when forensic analysis was nowhere near as sophisticated as the methods used to capture Markoff, who has pleaded not guilty.

There was no e-mail exchange between her and her killer that would lead police to a computer address, no cellphone towers that would pick up calls made by a careless perpetrator. Even the video cameras at the Lenox were faulty by today's standards, according to news reports of that time; the tape made the night Edwards was killed was found to be blank.

Still, MacDonald said he hopes detectives can find something new to help break the case, and he has enlisted others in his quest. Classmates who hadn't seen Edwards since their 1972 high school graduation have e-mailed the Boston Police Department and Mayor Thomas M. Menino. The chairman of the Board of Commissioners in Pinellas County, where Edwards worked, has sent letters on behalf of a woman he never met. A former colleague who knew her two years before she was killed has also drafted a letter to Menino and Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis urging action.

"Recent new technologies and insights may well breathe life into old evidence with a resulting justice that can fill empty spaces left by Karen's tragic loss and fulfill society's obligations to call the guilty to answer," wrote James L. Bennett, a Pinellas County attorney who was friends with Edwards.

Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the department, said detectives are "pursuing several new avenues" in the case. "They are also in the process of reviewing some forensic evidence," Driscoll said.

She declined to describe the evidence. But according to news reports at the time, a bloodied knife was found on the fifth floor of the hotel, one floor below Edwards's room. Whatever evidence was recovered from it was never released to the public.

The cold case squad began reviewing Edwards's case in February, according to a letter Davis sent to MacDonald on May 11.

The squad, which Davis last year beefed up from one detective to three, has been prioritizing killings in which there is some forensic evidence that was collected at the time of the crime. Most recently, they made an arrest in the 1984 rape and killing of a Roxbury woman after linking DNA taken decades ago at the scene to a Georgia man.

Edwards's family is encouraged by the reopened investigation, but skeptical about what could come out of it.

"In my mind, I'm thinking, what is there to go back and look at?" said Kenneth Edwards, a Tampa Bay lawyer and one of Karen's four siblings. "Hopefully, they'll be able to find something because it sure ruined my parents."

Boston police did not release news of Edwards's death to the public until two days later. At the time, the Globe and the Herald quoted unnamed sources who said the department didn't want to embarrass the hotel.

Edwards's eldest brother, Allen, said the lag made him suspicious about the department's commitment to solving the crime.

"I just felt that they were more concerned about the impact on the tourist trade and the hotel than they were in getting truth out," he said.

Driscoll said detectives currently working the case are determined to crack it.

"Regardless of how much time has passed, the family is still coping with Karen's terrible death," she said. "We continue to share their desire to get Karen the justice that she deserves."

Karen Edwards was a statuesque woman with a strong build who, at 6 feet tall, towered over many men. She was also athletic and would often join her officemates for a game of volleyball.

But she never took her safety for granted and was always cautious, keeping several cans of mace in her apartment and getting two dogs, one of which weighed 150 pounds.

When she arrived in Boston with the cooler, the idea, according to her family, was to keep the food in a refrigerator that she had arranged to have waiting in her room. But when she checked in, it wasn't there. Her family believes that she allowed her attacker in believing the person was the hotel employee delivering her refrigerator.

Furious over what they alleged was inadequate security at the hotel, Edwards's parents and friends filed a lawsuit against the Lenox hotel. In 1995, a Suffolk Superior Court jury found that while security measures were lax, they did not lead to the death of Karen Edwards.

Her parents died more than two years ago. They never got over the death of their youngest child, said Allen Edwards. His sister was bright and quiet, with an open, pretty face, a wry wit, and a friendly demeanor that made everyone who met her feel comfortable almost immediately.

"She was everybody's baby," Allen Edwards said. "She was my favorite sibling . . . My sister was kind of the linchpin of the family to get everybody together for holidays, for many celebrations."

Today, he plans to visit her grave under a tree in Clearwater, where she was raised. She lies only a few yards from her parents' burial site.

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.