Kurt Sova

[queenFrostine278]

i saw the mystery of kurt sova awhile back. i combed the web but was unable to find anything. this case fascinated me and scared the hell out of me...has anyone seen it? does anyone know anything else? it was such an intriguing and sketchy case. so many details that just don't fit. what happened at that party? was it really him on the side of the road? what happened to his sneaker? was he in the ravine the whole time? the shoeless child found dead later...did they decide it was the same killer? also...the coroner couldn't find any trauma to kurt's body. how did he die? there is something specifically terrifying about this story that i can't identify. has anyone seen it or know anything? sorry for bumbling on like a fool.

remembering the images of him leaning up against the fence with that look on his face after the party and in the recap...when he's tossing and turning in the basement bed he supposedly didn't sleep in...oh my god im scaring myself.

[DarkDante]

Well the case is still unsolved to my knowledge at least...

I was discussing this case over email with Crystaldawn last night and we came up with a few theories. First off there are I believe a lot of things said in this case either by Kurt's parents or what they were told by Kurt's friends which I believe are inaccurate or downright false.

Usually on UM when a teenager disappears (Kurt Sova, Kurt McFall, Chad Maurer) the parents do everything they can to "talk up" their deceased child. This is understandable as nobody wants to speak ill of the dead and compounded with the grief they are probably going through, well its MORE than understandable.

The problem is as I think Justin pointed out awhile back is how many parents know 100% what is going on with their kids. So the fact that Kurt's parents said he was a "good kid" doesn't mean he was not experimenting with drugs or alcohol that night.

I think the whole story about leaving him "on the fence" is just that - a story. If Kurt was that intoxicated and was left on the fence are we supposed to believe that he just wandered off while Kurt's friend "went to get his jacket" never to be seen again. The whole thing seems like a story to me - I mean, a bunch of drunk kids at a party and one kid is sober enough to realize its cold outside and that his friend might want a jacket and when he returns he's gone...It's a story plain and simple.

It is also interesting to note that from the start the people at the party paint Kurt out to be a "heavy drinker" already planting the idea in Kurt's parents minds that Kurt's death was the result of something that Kurt brought upon himself. This is also likely another story used to cover up what really happened to Kurt.

Also "the crazy from Detroit" is likely just that "a crazy from Detroit" - My gut feeling is he had nothing to do with Sova's death.

David Trusnick who was Kurt's buddy who saw him hop into a van with "Frankie" - This might be true and if so it casts serious doubt on the theory that what happened to Kurt Sova to lead up to his death occured at the party. But then again Trusnick could have been mistaken.

It is also important to note that the woman who held the part is lying even before the general public knows that Kurt is dead. When Kurt's mother asked her if there was a party at her house the previous Friday the girl denies it. There is really no reason for the denial unless something involving Sova happened at the party.

Kurt's mother already knew about the party from another source and having a wild party in itself is not a crime. There is no reason for her to lie.

My feeling is that there was something illegal going on at that party (possibly to do with drugs) - Kurt was there and had a reaction to something (my guess off hand might be PCP although thats really stretching it) and instead of taking Kurt to a hospital, the people at the party tried to nurse him back to health but were unsuccessful. After he died (several days after the party) they put him down in the ravine.

I don't think anyone at the party intended for Kurt Sova to die. I think at first they didn't want to have any drug activity tied back to them (similar along the lines if someone gets drunk at your house and then dies in a car accident on the way home, you can be sued) and later of course did not want to be responsible for Kurt's death. It's a complete and total "snowball effect".

[queenFrostine278]

wow! you're full of knowledge! thank you for your insight...i never even thought of drugs. it's a very possible. thank you so much for taking the time to respond!!! :)

[crystaldawn]

This is such a baffling case and so many things don't make sense so I was always a little skeptical of the autopsy. I mean this was back in the late 80's I believe. I can't help but think that if a similar situation were to occur now with all the advancements in forensics, they would be able to at least have a good guess of what killed Kurt.

