Kurt Sova case...

[comicbookwriter]

Has there ever been an update on this case?

If you don't remember, this was the case of the boy who went to a party and then ended up dead in a ravine about 5 days later not too far from the apartment complex where the party was.

The questions revolved around the strange events between the night of the party and the time his body was discovered.

In the UM segment, they focused on the mysterious "Susan" who threw the party and who, interestingly, did not participate in the UM investigation. Apparently, Susan changed her story several times about even knowing Kurt up to the point of admitting that Kurt was asleep in her basement the day before they discovered his body.

So they had other scenarios too:

1) He drank too much and passed out. Someone took him outside to get him air and when they came back he was gone.

2) He was supposedly seen by a friend walking near a main road and before the friend could offer a ride, Kurt - who was accompanied by a stranger - called out to someone named "Franco" who was driving a van. Kurt and the stranger got into the van. (Note: UM stories always have a sinister van, have you noticed that?)

3) Some weirdo from Detroit mentioned Kurt's death before the body was found after seeing a missing person poster. This person also went as far as sending a bouquet of roses to the female record store clerk he mentioned this to with a threat to her as well. Because Kurt's body hadn't been found yet, the police let this person go.

4) Kurt's father went to Susan's basement where Kurt supposedly had been. The father said that someone definitely had been sleeping there but there was no evidence of who.

The crazy part about this was the lack of cause of death. This is one of the strangest cases I have ever seen. But from working in social work for a little while earlier in my career, I can say that people can end up in very strange and unpredictable situations that would seem ridiculous in retrospect. Especially when outside parties try to reconstruct a sequence of events.

Most likely, I feel that Kurt got caught up with a bunch of popular, but dangerous, older people who showed him a good time and exposed him to hard drugs and possibly other unfamiliar situations. I'm guessing that Kurt had a bad reaction to a combination of drugs and alcohol and passed out. The people he was with panicked, and sent him back to Susan's apartment where he eventually died.

I don't know how the weirdo from Detroit factors into this.

CBW

[synthisislab]

I don't think there was ever an update to this case. I did see this post that MegtheEgg86 made which she got from an old article from a Cleveland paper called The Plain Dealer from 1991, which contains some more interesting info not presented in the UM segment:

Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)



October 27, 1991

WOUNDS STILL FRESH FROM SON'S DEATH ONE DECADE AGO


Author: BILL SAMMON PLAIN DEALER REPORTER

Edition: FINAL / WEST
Section: NATIONAL
Page: 1A












Article Text:

His body was cruciform, arms outstretched, head to one side, one knee slightly bent and one foot atop the other.

It was found by three boys cutting through a Newburgh Heights ravine 10 years ago tomorrow. But the passing of a decade has only served to deepen the mystery surrounding the disappearance of 17-year-old Kurt E. Sova and the discovery of his body five days later.

For Kurt's parents, Kenneth and Dorothy Sova of Cleveland's Slavic Village neighborhood, the last 10 years have seemed like 100. They said their initial suspicions that Newburgh Heights police were bungling the investigation were gradually confirmed as one by one, the police in power were brought down by charges ranging from falsifying credentials to drug trafficking.

The man who worried the Sovas the most turned out to be worst of the bunch. Robert Carras, the tiny village's only detective and the man who headed the Sova investigation, was later exposed! as a drug addict with a record of bludgeoning and stomping handcuffed prisoners. This year, he was sentenced to a prison term of six to 15 years.

Carras' investigation of the Sova case was a joke, according to those who later waded through its wreckage, including Cleveland police, the county sheriff's and prosecutor's offices, even the FBI. There were no photos of Kurt's body as it was found, no search of the house where Kurt was last seen alive and no written statements from those who were with Kurt the night he disappeared.

Even the cause of death remains a mystery. The Cuyahoga County coroner's office performed a full autopsy but could not determine what killed the perfectly healthy teen-ager.

Last year, Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecutor James A. Gutierrez asked Carras whether he had any involvement in Kurt's disappearance and death. After all, Carras once took a crime suspect to a back lot off Harvard Ave. - close to where Kurt was foun! d - and allegedly tried to provoke him into a fight.

! Carras denied any involvement in Kurt's death, Gutierrez said. Carras declined to be interviewed by The Plain Dealer for this story.

But the very thought that the man investigating their son's disappearance and death would later be questioned in the case has deeply troubled Ken and Dorothy Sova.

With the anniversary of Kurt's death approaching, the Sovas find themselves looking back to happier times when their fourth and closest son was still a vibrant part of their lives.

"Kurt was my baby," said Dorothy Sova, unable to stem her tears. "And I often blame myself for letting him remain my baby. While my older boys were adults at 12, he was still a baby at 17. He still went with me to places. He still shopped with me. He still went on vacation with us."

Yet Kurt's personality had a side he did not share with his parents. Like many teens, he was not averse to smoking marijuana or drinking booze on weekends, according to his friends.

Fr! iday, Oct. 23, 1981, was no exception. Kurt cut school and went to a liquor store, where he persuaded an adult to buy him a fifth of 190-proof Everclear, a potent liquor that since has been banned from Ohio liquor stores because it killed a Michigan man.

Kurt drank the afternoon away at his girlfriend's house, then joined a friend, Samuel C. Carroll, for a party that night at the home of Debbie Sams and her brother, Clayton. The Samses and a female roommate rented the upstairs of a double house on Harvard Ave. in Newburgh Heights.

Kurt's drinking continued at the party and he began stumbling around, knocking things over. Then, he got sick.

"The roommate asked me to please get him out of the house, so I helped him down the stairs and to the outside," Carroll said.

"We were out there about 20 or 30 minutes and it was cold out there - we were both in T-shirts," Carroll continued. "I then went to go and get the jackets upstairs. ... I got t! he jackets and went back down and he wasn't there. I was only ! upstairs about two or three minutes."

Carroll roamed nearby side streets and checked the parking lot of a J.L. Goodman Furniture Inc. warehouse, not far from where Kurt's body eventually was found. Finally, assuming Kurt had gone home, Carroll returned to the party.

"I can only guess that someone he knew picked him up because it happened that fast," Carroll said. "Someone had to pick him up in a car."

By then, Dorothy Sova already was out looking for her son, whom she had not seen since 7:30 a.m. She drove to several of Kurt's usual hangouts, but returned home alone for the first of several sleepless nights.

By dawn, the Sovas were really worried. For a thorough search, they enlisted a small army of friends and relatives, who fanned out over the ethnic, working-class neighborhood, asking anyone and everyone if they had seen Kurt. They searched alleys, ravines, even Dumpsters.

"We were in teams. We must have had 40 people looking for him! day and night," Dorothy Sova recalled.

That Sunday, Dorothy Sova filed a missing-person report with Cleveland police. Kurt's older brothers printed up fliers bearing Kurt's photo and information about his disappearance. Kurt's face went up in stores and on utility poles all over the neighborhood.

Dorothy Sova acknowledged that after finding out from Carroll about the party at the Samses' house, her family's repeated visits amounted to harassment. They recovered Kurt's jacket there but came up with nothing to aid the search.

After several days, Police Chief James F. Lukas ordered them to stay away from the house.

On Monday, an eerie occurrence at a Slavic Village record shop foreshadowed the discovery of Kurt's body. An apparently homeless man had been hanging around the shop for a couple of weeks and had bragged of having access to bodies flown into Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. He had bragged of removing shoes from the bo! dies.

On this day, the man showed up and pointed to ! a flier of Kurt taped to the window.

"He says: 'They're gonna find him and they're gonna find him in two days and they're not gonna know what happened to him,' said Judy Oros, who was manager of the store. "He was right."

The next morning, the Sovas heard that Kurt might have been sleeping on a cot in the Samses' basement. Kenneth Sova and his sons went to the house, kicked in a door and searched the basement. There was a cot, but no sign of Kurt.

Shortly before 5:30 p.m., three neighborhood boys cut behind the J.L. Goodman warehouse on Harvard Ave. and headed through some neighboring steel yards. As they passed through a ravine, they saw something that made them stop.

It was a human body lying face-up in a puddle, just a few feet from where Kenneth Sova had searched the night before. The boys ran to a workman, who summoned police.

"When we arrived there, his body was laid out like Christ on the cross," said Paul T. Grzesik, who was ! a part-time patrolman at the time. "One shoe was found nearby. We never found the other (right) shoe."

The scene at the county morgue is burned into Kenneth Sova's brain: "I said I wanted to see the body, so they pulled open the drapes," he recalled. "I felt sort of hurt because there was mud on his face and they didn't even wipe him off. He looked cold. He looked so cold. He was lying there as if to say, 'Dad, I'm so cold. Take me home.'

Kurt had a bruise on one cheek and numerous bruises on his shins. A few scratches and nicks were found on his body. But there were no bullet holes, knife wounds, needle punctures or internal injuries. The coroner's office was baffled.

Of the approximately 1,200 autopsies performed each year by the coroner's office, the cause of death eludes pathologists in one or two cases, said Cuyahoga County Coroner Elizabeth Balraj.

