An Indian Orchard Cold Case: Who Murdered Karen Soucie? Part 1

Above: Karen and her daughter, Jenna

Karen Soucie’s car had not been moved for days and her mail was building up. “That is strange,” thought her landlord. “She rarely misses work. Is she sick? Too sick to even get her mail? Is she OK?” 

On November 3, 2000, he knocked on her door, called out, then gently turned her doorknob and noticed it was unlocked. Odd. He entered her apartment, stood in the doorway, and yelled, “Hello? Karen? Are you home?” He took a few tentative steps, calling her name a few more times. Then, after a little more exploration, he found her, dead, in a bathtub filled with water.

 

Police observed that she had no obvious injuries, there were no signs of a struggle or signs of forced entry through the door or windows. Five months later, however, the medical examiner told police that the autopsy found signs of blunt trauma to the neck and chest, so he checked off “homicide” on her death certificate.

It was one of 10 homicides in Springfield in 2000—and the only unsolved one.

Soucie, 38, lived at 22 Berkshire Street, in Indian Orchard. The 1981 Putnam High School graduate grew up on Slater Avenue in Springfield’s Boston Road neighborhood, went to Duggan Junior High School, and resided in the city all her life. A technician for Milton Bradley Co. for many years, she was divorced with a 15-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter who lived with their father in Connecticut.

 

Her daughter, Jenna Soucie-Moore and her son, Brandon, are by nature private people, but in 2020, as the 20th anniversary of their mother’s murder approached, they decided to actively advocate for their mom on social media under the hashtag #JusticeforKarenSoucie. 

Jenna shared a few details about her mom: she was naturally quiet, but also known as a “wild card, a social butterfly, and some would even say ‘party girl’ who loved to socialize,” said Jenna. She frequented local bars, family gatherings, and parties at friends’ houses. “Her social group consisted of family, old high school friends, and co-workers at Milton Bradley,” she said. She had been casually dating, but no one important enough to introduce to her family or even mention to them.

One of the things that goes with the territory regarding cold cases is the sometimes wild online chatter about them, with random people contacting victims’ relatives “with everything you can think of,” said Jenna. When someone reached out to her remembering the police showing up at a certain drinking establishment in The Orchard and asking questions shortly after the slaying, that recollection actually didn’t seem too farfetched. Karen went out a lot—she was young and single—and there were several bars in the immediate neighborhood, including the Regal Beagle (567 Main Street), Johnson’s Cafe (537 Main), Christy’s (278 Main), Solmar Restaurant (132 Main), The Rainbow Connection (186 Main), and Potbelly’s Pub (153 Main). Was it Halloween the night she was killed? Possibly. In that case, the bars would have had more patrons, even on a weeknight.

Potbelly’s was the closest to her apartment—a 10-minute walk. So Jenna is now looking for information on who hung out on a regular basis at these bars back then, including Potbelly’s—patrons who might have seen her mother, noticed who she was interacting with, and maybe remember when she left to help determine a timeline and her whereabouts on the night of her murder.

Jenna misses her mother every day, and as the case drags on year after year, she becomes even more tenacious about telling Karen’s story—the story of a loving woman whose life was cruelly cut short—in the hope that she will not be forgotten. “She doesn’t deserve to be in the dark,” said Jenna.

Jenna related a sad but yet uplifting recollection about her mother’s gentleness and compassion: at six years old, Jenna began experiencing child abuse at the hands of a stepparent, which neither parent knew about at the time. She had nightmares in which she’d wake up crying, screaming, and sweating. “My mom, without forcing me to come clean about the abuse, just drew me a bath that night,” she said. “She told me to come sit with her in the bath until I felt better. She would sit in the bath with me, in total silence, and just rub a wash cloth, gently across my back. When I felt better, I would tell her, ‘I think I’m okay now,’ and we would get back in my jammies, and go back to bed, cuddling of course. That night I woke up an additional 15 times, and every time, mom got up and drew a bath.”

 

The memory is telling not only in showing Karen’s strong maternal instincts, but also reveals her habit of soaking in the bathtub to attain calmness—and the possibility that the after the traumatic experience of being assaulted on the night of her murder, she might have gotten into a hot bath to soothe herself, and then died of her injuries. No one knows for sure about the circumstances of her death—where she was beaten, and why that door was unlocked. Jenna believes she possibly had known her killer, whom she might have been let into the apartment. That area of Indian Orchard has its share of crime nowadays, but it was even considered a rough neighborhood 23 years ago—a section of the city in which people certainly lock their doors.

The exact cause of her death is also unclear. Did the blunt trauma affect her air passages (larynx, trachea), or was there damage that caused internal bleeding? Was strangulation involved or just blows to the neck and chest? I’d think it was unlikely that she would be able to prepare for a bath if she were in respiratory distress. 

Karen's 1981 Putnam yearbook photo

When the thoughts about her mother’s last moments—and the ongoing silence about the case gets louder in her head—Jenna turns to the “sanctuary” of the porch in her own house. It reminds her of how she felt on her mother’s apartment porch, complete with wind chimes, a hammock, and a rocking chair, and hanging out with Karen. In her own home, Jenna gets to “sit” with her mother, relax, and listen to wind chimes again.

Jenna remembers her mother’s calloused “warehouse hands,” along with Karen waking her up to see the stars, laying in a field with her and seeing shapes in the clouds, and, of course, the therapeutic baths on that nightmare night, and the cuddling that followed. “She just simply was a mother comforting her daughter, showing me what she always did that made her feel better—when she struggled with her trauma too,” said Jenna. “To this day, a shower or bath can fix anything I’m going through oar at least give me a moment’s peace, and I have my mom to thank for that.”

 

But in recent years Jenna has found that it difficult to wash profound grief away, and there will never be true peace until her mother’s killer is brought to justice. Now that she is approaching her mother’s age when she died, she gains some perspective on what a short life Karen lived, and the fact that she would never see her granddaughter.

 

Jenna and Brandon came up with the idea of Hampden District Attorney issuing a press statement in 2020, on the 20th anniversary of their mom’s death, and he agreed to do it. The media release prompted some news stories, but it’s unknown how many leads it generated—or if it persuaded anyone to come forward with information. It has been a while since there has been any media coverage, and now they and their friends are pulling out all the stops. “We are a little army of people just trying to get some information,” she said. Her squadron is small, but her troops are mighty.

 

“Mom, for you, I will scream—I will get annoying,” she wrote on a recent Facebook post. “I will post and post again.”

In her quest, she contacted me, the author of the Hell’s Acres blog, and I am happy to get the word out. Karen’s family deserves some resolution. A murderer—if this person is still alive—needs to be punished.

 

There have been three different DAs since the homicide, and the original detectives that investigated the case have retired. But Jenna is optimistic that “a fresh set of investigative eyes” can bring new developments. Not only that, but now-DA Anthony Gulluni has made cold cases a priority, recently solving the decades-old murders of Danny Croteau (1972) and Lisa Ziegert (1992). Her mother’s homicide, compared to the other two, is relatively recent, as cold cases go.

 

Those with any information about the case—no matter how small, or how insignificant it may seem—should call the Springfield Police Homicide Unit at 413-787-6355. People can also provide information anonymously through Text-a-Tip by texting the word CRIMES (2-7-4-6-3-7) and typing the word SOLVE followed by the information.

Read Part 2