I don't think Kurt was murdered. Like Dante I think Kurt could have had a bad reaction to some drugs (or even inhalants) he experimented with that night. Maybe he passed out and his friends put him in the basement to sleep it off but something more complicated was brewing inside and he ended up dying. Another possible theory could be whatever he was doing that night caused his heart to stop. You seem to hear so many stories nowadays of seemingly healthy young adults dropping dead due to undiagnosed heart problems. I think there is also the possibility that the estimate that Kurt had been dead only a few days when he was found could be mistaken. It makes more sense to think that than that he lingered there for days and eventually died (of no known cause mind you). This is one of those I don't think we'll ever have the answers to.

[DarkDante]

it was 1981 I believe, the autumn of 81 when Mr. Sova passed on. This is just a case with too much info for its own good. I think the Sovas just threw as much stuff against the wall pertaining to their son's death and ending up complicating the issue.

Kurt's death had something to do with what happened at that party. It likely did not have anything to do with "crazies from Detroit" or Eugene Queit.

I just have a lot of trouble with "the fence" story and also why the woman was lying to Dorothy Sova even before anyone knew that Kurt was dead/in dire straits.

[boechsner]

Well I started recording Unsolved Mysteries cases back at the end of June. Lifetime seems to have now started over airing the cases they were airing back then. As I recall, the Kurt Sova case should most likely be airing sometime this upcoming week. This is just a heads up. Keep in mind though, you never know what Lifetime will do, who knows, the order this time around may be a little different.

[RightOnDude]

I think DarkDante hit the nail on the head. This case screams "kid went to a party, tried some hard drugs, tried too much of said drug, heart stopped, party host panicked, called thug friends who dumped body." Maybe the weirdo from Detroit was at the party. Heck, he may have brought the ice or coke or smack or whatever it was from Detroit. As stated earlier, the fact that the host of the party LIED about even HAVING a party tells me that something went down there. Why else would she lie?

In any case, this segment fascinates me too. I am going to post on some Cleveland local forums and see if anyone has any more info.

[queenFrostine278]

you guys are so damn knowledgeable it blows me away!!
keep up the expert sleuthing! interesting theories you've come up with. i need to improve my detective instincts...*grabs mickey mouse detective set*

thank you for your input to my question:)

[connieallbright]

I think crystaldawn is probably right about the undiagnosed heart condition.

I haven't seen the episode in a long time but I remember that the coroner couldn't find a cause of death - alcohol and drugs would show up in his system, right? Even though the science of forensics wasn't as high tech as it is now, they'd be looking for drugs and booze as the primary cause of death.

But what about the other shoeless child mentioned in the segment? Maybe there really is a connection.

RightOnDude, did you turn up anything in the Cleveland forums?

[RightOnDude]

Even if they looked for drugs and booze, if he had been stumbling around for 3 days after getting messed up, they may have been out of his system. Marijuana is one of the few drugs that stays in your system for more than 1-3 days. If he had been doing meth or crack that probably wouldn't have shown up in an autopsy unless he OD'ed right after using.

I posted a few messages on cleveland.com but haven't gotten any response. It doesn't look to be heavily used.

[UMfan77]

The drug overdose/heart condition theory is very logical and I wonder if Kurt's parents have ever thought of it. I know it would be difficult for them to come to the realization that maybe their son had experimented with drugs and died because of it.

[connieallbright]

Maybe I'm being dense but I always thought drugs could be detected through hair tests or is that technology too new (post 1981)?

[RightOnDude]

probably not too new, but very expensive (way back then even more so) ... also I don't know if that's standard practice on an autopsy. If I remember right that coroner was "up in years" and may have had no idea what he was looking for (if it was some kind of new illegal drug).