"You can stop the machinery without damaging the machinery," explained Dr. Lester! Adelson, who worked at the coroner's office at the time.
Ku rt had a blood-alcohol level of 0.11%, slightly higher than Ohio's legal definition of drunkenness; not nearly high enough to kill him. Tests for cocaine and LSD turned up negative. Since no one admitted witnessing foul play, the death was ruled "probable accidental."


News of Kurt's death traveled quickly through the tightly knit community. The predictions of the homeless man in the record store had come true, sending a chill down Oros' spine.

To make matters worse, when Oros arrived at the record store Thursday morning, a neighboring merchant gave her a bouquet of flowers left for her by the man.

"There was a note in it," Oros recalled. "It said: 'Roses are red, the sky is blue. They found him dead and they'll find you, too.'

By the time the man showed up at the store again, Oros had alerted Cleveland police, who sent two detectives.

"They took him outside and were sitting in their car with him," Oros recalled. "They checked! him out. They told me he was just some wacko from Detroit."

The man was released and Oros never saw him again. The man was never interviewed by Newburgh Heights police.

Newburgh Heights police never talked with Angeline Reddicks, either. She says she saw two males dragging what appeared to be an unconscious teen-age boy toward the ravine where Kurt's body later was found.

"I seen them taking a boy down the alley. It was just before Halloween," said Reddicks, who said she witnessed the scene one afternoon from a window in her house on Washington Park Blvd. "One foot was barefoot. I'm almost sure it was the right one. I figured: 'Couple teen-agers with a couple beers too many and they're probably trying to sober up.'

A few days later, Reddicks learned that Kurt's body had been found in the ravine. But she said she never told police what she saw because her husband told her, "You know, Mom, we gotta mind our business."

More th! an a year later, Reddicks by chance met Kenneth Sova on a stre! et and r elated what she had seen. Dorothy Sova said she passed Reddicks' information to the Newburgh Heights police, but Reddicks never heard from them. She said the only officers who interviewed her were sheriff's detectives in 1989.

"I'm not surprised they (Newburgh Heights police) didn't interview her," Dorothy Sova said. "They didn't interview half the people who came to me with stuff. Carras kept playing me off as the mother who would not accept her son's death."

The death she accepts. But she is tortured by unanswered questions: Where was Kurt during the five days between the party and the discovery of his body? How did he die? How did his body end up in the ravine?

She tirelessly tracks down rumors about Kurt that still swirl through the neighborhood's taverns and around its street corners. She seizes upon shreds of information on similar deaths in Greater Cleveland.

One death right in the neighborhood less than four months later bore a st! riking resemblance to Kurt's case. The body of 13-year-old Eugene C. Kvet, who lived one block north of the Sovas, was found in a Cleveland ravine off Harvard Ave. Eugene's right shoe also was missing.

The autopsy findings said Eugene died from falling into the ravine.

Undaunted by this and many other dead ends, Dorothy Sova has succeeded in getting four law enforcement agencies to reinvestigate Kurt's case. But each has come up empty. The trail is too cold.

"The initial investigation done by the Newburgh Heights police was a joke. A joke," said Gutierrez, who reopened the case for the prosecutor's office last year. "If I had known about some of this stuff earlier, I probably would have indicted some people on dereliction of duty. There was no police investigation whatsoever. It was unbelievable. The people who ran Newburgh Heights, from a law enforcement perspective, in the early '80s ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Police Chief L! ukas disagreed.

"I felt it was a pretty good investi! gation, based on the fact that we really didn't have a lot to go on. Nobody would even talk," Lukas said last week. "We didn't have a cause of death and that was the biggest problem. If they would have at least given us a cause of death, we would have had something to go on."

The Newburgh Heights police file on Kurt's case contains four Polaroid photos of Kurt's body after it had been loaded on a stretcher and was about to be placed in an ambulance. Asked why the file holds no photos of Kurt's body as it was found, a routine police practice, Lukas said: "I know there were photos taken. I'm almost positive there were photos."

Asked why no forensics specialists were called to the crime scene, Lukas said: "You've got to remember one thing: We were a small police department. We didn't have no forensics specialist."

Other law enforcement agencies say the tiny force should have asked Cleveland to send a specialist to the scene. Dorothy Sova said Newburgh Heig! hts rejected an offer of help from Cleveland police immediately after the body was found.

Asked why his officers did not obtain a search warrant for the Samses' house, where Kurt was last seen alive, Lukas said: "We had no reason to search it."

Eighteen months after the death, Dorothy Sova persuaded Cleveland Police Detective Al Figler to investigate the case. The first thing Figler wanted was the case file.

"When I went to talk to Carras, there must have been three or four pieces of paper thrown in a manila folder with four Polaroids," said Figler, who spent eight years working on the case. "It was a joke. Basic detective work would demand more documents than that."

The FBI also opened an investigation of the Sova case last year when the agency charged Carras with brutally beating five crime suspects. One of those suspects was Eric Kotonski, whom Carras arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. Kotonski said that when he refused to s! urrender his car keys, Carras bashed him in the head with a fl! ashlight .

Carras later picked up Kotonski at the hospital to drive him back to the Newburgh Heights police station. But he made an unexpected stop and tried to taunt the handcuffed prisoner into another fight, Kotonski said.

"He took me behind J.L. Goodman Furniture," said Kotonski, referring to the Harvard Ave. warehouse near where Kurt's body was found. "But I wouldn't get out of the car. I had already been beaten up once and I wasn't going to go through it again."

The five beatings for which Carras was convicted all occurred in 1988 and 1989. But prisoners weren't all he abused. There also was Percocet, a potent and addictive painkiller. Last year, Carras was convicted on 76 counts of aggravated drug trafficking and illegal processing of drug documents.

Carras was fired from the Newburgh Heights Police Department in January.

Five months before that, Lukas was permanently banned from law enforcement for helping to arrange phony polic! e credentials for a Newburgh Heights dispatcher.

That was not Lukas' first crime conviction. In 1984, he pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty for allowing gambling at a party where he was working while off duty.

But Lukas said his run-ins with the law should not reflect on his handling of the Sova case.

"That's not even fair. What happened was completely unrelated," Lukas said. "That's the only part I take offense to. That (Sova) case was handled on the up and up."

Not according to the Sheriff's Department, the only agency still actively investigating the case.

"It's kind of been botched since the beginning," said Detective Sgt. Don Mester. "We had a very difficult time getting records from Carras and the Newburgh Heights Police Department. But as long as I'm here, we'll consider the case open."

Carras has refused to be interviewed by the Sheriff's Department, Mester said. But Mester and his partner, Detective Len! Smith, are pursuing the probe and have conducted several othe! r interv iews in recent weeks.

And the Sovas keep waiting for answers.

"It has taken 10 years of our lives. It has literally crushed our family," Dorothy Sova said, clutching an armful of files she has accumulated on the case. "Sometimes I think I should just take all this stuff and throw it in the fire and get on with my life. But you can't go on with your life because you're constantly hearing different things about it."

As the tears returned, Dorothy Sova caressed the yellowed, dog-eared birth certificate imprinted with Kurt's infant footprints.

"I rememember all the good things, the fun things about him," Dorothy Sova said. "Oh, God, he was just a lovable boy."

Caption:
PHOTOS BY: PD/GUS CHAN

PHOTO 1: Dorothy Sova with her dog, Holli, and a photo of her son, Kurt, when he was 15. Mystery still shrouds Kurt's death 10 years ago.

PHOTO 2: ROBERT CARRAS: His investigation of Kurt E. Sova's death has been criticized by other officials, and Carras himself was questioned.





Copyright 1991, 2002 The Plain Dealer. All Rights Reserved. Used by NewsBank with Permission.
Record Number: 06300093

Which I saw on this page/thread not too long ago: http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=165453&page=8


It seems the cops majorly dropped the ball on this one.

[hostedbyrobertstack]

I am now beginning to wonder, What was the cause of death? liike many people, I thought maybe something to do w/ alcohol. However, after reading that article, I had no idea that he skipped school that day and was drinking Everclear all day at his girlfriend's house. This obviously goes to show that he HAD drank before and that nothing had previously happened (your first time drinking isn't during the day while skipping school.)

I am just really wondering what it could have been though, maybe a reaction of alcohol with something else? And what about the woman who saw the teenagers taking him into the ravine (she said in the afternoon? seems strange) I wish they would reinterview some of those people now, including her.

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

How about the "crazy from Detroit" saying, "Nobody's gonna know how he died." Didn't the autopsy fail to find a cause of death? Alcohol or other intoxication should have been spotted.

[Apostapler]

Why did they test only for cocaine and LSD? There are plenty of other drugs which, when combined with alcohol, can cause death.

[rubber4532]

who was the mysterious susan mentioned on the UM segment? was she the room-mate?

[Mastermind]

All evidence points to Kurt being intentionally placed in the quarry.

Someone knew he was either dead or in distress. That person(s)excaserbated and contributed to Kurt's death.

[CanadianUMFan]

This was just on Spike at 2 am and I feel as creeped out by it now as the first time that I saw it. I hope that one day we find out what happened here but I am not optimistic.

[MegtheEgg86]

All evidence points to Kurt being intentionally placed in the quarry.

