Amarillo Bar Owner Murdered in 1992, Case Remains Unsolved

Amarillo Bar Owner Murdered in 1992, Case Remains Unsolved

Amarillo Bar Owner Murdered in 1992, Case Remains Unsolved

An Amarillo bar owner is found murdered inside her home after a fire and police need your help solving her murder.

In July of 1992 fire officials responded to a fire at a mobile home next to the sneak joint on East Amarillo Boulevard.

Once the fire was put out, officials found Carolyn Karp badly burned inside her home.

“The fire was so substantial that it pretty much ruined anything that might have been of evidentiary value inside the mobile home. The big fire along with all of the water that they are using to put out the fire there really wasn’t much left to collect,” said Lt. Erick Bohannon with the Special Crimes Unit.

An autopsy later showed Karp had been shot.

Bohannon says they received a few tips at the beginning of their investigation but haven’t had any leads recently.

Looking back through the case notes there have been very few leads come in about who might have done this. There was a very small window of time that somebody saw her last to the time that the fire was reported,” said Bohannon.

Police say because her home was located to her business, robbery could have been a possible motive but in this case it is hard to tell.

“Sometimes when we go to a crime scene if robbery had been a motive that led to a homicide, but the scene was still in tact, no fire or anything like that, sometimes there are there are things we look for that make it fairly obvious that is probably the motive, in this particular case that is not able to be determined,” added Bohannon.

For now, Bohannon says they are hoping someone will come forward to help solve the murder.

“We just wait and hope that somebody will have a jolt of conscience and say you know what, I know exactly what happened and they will make that phone call,” said Bohannon.

If you know anything about the murder call the Special Crimes unit at 378-9468.