[kane7474]

None of this explains why he was missing one shoe or why this other kid that he knew was later also found dead with only one shoe. I think the reason this case has not been solved is shabby police work plain and simple. I thought it was highly odd when the girl who hosted the party called Kurt's dad a few days after he went missing and said that there was someone in her basement and she thought it might be Kurt. Ok now if there's someone in my basement Im damn sure going to find out who they are for sure or call the cops and have them find out. If she was really covering up and knew he was dead and his body was going to be dumped why did she further involve herself with the phone call to his dad?

[kane7474]

The drug overdose/heart condition theory is very logical and I wonder if Kurt's parents have ever thought of it. I know it would be difficult for them to come to the realization that maybe their son had experimented with drugs and died because of it.
This theory doens't fly though being that he died 4-5 days after the party

[kane7474]

Well the case is still unsolved to my knowledge at least...

I was discussing this case over email with Crystaldawn last night and we came up with a few theories. First off there are I believe a lot of things said in this case either by Kurt's parents or what they were told by Kurt's friends which I believe are inaccurate or downright false.

Usually on UM when a teenager disappears (Kurt Sova, Kurt McFall, Chad Maurer) the parents do everything they can to "talk up" their deceased child. This is understandable as nobody wants to speak ill of the dead and compounded with the grief they are probably going through, well its MORE than understandable.

The problem is as I think Justin pointed out awhile back is how many parents know 100% what is going on with their kids. So the fact that Kurt's parents said he was a "good kid" doesn't mean he was not experimenting with drugs or alcohol that night.

I think the whole story about leaving him "on the fence" is just that - a story. If Kurt was that intoxicated and was left on the fence are we supposed to believe that he just wandered off while Kurt's friend "went to get his jacket" never to be seen again. The whole thing seems like a story to me - I mean, a bunch of drunk kids at a party and one kid is sober enough to realize its cold outside and that his friend might want a jacket and when he returns he's gone...It's a story plain and simple.

It is also interesting to note that from the start the people at the party paint Kurt out to be a "heavy drinker" already planting the idea in Kurt's parents minds that Kurt's death was the result of something that Kurt brought upon himself. This is also likely another story used to cover up what really happened to Kurt.

Also "the crazy from Detroit" is likely just that "a crazy from Detroit" - My gut feeling is he had nothing to do with Sova's death.

David Trusnick who was Kurt's buddy who saw him hop into a van with "Frankie" - This might be true and if so it casts serious doubt on the theory that what happened to Kurt Sova to lead up to his death occured at the party. But then again Trusnick could have been mistaken.

It is also important to note that the woman who held the part is lying even before the general public knows that Kurt is dead. When Kurt's mother asked her if there was a party at her house the previous Friday the girl denies it. There is really no reason for the denial unless something involving Sova happened at the party.

Kurt's mother already knew about the party from another source and having a wild party in itself is not a crime. There is no reason for her to lie.

My feeling is that there was something illegal going on at that party (possibly to do with drugs) - Kurt was there and had a reaction to something (my guess off hand might be PCP although thats really stretching it) and instead of taking Kurt to a hospital, the people at the party tried to nurse him back to health but were unsuccessful. After he died (several days after the party) they put him down in the ravine.

I don't think anyone at the party intended for Kurt Sova to die. I think at first they didn't want to have any drug activity tied back to them (similar along the lines if someone gets drunk at your house and then dies in a car accident on the way home, you can be sued) and later of course did not want to be responsible for Kurt's death. It's a complete and total "snowball effect".
I think this theory is right on except the crazy from Detroit. I beileve he did know what happened but his role has been downplayed as police dropped the ball by not holding him longer or getting his name and place of residence. You know they could have held him on vegrantcy at the very least. Also as for this friend of his that claims to have left him on the fence I can tell you that if a good detective would have put him under a bright light and interegated him right he would have sang like a robin and you would know exactly what happened to Kurt. Do you think this kid would stick to this story if he thought he would be charged with Kurt's murder?

[kane7474]

I think DarkDante hit the nail on the head. This case screams "kid went to a party, tried some hard drugs, tried too much of said drug, heart stopped, party host panicked, called thug friends who dumped body." Maybe the weirdo from Detroit was at the party. Heck, he may have brought the ice or coke or smack or whatever it was from Detroit. As stated earlier, the fact that the host of the party LIED about even HAVING a party tells me that something went down there. Why else would she lie?