Someone knew he was either dead or in distress. That person(s)excaserbated and contributed to Kurt's death.

I agree. But what bothers me is that that particular area was actually rather well-frequented--children played there and workers were often in the vicinity (there was a warehouse in front of the ravine). I've traveled through Newburgh Heights more than a few times, and it really surprised me initially how many people utilize the sidewalks, walking to get to where they need to be. I imagine this was even more so the case in 1981. Why place a body in an essentially high-traffic area? Whoever put him there had to know he was going to be found.

[Steve W.]

(Warning: this is a long post.)

(I discount the Eugene Kvett connection. It was believed that Eugene fell into the ravine. I also believe that the "crazy from Detroit" had no connection. The "crazy" wrote that the record-store lady would be found dead in the near future (in October 1981) and she never was, she stayed alive, so I think he was just "crazy".)

(I read about someone claiming to have a bad allregic reaction while drinking everclear when researching it online and believe that somethng similar may have happened to Kurt.)

Here's my 2 theories of what might have happened to Kurt:

1. Kurt had an allergic reaction to everclear or some other alcohol he was drinking or an undetected heart defect and passed out or fell into a coma either shortly after getting to the party or after being at the party for a little while. Most everyone at the party freaked out, unsure of what was happening to Kurt, and they picked him up and put him in the basement cot. When asked by Kurt's parents and visited by Kurt's parents in the following days, they lied about having a party and never told them that he was in the basement when they visited, fearing punishment if Kurt's parents found him there. The people at the house possibly tried to wake Kurt or bring him back to health and were unsuccessful. Kurt passes away on Monday 10/26/81 or Tuesday 10/27/81. The people at the house realize it and two guys there move his body on Tuesday (10/27) or Wednesday (10/28) afternoon/early evening. One of the girls at the house, "Susan" and/or Debbie Sams, calls Kurt's parents house at approximately 3:30 AM on 10/28 and tells them that she thinks Kurt's sleeping in the basement to try and misdirect Kurt's parents from finding him. David Trusnick's eyewitness account ends up being inaccurate and some kids alert the authorities finding Kurt's body in the ravine on Wednesday afternoon/early evening (10/28/1981).

2. Kurt ends up rebelling and not coming home after the Friday night party and goes on "roadies" and stuff with people he met for the first time at the party for a few days. David Trusnick's eyewitness account ends up being accurate and Kurt ends up trying drugs on Monday morning/afternoon that he wasn't tested for in his later autopsy. Kurt passes away from those drugs on late Monday or Tuesday and the people that Kurt was with drive back to the party house at some point and put Kurt in the basement on Monday night or early Tuesday. Two guys move his body to the ravine on Tuesday or Wednesday and "Susan" and/or Debbie Sams thinks that Kurt's in the basement for some reason (maybe she was working and the guys didn't tell her that they moved his body when she got back from work) and decides to call Kurt's parents at approximately 3:30 AM on Wednesday. And then Kurt's body is found Wednesday afternoon/early evening.

[Apostapler]

If he wasn't tested for other drugs, why couldn't they have exhumed the body and done more testing? That's what puzzles me.

[Steve W.]

If he wasn't tested for other drugs, why couldn't they have exhumed the body and done more testing? That's what puzzles me.

Maybe he can still be exhumed. But all possible traces of other drugs would not be found in him after 28-and-a-half years, right?

I always get the feeling that his parents and family were not assertive enough in trying to get to the bottom of this. I know the Newburgh Heights police did not help AT ALL, but the parents still could have been more persistent. They should take the iniative and have him exhumed to see if a new forensic pathologist (maybe a well-known one like Dr. Michael Baden) can find anything that the original pathologist did not find back in October/November 1981.

If I knew where the people involved in this case were (Kurt's friend he supposedly went to the party with Samuel C. Carroll, Kurt's girlfriend, whose name is not given in any articles, Debbie Sams, Clayton Sams, "Susan", "Franco") I would interrogate the he** out of them. The parents should have done that back then. The people involved needed someone intimidating to interrogate them.

[MegtheEgg86]

Maybe he can still be exhumed. But all possible traces of other drugs would not be found in him after 28-and-a-half years, right?

I always get the feeling that his parents and family were not assertive enough in trying to get to the bottom of this. I know the Newburgh Heights police did not help AT ALL, but the parents still could have been more persistent. They should take the iniative and have him exhumed to see if a new forensic pathologist (maybe a well-known one like Dr. Michael Baden) can find anything that the original pathologist did not find back in October/November 1981.

If I knew where the people involved in this case were (Kurt's friend he supposedly went to the party with Samuel C. Carroll, Kurt's girlfriend, whose name is not given in any articles, Debbie Sams, Clayton Sams, "Susan", "Franco") I would interrogate the he** out of them. The parents should have done that back then. The people involved needed someone intimidating to interrogate them.

Weren't "assertive enough"? Did you not read that article synthisislab reposted a few posts back?

Dorothy Sova had followed tons of leads on her own, amounting to stacks of files by 1991. I'd be more than willing to bet there's been more than considerable addition to those since then.

Did you not consider that maybe the Sovas couldn't afford a lawyer to make a case for exhumation, or a "high profile" forensic pathologist (who do definitely charge for their services) to examine Kurt's body? Newburgh Heights, OH isn't exactly the nation's greatest concentration of wealth.

If any party is to blame, it's by far the Newburgh Heights Police Department, whose shoddy initial investigation work is utterly disturbing to consider. It certainly didn't help that the lead detective was a pill-popping and -dealing loon who was fired from his own organization for his illicit activities, not to mention a 1988 police brutality scandal. The Sovas have already gone far and beyond what so many families and friends of victims do, because they HAD to. Their son's death was improperly handled by the authorities. One certainly can't expect them to do the work of an entire investigatory agency. To accuse them of being lacksidasical about what happened to Kurt is absolutely ludicrous.

[wiseguy182]

while I feel alot of the supposed eyewitness accounts on UM are completely bogus, I always thought one of the more believable ones was Kurt Sova's friend. And I say that for 2 reasons.

1. Whereas alot of the other eyewitness accounts are from people that have never known the person they claimed to see, this is Kurt's friend. someone that knew him. someone that knew what he looked like. I think it would be highly unlikely that a friend would be mistaken, and he certainly wouldn't have offered the person a ride if it wasn't him.

2. Kurt's friend saw him on a Monday I believe. The last confirmed sighting of Kurt was the previous Friday, but that does not necessarily mean he died on the Friday, so Kurt's friend's sighting is possible.

With that being said, this case has a creepy Jennifer Pratt quality to it, in that I get the nagging feeling that not just one, but many people know what really happened to Kurt, but aren't coming forward out of fear.

And I always thought the crazy from Detroit should have been examined more. He obviously knows something.

[Apostapler]

Maybe he can still be exhumed. But all possible traces of other drugs would not be found in him after 28-and-a-half years, right?



At death, all metabolic processes cease. Despite the embalming process and natural decay over time, if tissue samples were not available toxicology could still be performed on bone marrow, which would still be viable. I may be beating a dead horse here, but unless there are records proving he was tested for other toxic substances, it would still be a possibility after 28 years.

[rubber4532]

whoah u mean the cops let the crazy from detroit go after kurt's body was found? wow they really dropped the ball on that one.

[Mastermind]

whoah u mean the cops let the crazy from detroit go after kurt's body was found? wow they really dropped the ball on that one.

Did they really have any evidence to hold him?

[kane7474]

There is no real mystery here at all other then how the world the police get away with conducting such a terrible investigation. Someone in the dept should be held accountable for the crime they committed against the Sova family.

We have witnesses that where with Sova before he died, we have a woman whom admits Kurt was in her home, we have another witness claiming to have seen Kurt after he was reported missing.

There is just so much here that the police dropped the ball on. Kurt had a reaction to something, either a drug he took or alcohol poinsing or a combination of the two. He may have went into a coma and they tried to let him sleep it off and he ended up dying.
They panicked and placed his body in the ravine because they didnt want to get caught up in any investigation as most drug users dont. I think the story was made up by his friend who claims he went to get a coat and Kurt disappeared. I think think this guy and the woman named Susan know exactly what happened to Kurt and any decent detective could have gotten this information from them.

[kane7474]

Did they really have any evidence to hold him?
Sure they did, he openly said he had information about a missing person. So the police question him and dont even know his name???? They didnt get any contact info on him just in case Sove did turn up dead??? Are we to assume the police question a guy in relation to the dissaperance of someone and the guy refuses to give his name and address and the police just say ok and let him go? You have to be kidding me.

