Murder of Two Women Still Unsolved Almost Twenty Years Later

Their names are largely forgotten but the mystery of who killed them still puzzles Law Enforcement and residents of the town of Harwinton.

In October of 1988, twenty-four year old Karen Everett was found murdered at the bottom of an embankment on Valley Road. It was unusual for a homicide to occur in the quiet town of Harwinton. A few months later in January of 1989, the body of thirty year old Mildred Alvarado was found a few hundred yards away from where Everett was located. Both women had been strangled and their bodies dumped and left in wooded areas. The Connecticut State Police theorized that it was possible that the two women may have been the victims of the same perpetrator. The women were both from Waterbury and Police believe the unknown killer chose the Valley Road locations because of its easy access to Route 8.

Both women lived troublesome lives. They both had been arrested for prostitution and drug possession. Sadly, their lifestyle may have made them ideal targets for a cold and calculating killer.

Police eventually thought they had developed a break in these homicides when in 1993, twenty-seven year old Evelyn Betancourt had been shot to death near Valley Road.

The location where her body was found and the fact that she was also involved in prostitution caused fear in town. In 1995, while imprisoned for another crime a Thomaston man named Michael Curry Jr. confessed to Betancourt's murder to another inmate. He was eventually convicted for her homicide and is now serving a fifty-three year prison term at Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown. He randomly chose to murder the pregnant mother of four because he was upset about being dumped by his then girlfriend. He chose the Valley Road location because he had read about the murders of Everett and Alvarado in the newspaper. However, State Police eventually ruled him out as a suspect in their murders.

Besides investigating Curry, Police have looked at similarities in other cases in Connecticut and in surrounding states. One of these possible cases involves an unknown possible serial killer responsible for nine murders and two disappearances of women in the surrounding area of New Bedford, Massachusetts. The homicide victims were dumped in wooded areas off of several highways outside of the city. Most of them had histories of drug usage and prostitution and they all had disappeared between the months of April to September in 1988. Most of the victims that were recovered had been found months after they were last seen. Law Enforcement in Massachusetts had some prime suspects, a serial rapist and a disgraced attorney who had ties to some of the slain victims. To date, no one has ever been convicted of any of these murders. It is theorized that the New Bedford serial killer may have moved out of the area after his last victim disappeared in September of 1988. Karen Everett was murdered a month later. Connecticut State Police did not say if they believed that he could have made a temporary stop in the Waterbury area after he left New Bedford.

Despite the passage of time, Lieutenant J. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police says solving the homicides of Everett and Alvarado are still a priority.

"People sometimes confuse cold cases with inactive cases," said Vance. "We have a detective assigned to the murders of these two women and over the years we have looked at different people who we thought may have been involved."

Sadly the homicides of these two women are not the only unsolved homicides that have occurred around the Route 8 area north of Waterbury. Besides the solved murder of Evelyn Betancourt, there are three other unsolved murders in close proximity to Valley Road.

The 1986 unsolved case of Kansas transient Jack Franklin Andrews was a gruesome murder in which only his torso and arms were found at a now closed rest stop off of Route 8 in Litchfield. Police have no suspects but a man convicted in New Jersey of two murders and whose DNA is linked to other homicides was at one time a person of interest in the case.

On November 1, 1994, the body of thirty-two year old Olga Maria Cornieles-Ubiera, was found naked and mutilated twenty feet off the shoulder of Route 262 in Thomaston. The area was several miles south from where Everett and Alvarado were found. She had no history of drug use or prostitution and Police do not believe her murder is related to the homicides of Everett and Alvarado.

On November 14, 2006, a hunter discovered the skeletal remains of Jessica Muskus in Litchfield just off of route 8 near exit 41 on the northbound side of the highway. The twenty-two year old woman was originally reported missing from Waterbury on Aug. 2, 2004. Muskus was a single mother from Waterbury who reportedly had a drug usage problem.

"We have most of these cases under Cold Case files on the Department of Public Safety website," states Vance. "Sometimes all it takes to solve these cases is a DNA match or someone with vital information to come forward."

If you have any information about the murders of Karen Everett and Mildred Alvarado or any of the others listed in this article please contact the Connecticut State Police at (800) 203-0004, (860) 567-6841 or via email at WDIST.MCS.Sec@po.state.ct.us