In any case, this segment fascinates me too. I am going to post on some Cleveland local forums and see if anyone has any more info.
Ok why would the host lie? Alright lets say I have a party and I know there are drugs and booze at this party. I also do not know everyone at the party some of these people may be underage as far as I know. Ok so I see lots of people getting wasted at my place on this particular night as said before some I dont even know. The next day an older woman comes to my door asking if I had a party. Now my first thought is she is someones mother and maybe her child came home drunk or stoned and has told her who gave him the drugs or alcohol. Ofcourse Im going to lie I have no idea if she's going to the cops or what and also being that I still have illeagal drugs in my house I dont want any trouble with the law right? Keep in mind people who use drugs become very paranoid and will lie whether its for a good reason or not

[Mr. Fuji]

This was one of the most interesting cases I've seen profiled. I too felt that something happened at the party that night. Here's my two cents:

When that lady called Kurt's mom at 3:30 in the morning to tell her she thought her son was sleeping in the basement, she did it in a panic. She probably flipped out because Kurt died down there and her roommates or some of the guys at the party said to just keep him down there until they figured out a plan. She probably figured she would just call the mom and make up the whole sleeping story and expect Kurt's mom to come over and look for her son. When Kurt's mom got there, she was going to say she had no idea she was dead and just thought he was sleeping. But when her roommates or some guys that were there found out she called, they panicked and dumped the body in the ravine. As far as the shoe goes, it's possible that they took Kurt over there and when they got there they found out that he only had one shoe on. They could have dumped the shoe or burned it or anything.

The thing about U.M. is they never give you all the story that you want to hear. For instance, they never clarified how sure that friend was that he actually saw Kurt get into the van. Maybe he was only 20% sure that who he saw really was Kurt. It would have been nice had UM clarified that one fact, because if he really was sure, then something else went on outside of the party.

[kane7474]

This was one of the most interesting cases I've seen profiled. I too felt that something happened at the party that night. Here's my two cents:

When that lady called Kurt's mom at 3:30 in the morning to tell her she thought her son was sleeping in the basement, she did it in a panic. She probably flipped out because Kurt died down there and her roommates or some of the guys at the party said to just keep him down there until they figured out a plan. She probably figured she would just call the mom and make up the whole sleeping story and expect Kurt's mom to come over and look for her son. When Kurt's mom got there, she was going to say she had no idea she was dead and just thought he was sleeping. But when her roommates or some guys that were there found out she called, they panicked and dumped the body in the ravine. As far as the shoe goes, it's possible that they took Kurt over there and when they got there they found out that he only had one shoe on. They could have dumped the shoe or burned it or anything.

The thing about U.M. is they never give you all the story that you want to hear. For instance, they never clarified how sure that friend was that he actually saw Kurt get into the van. Maybe he was only 20% sure that who he saw really was Kurt. It would have been nice had UM clarified that one fact, because if he really was sure, then something else went on outside of the party.
Ok well maybe you can clear this up for me I may be off here. It was my understanding that the woman at the duplex called Kurt's father a few days after it was well known he was missing and after the dad went there and Kurt was not there he went to the area where Kurt's body was found and saw nothing. I think this case is solvable I would love to see the entire police report on all of the events and witness statements from the time he went missing till his body was found.

[nohwheregirl]

Ok well maybe you can clear this up for me I may be off here. It was my understanding that the woman at the duplex called Kurt's father a few days after it was well known he was missing and after the dad went there and Kurt was not there he went to the area where Kurt's body was found and saw nothing.

Not quite. Kurt's dad had gone looking in the ravine area earlier...not the same day his body was found.

[kane7474]

Not quite. Kurt's dad had gone looking in the ravine area earlier...not the same day his body was found.
Ok so was his body found the same day that the girl called to say he may be in the basement?