[n8riley]

I am not proud of it but I have in the past had experience with most drugs and i'll tell you I never had "everclear" it is hardcore if your drinking that you've had experience with drug and alchol the fact he was drinking this says two thing 1) he more then likely did not die from a hart condition the chance it happened this time I think is low 2) a theory people love on this board someone drank a spiked drink people don't do that they charge you $$$ drug dealers tend not to be the generous type. Drug testing does not test for say heroin it test for morphine instead heroin paces though the blood/brian barrier a twice the rate of morphine and so when they said they tested for LSD and cocaine I would say they dropped the ball, with LSD almost no one dies from it they die from something they do on it and testing for cocaine thats good but why not test everything they could do like 6 tests for certain chemicals that would clear 90% of drugs as most are just different combinations like amphetamine and an oxygen and hydrogen dut when taken most break down into the same couple chemical according to the type of drug. I think it was murder he was with less then honorable people. Because most people of Susan ilk cant keep there mouth shut I think it could not have happened in the duplex @ the party but I do believe the story of him going out side and that where I think the truth ends it nice how when the last time he is seen the witness writes himself out of the story. Franco is interesting and so is the crazy to write one off is easy but both I don't think so. I think the crazy is the key and he knew kurt was dead of course the police write him off as a crazy else they would have to say a guy that just about confessed tot hey let go!!! or the head detective killed kurt and knew he was crazy because he did it from what the articals say it sound like he is a psycho.

[Steve W.]

What pathologist that does an autopsy (Lester Adelson in this case) thinks that he's tested the body for enough drugs just by looking for three kinds???

There's literally hundreds of thousands of drugs, why would he only test for three of them?!

[baloony]

bump. Excellent article on page 1 of this thread.

[annoulzz]

I watched the case today on Lifetime, and i definitely think that crazy man was onto something when he said that Sova was dead. He may have been there when he was murdered or else how would he have known?

[Tao]

I watched the case today on Lifetime, and i definitely think that crazy man was onto something when he said that Sova was dead. He may have been there when he was murdered or else how would he have known?


Well, there are conflicting stories about when he sent the flowers and note. The Unsolved Mysteries segment makes it sound like he did before Kurt was found, but an article (think it was on pge 8 of this or another thread about Kurt on here) gives the day as Thursday which was after Kurt was found.

Granted the 'crazy's' first statement was before the fact 'you might as well take it [the poster] down. They're gonna find him dead in two days. No one's gonna know how he died' and is pretty suggestive. However, do we even know that was word-for-word what he said? Eyewitness accounts on this show have been proven inaccurate over and over. What he actually said may not have been as definite. He may have just made a good guess 'they're going to find him dead soon' or something. Which is a pretty good guess as many missing people are found dead.

Apparently he didn't sound convincing to the cops that questioned him. And if he really knew something, would he risk volunteering it like that?

I don't discount the idea entirely he may have heard/saw something about what happened to Kurt, but I always tended to think he was just a red herring.

[1990 UM fan]

I'm bothered by the fact that someone Kurt knew turned up dead in exactly the same matter as Kurt did, this being Eugene Kvet. I don't understand why Eugene was allegedly killed, unless the same person murdered both or someone completely different murdered Eugene, but I doubt that. Did they ever give the autopsy report on Eugene Kvet?

[MegtheEgg86]

I'm bothered by the fact that someone Kurt knew turned up dead in exactly the same matter as Kurt did, this being Eugene Kvet. I don't understand why Eugene was allegedly killed, unless the same person murdered both or someone completely different murdered Eugene, but I doubt that. Did they ever give the autopsy report on Eugene Kvet?

No. Eugene Kvet is something of a mystery within a mystery. While his death has always bothered me too, I always had the impression that if the deaths were very similar--i.e., no definitive cause could be ascertained--that would've been revealed in the segment. It would've been just too much to NOT say.

The last time I did any real digging on this case was quite a few years ago. I wonder if anyone would have better luck finding any old articles on Eugene Kvet now.

[DarkDante]

No. Eugene Kvet is something of a mystery within a mystery. While his death has always bothered me too, I always had the impression that if the deaths were very similar--i.e., no definitive cause could be ascertained--that would've been revealed in the segment. It would've been just too much to NOT say.

The last time I did any real digging on this case was quite a few years ago. I wonder if anyone would have better luck finding any old articles on Eugene Kvet now.

I think Eugene Kvet is an unnecessary addition to this case. I don't know if the cases are related and the missing shoe angle in both cases is intriguing but to me given our research in this case from digging up old articles as well as what we can infer given the evidence put forth in the segment it's pretty clear what happened.

Kurt Sova likely had some type of negative reaction to some type of substance he was given at the party at Susan's house and the people who were with him at the party instead of getting him treatment tried to nurse him back to health gradually over a period of several days.

At some point Kurt obviously expired, more than likely in the basement of the duplex where he may have been kept for the duration of his unsuccessful convalescence. I believe at this point the parties involved in monitoring Kurt's situation made the decision to phone his parents to collect the body of their now deceased son but as Mrs. Sova states they panicked and instead dumped his body in the ravine which was allegedly witnessed by a neighbor if I'm remember correctly.

Which only leaves us with the purported sighting of Kurt Sova with the mysterious "Franco" in the days following his "disappearance". On the contrary I don't think Kurt was ever missing. I think he was in that duplex from the time he attended the party until he was carried out into the ravine. I think it's quite possible that the sighting of Kurt with "Franco" could have been a mistake although the fact that we do have voice identification does lead some credence to this sighting.

However, my feeling still remains that Kurt was incapacitated at the party and any stories of him leaving the duplex whether be leaning up against a fence or being out and about in the community are by and large either fabrications or just incorrect in general.

[Steve W.]

I agree with DarkDante. Kurt had skipped school and been drinking that day (according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer article from 1991) and maybe he saved the Everclear he had gotten for the party that night. Regardless, he either drank too much and had a reaction to alcohol or possibly some other drug at the duplex, fell unconscious at some point at the duplex, and eventually died at the duplex, IMO. The people that lived there should have been charged with gross negligence and also the two guys (not sure if they lived there or were just associates of the people that lived there) that moved his body should have been charged as well.

Eugene Kvet was found in a different part of the ravine (at the bottom of a steep hill). It is believed he either fell or was pushed over the steep hill by some troublemakers.

I don't think their deaths are related. These occurrences were in a section of Cleveland. There's a lot of people around so a lot of different things can happen to a lot of different people.

[DarkDante]

I agree with DarkDante. Kurt had skipped school and been drinking that day (according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer article from 1991) and maybe he saved the Everclear he had gotten for the party that night. Regardless, he either drank too much and had a reaction to alcohol or possibly some other drug at the duplex, fell unconscious at some point at the duplex, and eventually died at the duplex, IMO. The people that lived there should have been charged with gross negligence and also the two guys (not sure if they lived there or were just associates of the people that lived there) that moved his body should have been charged as well.

Eugene Kvet was found in a different part of the ravine (at the bottom of a steep hill). It is believed he either fell or was pushed over the steep hill by some troublemakers.

I don't think their deaths are related. These occurrences were in a section of Cleveland. There's a lot of people around so a lot of different things can happen to a lot of different people.

Well something in this case needs to link back to the party that Kurt attended at the duplex and more importantly the people at that party. The fact that Kurt merely had a negative reaction to some substance he had taken at the party alone is not justification as to why the other people at the party did not try to get him to a hospital.

Unless of course he was given some type of illegal substance at the party by someone and then had the negative reaction to it which eventually resulted in his death some days later.

The point being there has to have been a reason why at no point was any attempt made to get Sova medical attention. I fully believe that Kurt Sova was alive for several days after he attended the party as the autopsy states. I believe he was in the basement for the duration of that time due to a failed attempt by individuals at the party to bring him back to health. The obvious question being is that if Kurt Sova was that ill, why at no point was proper medical attention sought? The only thing I can think of is during the time Kurt was missing, he was actually in the basement of the duplex and for all intents and purposes was already dead (read: non-responsive/brain dead) but hadn't actually expired.

I think another slant to this is that the people at the party realized almost from the beginning that Kurt wouldn't have been able to have been brought around so to speak by medical attention and instead of implicating themselves if they indeed were responsible for introducing the offending substance to Kurt in the first place, merely allowed him to die in the basement.

[Steve W.]

"The point being there has to have been a reason why at no point was any attempt made to get Sova medical attention. I fully believe that Kurt Sova was alive for several days after he attended the party as the autopsy states. I believe he was in the basement for the duration of that time due to a failed attempt by individuals at the party to bring him back to health. The obvious question being is that if Kurt Sova was that ill, why at no point was proper medical attention sought? The only thing I can think of is during the time Kurt was missing, he was actually in the basement of the duplex and for all intents and purposes was already dead (read: non-responsive/brain dead) but hadn't actually expired.

I think another slant to this is that the people at the party realized almost from the beginning that Kurt wouldn't have been able to have been brought around so to speak by medical attention and instead of implicating themselves if they indeed were responsible for introducing the offending substance to Kurt in the first place, merely allowed him to die in the basement."


I think that's the most likely scenario: they probably thought he was dead before he was technically dead. He must have saved that Everclear for the party after probably being at least tipsy or a little bit drunk from whatever stuff he drank earlier in the day. He probably drank large quantities of the Everclear way too quickly and that might have just made him pass out very soon after instead of him even vomiting beforehand.

The other reason they might not have tried to get him medical attention is that he might have drank some of their own stuff they had at that party (or smoked something or whatever the case that would have been from someone there) and they didn't want to be linked back to that. The guy that bought Kurt the Everclear earlier in the day possibly could have been someone he knew at that party instead of just a random stranger that bought it for him as well.

[MegtheEgg86]

I agree with DarkDante...

Eugene Kvet was found in a different part of the ravine (at the bottom of a steep hill). It is believed he either fell or was pushed over the steep hill by some troublemakers.

I don't think their deaths are related. These occurrences were in a section of Cleveland. There's a lot of people around so a lot of different things can happen to a lot of different people.

Yes, I tend to agree with DarkDante here as well. Eugene Kvet was much younger than Kurt as well, wasn't he? It doesn't seem like they'd have much in common, although it was well-reported Kurt was physically a bit on the slight side.

[rhzunam]

Well something in this case needs to link back to the party that Kurt attended at the duplex and more importantly the people at that party. The fact that Kurt merely had a negative reaction to some substance he had taken at the party alone is not justification as to why the other people at the party did not try to get him to a hospital.

Unless of course he was given some type of illegal substance at the party by someone and then had the negative reaction to it which eventually resulted in his death some days later.

The point being there has to have been a reason why at no point was any attempt made to get Sova medical attention. I fully believe that Kurt Sova was alive for several days after he attended the party as the autopsy states. I believe he was in the basement for the duration of that time due to a failed attempt by individuals at the party to bring him back to health. The obvious question being is that if Kurt Sova was that ill, why at no point was proper medical attention sought? The only thing I can think of is during the time Kurt was missing, he was actually in the basement of the duplex and for all intents and purposes was already dead (read: non-responsive/brain dead) but hadn't actually expired.

I think another slant to this is that the people at the party realized almost from the beginning that Kurt wouldn't have been able to have been brought around so to speak by medical attention and instead of implicating themselves if they indeed were responsible for introducing the offending substance to Kurt in the first place, merely allowed him to die in the basement.

There might not be any justification but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. I could see people stupidly trying to nurse him back to health and then having complications and panicking after he died.

[DarkDante]

There might not be any justification but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. I could see people stupidly trying to nurse him back to health and then having complications and panicking after he died.

It's possible but I feel that the theory I advanced is far more probable. I'll admit we probably weren't dealing with any rocket scientists either way here but I still subscribe to the theory of human decency that if all things being equal if there was any chance to get Sova help without implicating themselves, the parties in question would've gotten Kurt Sova to a hospital.

I'll admit I was by no means as smart as I would've liked to think I was as a teenager but even I would've known that I would have not been able to bring about a victim of an overdose without any proper medical training or the obvious advantages that being taken to a hospital can provide to an overdose victim. It is therefore my assumption that the individuals at this part also realized that Kurt was in dire straits but chose not to seek medical attention for him in an effort not to tie themselves in any way to his dire condition.

[wiseguy182]

I think Eugene Kvet is an unnecessary addition to this case.

huh?

you don't think UM should attempt to find the killer of a little boy? This, after just stating that animal segments were "borderline stupidity" because UM could have used the time to find a criminal or missing person?

Please explain.

[DarkDante]

huh?

you don't think UM should attempt to find the killer of a little boy? This, after just stating that animal segments were "borderline stupidity" because UM could have used the time to find a criminal or missing person?

Please explain.

I just don't think it had anything to do with the case. I certainly would champion any attempt by UM to find the killer(s) of Eugene Kvet but personally have never felt that his death is in any way related to Kurt Sova except for the fact they happened in the same community and both involved a missing shoe which in the case of Sova could just boil down to the fact that in the haste of moving his body from one location to another the missing shoe was left behind or perhaps couldn't be found to begin with.

Personally I would like to know more about the Eugene Kvet case and would be willing to amend my statement that the insertion of Kvet into this segment was unnecessary if a correlation between both cases could be proven.

Alternatively I wouldn't have minded if Eugene Kvet had gotten his own "Unsolved Mysteries" segment where they could've delved more into the back story of his death where we could examine his case on it's own merits. Indeed, the only mentions of Kvet that I have ever been able to find are as almost postscripts to the Sova case.

So in the spirit of that, I'm going to start a Eugene Kvet thread.

[wiseguy182]

I think "Franco" is like most eyewitnesses on UM: He is mistaken. I doubt Kurt was alive at that point, and if he was, he certainly wasn't up and about and hitching rides with people. I think the fact that Kurt didn't acknowledge him when Franco called for him tells a person everything they need to know.

One thing about this case though: I don't think anybody at the party ever denied Kurt's presence there. That seems to dispel the theory of some huge cover-up. I think if there was a huge cover-up involving a lot of people, the smarter thing for them to do was state Kurt never showed up at the party in the first place. Heck, his mother seemed to be unawares, so that would jibe with that. Given the volume of people at the party (it must have been high - pun not intended), it seems someone would have blabbed by now. But I really don't know what to think.

But I can understand why nobody was charged. There were a lot of people at the party and it would be darn near impossible to say who had what involvement in it. Who gave him the the drinks/drugs illegagly, who moved the body, etc. I doubt we'll ever know. It can't even be disproven that Kurt may have tried to walk home on his own accord and died from the elements. The cause of death was undeterminable after all.

One weird thing though: wasn't he found shirtless? And no shoes? This was in November in Ohio, which is not warm. Even being in someone's basement at that time of year he probably would have froze his nurples off.



Something just doesn't add up.

[DarkDante]

I think "Franco" is like most eyewitnesses on UM: He is mistaken. I doubt Kurt was alive at that point, and if he was, he certainly wasn't up and about and hitching rides with people. I think the fact that Kurt didn't acknowledge him when Franco called for him tells a person everything they need to know.

One thing about this case though: I don't think anybody at the party ever denied Kurt's presence there. That seems to dispel the theory of some huge cover-up. I think if there was a huge cover-up involving a lot of people, the smarter thing for them to do was state Kurt never showed up at the party in the first place. Heck, his mother seemed to be unawares, so that would jibe with that. Given the volume of people at the party (it must have been high - pun not intended), it seems someone would have blabbed by now. But I really don't know what to think.

But I can understand why nobody was charged. There were a lot of people at the party and it would be darn near impossible to say who had what involvement in it. Who gave him the the drinks/drugs illegagly, who moved the body, etc. I doubt we'll ever know. It can't even be disproven that Kurt may have tried to walk home on his own accord and died from the elements. The cause of death was undeterminable after all.

One weird thing though: wasn't he found shirtless? And no shoes? This was in November in Ohio, which is not warm. Even being in someone's basement at that time of year he probably would have froze his nurples off.



Something just doesn't add up.

I believe he had his shirt on and was missing one shoe (his right?) which I've always ascribed the fact that as he was being transported from the basement to the ravine, the shoe popped off somewhere and the people who put him down there certainly weren't going to return to the ravine a second time to dump the missing shoe as well. They probably just discarded it somewhere.

If you read the other thread on the Kurt Sova case that is far more detailed than this one, there is a post allegedly by an individual who grew up with the Sova brothers and was aware of the scene that they all grew up in. According to this individual the town of Newburgh Heights, Ohio at the time was littered with drugs and the Sova brothers all partook in the drug scene although not in any manner in which to say they were addicts or anything like that.


I don't think there is a huge-cover up in this case either. In fact I think perhaps only a small handful of people know exactly what happened to Kurt at that party that night in terms of what exactly caused his death. But that being said I still stand firm in my belief that it was individuals at the party that kept him near-death for several days after the party and then when he expired transferred his body down to the ravine. I think the eyewitness account from the woman who witnessed two teenagers carrying another teenage boy with a missing shoe down towards the ravine in the days after Kurt Sova vanished is very credible. Sova didn't die in that ravine, someone placed him there and that person or parties probably has intimate knowledge as to the cause of his death.

[Steve W.]

"One weird thing though: wasn't he found shirtless? And no shoes? This was in November in Ohio, which is not warm. Even being in someone's basement at that time of year he probably would have froze his nurples off."


It was in October 1981, but I get your point.

Kurt had on a yellow sleeveless T-shirt, blue jeans, and had a jacket with him (probably had it on earlier in the day and took it off at the duplex) when he went to the duplex party on Harvard Avenue. Samuel Carroll, Kurt's "friend", used the whole Kurt's-mom-getting-his jacket-back to fabricate that whole story about Kurt going outside drunk and Samuel going to get Kurt's jacket and Kurt wandering off, IMO. I don't think Kurt ever had that kind of moment that night. I think he just drank way too much (probably the Everclear he bought with who knows what else) too fast and went into a coma.


To another poster above, Eugene Kvet was a teenager at the time of his death. For some reason, Unsolved Mysteries just showed a photo of him several years before his death when he was a child (maybe his family or even schools didn't take a lot of photos ?).

[DarkDante]

"One weird thing though: wasn't he found shirtless? And no shoes? This was in November in Ohio, which is not warm. Even being in someone's basement at that time of year he probably would have froze his nurples off."


It was in October 1981, but I get your point.