[synthisislab]

Kurt's dad searched the area the day before his body was found. He also searched the basement. This was after the girl volunteered the information about Kurt sleeping in the cot in her basement. Perhaps his body was being stored elsewhere and was placed where it was found later on.

[queenFrostine278]

fascinating case, isn't it?
so many possibilities...

[SiberianKiss]

fascinating case, i feel so sad for his mom.

here's what I think....no way the so called "crazy" from Detroit is a non-factor in this case if what he really did say those things....come on! If he really said "in two days, he'll be found dead and nobody will know how he died, he has to know something....people just don't say that! If he was just some creep he would have said "hey I know that guy he's dead" and just saying that to be a jerk even though he had no clue...but he knew something...I think he was a drug dealer...

the thing about the putting the dude on the fence and running up to get a coat is bull**** we all agree on that....what I think is that "crazy" was at the party and supplied the drugs, whatever....probably something bad laced with something even worse, KS had a bad reaction, he passed out, they thought they would have him sleep it off so they put him in the cot downstairs, but then they realized he never woke up and died....I think the friend that thought he saw KS was mistaken. Then some people from the party maybe the druggie dumped the body, maybe he had some friends come help, obviously the chick lied about the party because she knew KS was messed up...

that's my theory, of course I could be wrong....it seems to me that this was some really ****ty police work....didn't ANYBODY check the cot for signs of KS? Like some hairs or something? saliva? i know it was back in the 80's but even if a bunch of idiot kids tried to hide a murder, it's a very difficult thing to do. and like someone said if a real detective got that punk kid who claims he put KS on the fence in an interrogation room and worked his thing, that kid wold be pissing his pants and would spill the beans

anyone else think the police did a lousy job?

[kane7474]

fascinating case, i feel so sad for his mom.

here's what I think....no way the so called "crazy" from Detroit is a non-factor in this case if what he really did say those things....come on! If he really said "in two days, he'll be found dead and nobody will know how he died, he has to know something....people just don't say that! If he was just some creep he would have said "hey I know that guy he's dead" and just saying that to be a jerk even though he had no clue...but he knew something...I think he was a drug dealer...

the thing about the putting the dude on the fence and running up to get a coat is bull**** we all agree on that....what I think is that "crazy" was at the party and supplied the drugs, whatever....probably something bad laced with something even worse, KS had a bad reaction, he passed out, they thought they would have him sleep it off so they put him in the cot downstairs, but then they realized he never woke up and died....I think the friend that thought he saw KS was mistaken. Then some people from the party maybe the druggie dumped the body, maybe he had some friends come help, obviously the chick lied about the party because she knew KS was messed up...

that's my theory, of course I could be wrong....it seems to me that this was some really ****ty police work....didn't ANYBODY check the cot for signs of KS? Like some hairs or something? saliva? i know it was back in the 80's but even if a bunch of idiot kids tried to hide a murder, it's a very difficult thing to do. and like someone said if a real detective got that punk kid who claims he put KS on the fence in an interrogation room and worked his thing, that kid wold be pissing his pants and would spill the beans

anyone else think the police did a lousy job?
Amen I have been saying this was shabby police work all along.
First off they did question the crazy from Detroit after Kurt was misssing and based on what he had said and the fact the he had no identity they could have held him as long as they wanted. Also both the girl who had the party and the friend who left him on the fence should have been put under a bright light and interegated thouroghly. You say that you think they had some people or friends at the party dump the body Im not so sure thats true. Just think about how many people would want to volunteer to help hide a body. This would mean that people who had nothing to do with his death would take the HUGE risk of being caught with the dead body I just cant see this happening. I can see the accidental overdose theory working if it had not been for the other kid being found 3 months later with the same apparent cause of death and the same missing shoe. Something else the coroner should have detected is if Kurt was in a dehydrated state when he died or if there was food in his stomach. He should have been able to determine how long ago Kurt had eaten. This would show if he was really walking around those three days or laying in a comatos state in the basement. All in all you are right the police work here is terrible. I am trying now to obtain copies of all police reports in this case if I am succesfull we will know alot more soon.