Kurt had on a yellow sleeveless T-shirt, blue jeans, and had a jacket with him (probably had it on earlier in the day and took it off at the duplex) when he went to the duplex party on Harvard Avenue. Samuel Carroll, Kurt's "friend", used the whole Kurt's-mom-getting-his jacket-back to fabricate that whole story about Kurt going outside drunk and Samuel going to get Kurt's jacket and Kurt wandering off, IMO. I don't think Kurt ever had that kind of moment that night. I think he just drank way too much (probably the Everclear he bought with who knows what else) too fast and went into a coma.


To another poster above, Eugen Kvet was a teenager at the time of his death. For some reason, Unsolved Mysteries just showed a photo of him several years before his death when he was a child (maybe his family or even schools didn't take a lot of photos ?).

It's also possible that UM didn't attain the family of Eugene Kvet's cooperation in putting together the segment which is why they only had access to the picture that they did. Perhaps maybe even the Sovas provided the photo of Kvet to UM that they ended up using?

If you read the other more detailed thread on this case, you'll note a post by crystaldawn where she states that she had some interaction with a friend of Kvet who stated that Kvet's death could've been linked to gang violence. According to this individual both himself and Kvet were being harassed by gang members around the time of Kvet's death

This individual mentioned that both he and Kvet used to ditch school together regularly and meet up near the area where Eugene's body was eventually found. In fact according to this individual, the cause of Eugene's death was that he went to the ravine (or "the falls" as he described it) and apparently fell in. He mentioned that he was supposed to have accompanied Eugene to the ravine on this occasion but ultimately decided not to.

[wiseguy182]

Yep, a yellow sleeveless shirt. I just rewatched the segment. Perhaps I was getting him mixed up with another Kurt....Kurt Mcfall.

I don't know, that one partiers statement that he discovered Sova passed out and took him outside to get fresh air and left him hanging on the fence, and went to get his jacket and when he came back Sova was gone doesn't sound implausible to me. Sova was found without his jacket, so I don't think it's entirely impossible that he wandered off. A huge question is where is that jacket?

One thing that leads me to believe that nobody at the party killed Kurt was that "Susan" called the Sova residence at 3:30 in the morning on the day he would be found and stated Kurt was sleeping in her basement, which prompted Kurt's dad to go over there. If anyone living at the apartment was guilty of Kurt's death, I can't imagine they would practically ask for the crime scene to be investigated like that. And even though Kurt wasn't there when his dad got there, the dad was still able to go through things.

I think we're missing a huge piece of the puzzle on this one.

[Steve W.]

"I don't know, that one partiers statement that he discovered Sova passed out and took him outside to get fresh air and left him hanging on the fence, and went to get his jacket and when he came back Sova was gone doesn't sound implausible to me. Sova was found without his jacket, so I don't think it's entirely impossible that he wandered off. A huge question is where is that jacket?"


That was Kurt's "friend" Samuel Carroll that stated that. That's probably why they used that story: because it seems possible but I believe it was fabricated so the authorities wouldn't be as inclined to trace him back to the duplex (where I believe he was the whole time) and would go looking around for him instead.

Kurt's mom recovered his jacket the first time she went over to the duplex to investigate. The people there must have decided to stick to that story and let her find that, but didn't let her find Kurt in the basement (or wherever they were hiding him).



"One thing that leads me to believe that nobody at the party killed Kurt was that "Susan" called the Sova residence at 3:30 in the morning on the day he would be found and stated Kurt was sleeping in her basement, which prompted Kurt's dad to go over there. If anyone living at the apartment was guilty of Kurt's death, I can't imagine they would practically ask for the crime scene to be investigated like that. And even though Kurt wasn't there when his dad got there, the dad was still able to go through things."


The only thing I could think of why she would do that is that she felt guilty of about letting him die there. However, I think she or the other people living there (or associates of people living there) already had moved his body from the basement elsewhere (either concealed somewhere like a trunk of a car or maybe they placed him in the ravine on Tuesday evening, after Kurt's dad had skimmed through there).

[DarkDante]

The only thing I could think of why she would do that is that she felt guilty of about letting him die there. However, I think she or the other people living there (or associates of people living there) already had moved his body from the basement elsewhere (either concealed somewhere like a trunk of a car or maybe they placed him in the ravine on Tuesday evening, after Kurt's dad had skimmed through there).

Yeah in my opinion there was definitely some second guessing going on in the moments before Ken Sova arrived at the duplex after Susan called him. I think Dorothy Sova is 100% on the money when she speaks of the individuals panicking and putting Kurt's body in the ravine rather than allowing her husband to find his dead body in the basement. I think they were hoping that by relocating his body it would take suspicion off the duplex as the place where Kurt Sova actually expired.

Remember when the authorities found Kurt's body it was put in a position where it looked as it had been deliberately placed where it lay which of course is what I believe to be the absolute truth in the matter.

[wiseguy182]

In the other Kurt Sova thread, I read that Samuel Caroll stated he believed one possibility was that Kurt got picked up by someone during the moments he was gone upstairs to get the jacket. I think that's entirely possible: perhaps the perp (if Kurt was killed) wasn't at the party per se, but stopped by, offered Kurt a ride home or whatever, and Kurt was too out of it to make a good judgement and accepted. I get bad feelings off these gang members, as well as "The Crazy from Detroit." It's another reason why I can't 100% believe someone at the party was responsible. Parties tend to have people coming and going all the time, so it's not out of the question by a long shot.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as the 3:30 a.m. call goes, wasn't Susan uncertain as to if that was Kurt or not? Granted it does seem strange that somebody wouldn't know who was sleeping in their apartment, but it sounds like this complex had a lot of people passing in and out from the sounds of it. Perhaps it wasn't Kurt and the guy just got up and left?

I'm not saying that the partiers that night aren't 100% crime-free. It's pretty obvious there were some illegal activities going on there that night, mostly in regards to underage drinking and what not. But there's too many unanswered questions for me to be comfortable in accusing them of offing Kurt.

@Dante: O/T, but I just picked up Facts of Life season 1 and Diff'rent Strokes season 1, so I get to see Edna Garrett from the very start. I watched the first episodes of each. Pretty wild to think Molly Ringwald didn't make the cut.

[DarkDante]

@Dante: O/T, but I just picked up Facts of Life season 1 and Diff'rent Strokes season 1, so I get to see Edna Garrett from the very start. I watched the first episodes of each. Pretty wild to think Molly Ringwald didn't make the cut.

She wasn't the Molly Ringwald we would all come to know and love from the John Hughes films yet though. Plus her character on FOL was god awful. She was a pint sized militant feminist and super annoying to boot. Earlier on in the decade "The Partridge Family" tried out a similar type character with Susan Dey before wisely dropping the militant feminist aspect of her character almost entirely a few episodes into the first season.

[MegtheEgg86]

She wasn't the Molly Ringwald we would all come to know and love from the John Hughes films yet though. Plus her character on FOL was god awful. She was a pint sized militant feminist and super annoying to boot. Earlier on in the decade "The Partridge Family" tried out a similar type character with Susan Dey before wisely dropping the militant feminist aspect of her character almost entirely a few episodes into the first season.

OT: Please pardon me for kind of injecting myself into y'all's conversation, but I also had to attest to how annoying Molly Ringwald's character was on the first season of FOL--it's been years, but I went through the whole thing when it was available on demand by my then-cable provider. I clearly remember her carrying around a guitar on a couple of episodes and singing some memorably irritating "protest songs." I think the sole act of writing out Molly and the other three girls saved that show from certain death.

In the other Kurt Sova thread, I read that Samuel Caroll stated he believed one possibility was that Kurt got picked up by someone during the moments he was gone upstairs to get the jacket. I think that's entirely possible: perhaps the perp (if Kurt was killed) wasn't at the party per se, but stopped by, offered Kurt a ride home or whatever, and Kurt was too out of it to make a good judgement and accepted. I get bad feelings off these gang members, as well as "The Crazy from Detroit." It's another reason why I can't 100% believe someone at the party was responsible. Parties tend to have people coming and going all the time, so it's not out of the question by a long shot.

I never knew what to make of that "they're gonna find him dead in two days and no one's going to know how he died" comment. If that's a true story--and I don't see any compelling reason to believe that she was making it up--how else could he have known all that information if he wasn't involved, or knew who was involved and the details concerning the event?

Second only to its refusal to accept help from Cleveland PD or Cuyahoga County SD and the lame attempt to even so much as build a workable case file on Kurt's death, I think this is the biggest mistake NHPD made: letting that dude go without further questioning.

[DarkDante]

OT: Please pardon me for kind of injecting myself into y'all's conversation, but I also had to attest to how annoying Molly Ringwald's character was on the first season of FOL--it's been years, but I went through the whole thing when it was available on demand by my then-cable provider. I clearly remember her carrying around a guitar on a couple of episodes and singing some memorably irritating "protest songs." I think the sole act of writing out Molly and the other three girls saved that show from certain death.



I never knew what to make of that "they're gonna find him dead in two days and no one's going to know how he died" comment. If that's a true story--and I don't see any compelling reason to believe that she was making it up--how else could he have known all that information if he wasn't involved, or knew who was involved and the details concerning the event?

Second only to its refusal to accept help from Cleveland PD or Cuyahoga County SD and the lame attempt to even so much as build a workable case file on Kurt's death, I think this is the biggest mistake NHPD made: letting that dude go without further questioning.

Well lets delve into the angle regarding the "crazy from Detroit" a bit further. Apparently this individual was a homeless man who had been loitering around the record shop for weeks prior to Kurt's death rambling on how he had access to bodies that were flown into a local airport. Perhaps the most interesting part of his rant was that he bragged about removing shoes from these bodies.

Kurt Sova when he was found by police was found with a missing right shoe.

Now does this necessarily mean that the "crazy from Detroit" was responsible or had intimate knowledge of Kurt's death? Not necessarily. My feeling has always been if this individual had any knowledge of Kurt's death he gained it second hand thus the comment about how "nobody was going to know how Kurt died". But I think even that scenario is a stretch.

Thinking back though, someone on these forums once suggested a scenario where Kurt could've left the party with this guy and basically spent the next several days on a bit of a bender with him ultimately resulting in his death. The "crazy from Detroit" not knowing what else to do with the body returns it to the duplex or perhaps dumps it in the ravine himself.

To me that scenario always seemed a bit too convoluted and far fetched to be true but others might feel differently.

For me the biggest sticking point in this entire case has always been the first reaction from Susan when asked by Dorothy Sova if Kurt had attended a party at her duplex on the night he disappeared. Her first reaction was to lie which to me is not a normal reaction when a parent approaches you and asks if you have any information regarding their missing child. Most people in that situation would be more than willing to help in any way they could. That being said, the only reason someone would lie in that situation would be if they were somehow either responsible for the person in question going missing or had intimate knowledge regarding what happened to the person in question. To me the fact that Susan's first response to Dorothy Sova was to tell her a boldface lie speaks volumes about what happened in this case.

PS: Regarding FOL: Some of the girls who were cut were actually pretty decent. One of the problems with the first season of FOL was that it was a strike shortened season where they were not allotted a full season to develop characters and storylines. I've always felt that if not for the strike we may have seen a lot more positives come from S1 of FOL then we actually did.

[wiseguy182]

Eh, I don't know. Admittedly, what Susan said was untrue, but her biggest crime may have been just trying to cover up the underage drinking and possible drug use at the party. She might not have wanted to be traced back to that.

We can't even be certain that Susan was lying. Did she know Kurt? As I've been hinting at, parties, often times, the person hosting the party doesn't necessarily know everyone there. Sometimes, a host will invite friends, who bring friends of their own, and so on. That's how parties get out of control. It was stated by several people I think, that this wasn't Kurt's regular circle of friends, so perhaps Susan just didn't know who Kurt was.

[Steve W.]

"In the other Kurt Sova thread, I read that Samuel Caroll stated he believed one possibility was that Kurt got picked up by someone during the moments he was gone upstairs to get the jacket. I think that's entirely possible: perhaps the perp (if Kurt was killed) wasn't at the party per se, but stopped by, offered Kurt a ride home or whatever, and Kurt was too out of it to make a good judgement and accepted. I get bad feelings off these gang members, as well as "The Crazy from Detroit." It's another reason why I can't 100% believe someone at the party was responsible. Parties tend to have people coming and going all the time, so it's not out of the question by a long shot."


wiseguy, Samuel Carroll was saying anything to get away from the truth that Kurt went into a coma and died at the duplex, IMO.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Of all the lies and deception in this case, the one I outright think did not happen is the jacket story. No one else even backs him up on that story that we know of, he was most likely hiding what was going on at the party.

[wiseguy182]

Of all the lies and deception in this case, the one I outright think did not happen is the jacket story. No one else even backs him up on that story that we know of, he was most likely hiding what was going on at the party.

The UM segment depicted that Samuel and Kurt were away from the rest of the partiers when Samuel noticed Kurt passed out and took him outside for fresh air. Given that it's not uncommon for parties to be large, chaotic events, it doesn't strike me as immediately suspicious that nobody backs up the story about the jacket.

[Steve W.]

The UM segment depicted that Samuel and Kurt were away from the rest of the partiers when Samuel noticed Kurt passed out and took him outside for fresh air. Given that it's not uncommon for parties to be large, chaotic events, it doesn't strike me as immediately suspicious that nobody backs up the story about the jacket.


There's no reason to believe him.

Two guys (it's possible one of them could have been Samuel himself) were seen carrying Kurt's body to the ravine by Angeline Reddicks and her husband, according to that 1991 Cleveland newspaper article. Kurt didn't wander off and die there (jacket story is BS). He died and was put there.

[wiseguy182]

There's no reason to believe him.

Two guys (it's possible one of them could have been Samuel himself) were seen carrying Kurt's body to the ravine by Angeline Reddicks and her husband, according to that 1991 Cleveland newspaper article. Kurt didn't wander off and die there (jacket story is BS). He died and was put there.

I can't think of a reason why we should immediately dismiss Samuel's statement. I think we've done a pretty good job on this forum of mentioning how unreliable eyewitness accounts are.

I'm not saying that didn't happen, but it's not fact.

[Steve W.]

I can't think of a reason why we should immediately dismiss Samuel's statement. I think we've done a pretty good job on this forum of mentioning how unreliable eyewitness accounts are.

I'm not saying that didn't happen, but it's not fact.


The lady said she saw them carrying a body there (in the afternoon or evening/can't remember what time of day exactly) just a matter of days before Halloween. She lived in a house on a street where her backyard faces that ravine: how likely is it that it could have been someone else besides Kurt Sova being carried there in that time frame and at that location? It's not likely at all, it had to have been Kurt.

[DarkDante]

The lady said she saw them carrying a body there (in the afternoon or evening/can't remember what time of day exactly) just a matter of days before Halloween. She lived in a house on a street where her backyard faces that ravine: how likely is it that it could have been someone else besides Kurt Sova being carried there in that time frame and at that location? It's not likely at all, it had to have been Kurt.

The witness also said the boy they were carrying was missing a shoe. I know witnesses on UM have a bit of a track record as being not credible but just as we don't want to paint them with the brush of being credible, we shouldn't paint them with the brush of being not credible.

The point being that although my personal feeling is I have a pretty good gauge on what happened to Kurt Sova, we'll probably never know for certain barring a confession from one of the parties involved in his disappearance and death.

[Steve W.]

The witness also said the boy they were carrying was missing a shoe. I know witnesses on UM have a bit of a track record as being not credible but just as we don't want to paint them with the brush of being credible, we shouldn't paint them with the brush of being not credible.

The point being that although my personal feeling is I have a pretty good gauge on what happened to Kurt Sova, we'll probably never know for certain barring a confession from one of the parties involved in his disappearance and death.


agreed

Assuming that Samuel Carroll, Clayton Sams, or Debbie Sams (she could obviously have a different last name now) (the Sams' lived in the duplex at the time of that party) are still alive, they are the people we know of that could stop lying and tell the truth about what really happened to Kurt.

[annoulzz]

this case is so bizarre to me.. with all these "key" players from the UM segment, someone has got to know what happened to kurt... i wish they were more remorseful and would just come forward..

[Nickolas086]

Did anyone get the vibe the people at that party were not in the same social class as Kurt this could be why no one came foward in all of these years. They seem like blue collar working class, while Kurt and his family may of been lower middle class.

[DarkDante]

Did anyone get the vibe the people at that party were not in the same social class as Kurt this could be why no one came foward in all of these years. They seem like blue collar working class, while Kurt and his family may of been lower middle class.

It's possible although I think the line you are trying to draw is a bit of a stretch. I think a far more likely scenario is that as Dorothy Sova mentioned that most of the individuals at the party didn't know Kurt from a hole in the wall and if he did end up overdosing in their presence the fact that they had no connection to him socially may have contributed to them not attending to him the best they could and still keeping quiet about what happened to him to this day.

[dynoguy88]

Of all the lies and deception in this case, the one I outright think did not happen is the jacket story. No one else even backs him up on that story that we know of, he was most likely hiding what was going on at the party.

I always dismissed the jacket story because of the timing. How long could it possibly take to go upstairs, get the jacket and come outside again? A minute? Two minutes? Samuel himself told Dorothy that it took him about a minute to get back outside with the jacket, at which point he discovered Kurt was gone.

A person who is so drunk that they can barely stand on their feet, leaning against a fence, is not going to be able to leave that property under their own power in 1-2 minutes. Could a car have driven up during that 1-2 minutes, somehow saw and recognized Kurt in the dark, picked him up and driven off? Maybe but highly, highly, highly unlikely. A person would have to have insanely perfect timing to even remotely pull that off.

That fence is still outside the house today.

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad64/andy80_bucket/Sova1.jpg (http://s922.photobucket.com/user/andy80_bucket/media/Sova1.jpg.html)

Nothing about the jacket story added up for me. That's why I always thought Samuel was lying.

[Nickolas086]

I take it all the former residents in the complex have since moved years ago and sometime after Sova went missing and thern found dead?

[Steve W.]

I take it all the former residents in the complex have since moved years ago and sometime after Sova went missing and thern found dead?


It's pretty likely, since it's been 31 and a half years since this happened and it likely happened at the duplex (a place that's for rent). There's probably been hundreds of people that have lived there since then and a lot of them probably don't even know what likely happened there. I wouldn't want to go down in that basement.

[wiseguy182]

I agree with the sentiments about the basements scenes being creepy. Towards the end of the segment, there was one where the actor playing Kurt was lying in the bed, tossing and turning and the light bulb was rocking back and forth. :eek: Also, in the scene where Kurt's dad goes down in the basement, I was so bracing myself for somebody to come up from behind and whack him on the head.

I still can't dismiss the jacket story though. It was dark when this happened, so if Samuel really did find that Kurt was gone when he came back down with the jacket, he probably didn't want to try and find him in the dark. He also probably figured the situation wasn't that serious at that point -- it as just another kid who got drunk. As I said, people come and go from parties all the time. It's not like Kurt getting drunk would have garnered that much attention.

There are just too many unknowns in this case for me to be comfortable in solely blaming the people at the party. The Crazy from Detroit, the gangbangers, and whoever killed Eugene Kvet -- if his death was homicide.

I don't think it can even be definitively proved that anyone at the party committed a crime in relation to Kurt. Perhaps he picked up the alcohol beforehand. I'm doubting anyone forced him to drink.

[DarkDante]

I agree with the sentiments about the basements scenes being creepy. Towards the end of the segment, there was one where the actor playing Kurt was lying in the bed, tossing and turning and the light bulb was rocking back and forth. :eek: Also, in the scene where Kurt's dad goes down in the basement, I was so bracing myself for somebody to come up from behind and whack him on the head.

I still can't dismiss the jacket story though. It was dark when this happened, so if Samuel really did find that Kurt was gone when he came back down with the jacket, he probably didn't want to try and find him in the dark. He also probably figured the situation wasn't that serious at that point -- it as just another kid who got drunk. As I said, people come and go from parties all the time. It's not like Kurt getting drunk would have garnered that much attention.

There are just too many unknowns in this case for me to be comfortable in solely blaming the people at the party. The Crazy from Detroit, the gangbangers, and whoever killed Eugene Kvet -- if his death was homicide.

I don't think it can even be definitively proved that anyone at the party committed a crime in relation to Kurt. Perhaps he picked up the alcohol beforehand. I'm doubting anyone forced him to drink.

Well first off we don't know if anyone killed Eugene Kvet. Eugene Kvet could've very plausibly fallen to his death in the ravine that day which is what I believe was the theory advanced by the local authorities at the time. Although, given the seemingly slipshod job they did on the Sova case I'd be at least somewhat wary of any official explanation on a case emanating from those quarters.

I never thought anyone "forced" Kurt to drink at the party. To me there are two plausible explanations regarding the overdose theory at the party and the first is that Kurt brought his own bottle of alcohol to the party and had some type of violent reaction to whatever he was drinking and overdosed.

The second theory is similar to what was brought up in the Jeremy Bright case where it was alleged that Jeremy was given a beer laced with some type of drug that may have brought about his death.

Now the one thing that sticks out to me in every report that has come back to us about Newburgh Heights at the time when Kurt Sova died was that it was not exactly an ideal place to live. I've read reports of a rampant drug scene, gang activity and a lot of different things that could lead up to Kurt being present at this party amongst a lot of people who weren't necessarily of good character to begin with.

I think it's very probable that Kurt being allegedly younger than many of the other people at the party, could have been singled out for a prank of sorts where he was slipped some type of laced drink to see how he would react to it and his reaction was quite frankly to fall dead in front of his fellow party goers.

Regardless of which theory I happen to subscribe to at the moment, just trying to put myself in the shoes of the people who were at this party with Kurt where he allegedly overdosed. It must have been a completely horrifying sight and I could've easily seen how seeing this boy who was seemingly healthy only moments earlier just fall into a comatose like state could've resulted in some snap and poor judgments on behalf of the people at that party not to summon help for Sova and instead try to handle the situation themselves.

I would not be surprised at all if the situation just snowballed on them. I think these people who were with Kurt that night just got way in over their heads in how they chose to handle the situation. Their motives for handling the situation the way I believe they did as I mentioned comes down to whether you subscribe to the fact that the alleged overdose was something facilitated by someone or a group of people at the party or not. Regardless though I believe they put him in that basement shortly after he passed out and I believe that he eventually died in that basement and his body then moved perhaps only a short while before Ken Sova arrived at the duplex to search for his son.

In fact it's also possible that Ken Sova was summoned to the duplex as a means of a diversionary tactic in order to give those responsible for Kurt Sova's death time to dispose of his body in the ravine.

[dynoguy88]

In fact it's also possible that Ken Sova was summoned to the duplex as a means of a diversionary tactic in order to give those responsible for Kurt Sova's death time to dispose of his body in the ravine.

Not according to the Angeline Reddicks sighting. Her claim was that she saw two boys carrying an unconscious third boy with no shoe into the alley leading into the ravine during the afternoon. Susan's phone call to the Sova's claiming that Kurt might be sleeping in her basement took place at 3:00 in the morning, just several hours before Kurt's body was discovered. I'm pretty sure the segment said Kurt's father went to the duplex right away. So the times wouldn't match up.

Susan was lying as usual, trying to cover her tracks. And why she chose 3:00 in the morning to call the Sovas is beyond me. But the Reddicks sighting doesn't match up time wise to try and throw the Sovas off track, unless Kurt's body was hidden somewhere else in the house when his father arrived to inspect the basement.

If anything, it would have made much more sense to dump the body in the ravine during early morning hours where you're less likely to be seen. But they chose to do it in the middle of the afternoon and they WERE spotted.

[wiseguy182]

well I seem to be in the minority in that I'm not 100% certain that somebody in the party is responsible for Kurt's death. So I pose this question: How did the Crazy from Detroit know 1) that Kurt would be found, 2) that he would be dead, 3) that he would be found 2 days from that time, 4) that nobody would know how he died? " That is simply far too much information for me to believed that he wasn't involved. Period. I really can't fathom how the police dismissed him as "just a crazy from Detroit."

Perhaps the most suspicious thing to me about the Crazy from Detroit was that he told the record store clerk to remove Kurt's posters. That just screams "guilty" to me. Now the segment didn't specifically state that the crazy from Detroit wasn't in attendance at the party, but I have to figure that if he was they would have mentioned it. So I can conclude that he wasn't at the party, or if he was, wasn't there for very long.

I had thought about the 3 a.m. call as a diversionary tactic, but I'm not sure how likely that is.

[WishfulDreamer]

well I seem to be in the minority in that I'm not 100% certain that somebody in the party is responsible for Kurt's death. So I pose this question: How did the Crazy from Detroit know 1) that Kurt would be found, 2) that he would be dead, 3) that he would be found 2 days from that time, 4) that nobody would know how he died? " That is simply far too much information for me to believed that he wasn't involved. Period. I really can't fathom how the police dismissed him as "just a crazy from Detroit."

Perhaps the most suspicious thing to me about the Crazy from Detroit was that he told the record store clerk to remove Kurt's posters. That just screams "guilty" to me. Now the segment didn't specifically state that the crazy from Detroit wasn't in attendance at the party, but I have to figure that if he was they would have mentioned it. So I can conclude that he wasn't at the party, or if he was, wasn't there for very long.

I had thought about the 3 a.m. call as a diversionary tactic, but I'm not sure how likely that is.


While I've always found the accident at the party theory likely, this is not a bad theory at all. The "Crazy from Detroit" shouldn't have had any knowledge about finding Kurt dead in two days with no sign of the cause of death, and he shouldn't have been at the party. (I can't imagine a weird transient figure would be invited). If he was involved, this means that Kurt may really have been left on the fence by his friend- and that the "Crazy" did him harm. I guess the biggest mystery is what caused Kurt to actually die and how the transient could have known that this would remain a mystery.


On a side note, I think a second opinion should have been brought in. Perhaps Cyril Wecht or another ME could have discovered another cause. I'm not trying to bash the ME who worked on this case, but finding no cause leads me to feel that a second opinion is required.

[DarkDante]

The only thing that ever made me think that the "crazy from Detroit" was involved in Kurt Sova's death was the fact that it was mentioned in the article that he enjoyed removing shoes off dead bodies. In my opinion if there is anything that is not a coincidence regarding Kurt's death and the comments from the "crazy from Detroit", it would be that.

The article also painted the guy as a bit of a screwball transient who would make claims about having access to bodies flown into local airports. With comments like this (perhaps indicating mental illness) I have a lot of trouble putting any weight behind any of the comments made by this individual. It could've been the case of a mentally ill person rambling on and actually hitting the target on a few of the issues as they related to Kurt's death.

I've also considered the possibility that perhaps this individual may have received some information about Kurt second hand from someone at the party or involved in the local drug scene. But admittedly that would be a bit of a stretch.

I still think he was just rambling.

[Steve W.]

"Perhaps he picked up the alcohol beforehand. I'm doubting anyone forced him to drink."


According to the newspaper article, he did have someone older buy him Everclear the day of the party, so unless he drank it all before he got to the party (which I doubt, since he probably wouldn't have even made it there had he done that), he had it with him and was drinking it at the duplex.