[kane7474]

Kurt's dad searched the area the day before his body was found. He also searched the basement. This was after the girl volunteered the information about Kurt sleeping in the cot in her basement. Perhaps his body was being stored elsewhere and was placed where it was found later on.
This is the part I just don't get. Why in the world would this girl call the dad and invite him to the house? On the show they never mentioned what the girl said happened to the guy in the basement. Did he get up and leave? Did she ask him who he was? Did he take off on foot? How long after the phone call to Kurt's dad was it that she noticed he had gone? Something is very fishy here it seems she was trying to through them off or something who knows. I can't remember from the show does anyone know how many days passed between the night of the party and the phone call to the father saying he may be in the basement??????????

[bbvman35]

Don't you think that the police would have followed up on all of these leads? I mean if we can think of all of these different opinions of what might have happened, don't you think at least one of the trained professionals might have said, "Hey maybe he overdosed." I am sure that they would have checked for drugs and alcohol even back in 1981. And the police said he died 24-36 hours before the found him and they found him 5 days after the party. Now I am not saying that the girl at that had the party did not act fishy. But like someone said earlier if there was drinking and drugs at the party I am sure they would not admit to a random parent that they had a party especially before she knew that he was missing. She also called saying there was a man sleeping in the basement. She never said it was Kurt. I think it is a pretty big coincedence that another kid was found in a different ravine near by with the same MO. I mean the right shoe was missing on both of them, and they could not determine the cause of death on either. I wonder if this has not been solved if a cold case detective has thought about reopening the case. If any one can find the police records or any more info please post it. I just started Tivoing UM and this case has really interested me.

[kane7474]

Ok I have come up with somewhat of a theory here that I have not seen mentioned yet. Again without the police records this is the best I can do. Tell me what you guys think.


Kurt goes to the party and meets up with some druggies from Detroit that are not his normal crowd. He tries whatever drug they are pushing more than likely Heroin, coke or both. He develops in instant addiction to the drug and loses some of his better judgement. He leaves the party with these guys maybe to go to Detroit or wherever to get some more drugs. He continues to binge with these guys for a few days then overdoses in the back of the van he was seen in. The druggies can't seem to wake him up and he's possibly foaming at the mouth and having convulsions. Now ofcourse these paranoid drug peddlers are not going to take him to a hospital and risk having trouble with the law (Anyone seen Pulp Fiction?) So not knowing where Kurt lives they take him back to where they met him which was the duplex. They take him to the basement to hopefully recover. The girl tells them that people are looking for this guy and his mom has been at the house. The druggies split as they are again paranoid of having any association with this. She waits awhile starts to feel she sould do something then calls Kurt's dad tells him Kurt may be in the basement. She goes down to check for herself and notices he is dead. Then franticly gets ahold of someone she knows maybe one of the drug heads and says " Hey this kid you left here is dead I called his dad thinking he was just sleeping and he's on his way get this body out of here I dont need this I already lied and told them I never saw him before". The druggies beat Kurt's father to the house grabbed the body in a mad dash. They grabbed him and got him out of there so fast one of his shoes fell off. They left the show that fell off at the house and later disposed of it. While dumping his body in the ravine they noticed his other shoe was in there van. One of them hurried back to where the body was and stuck the shoe in the rocks. Ok now about the Crazy from Detroit he was involved with all of this. He is one of those idiots the other guys just let hang out with them so they will have someone to pick on. He's one of these people that feels the need to matter as his best friends treat him like crap. He says what he says to the girl at the record store just to be a factor just to maybe scare or impress her. When the others find out what he said to the girl and that he has talked to police they grab him put the fear of god in him and take him back to Detroit. They make numerous threats to Susan that if she ever talks they will kill her as they know where she lives. As for the best freind that says he left him on the fence well I think that is a lie. He said that though before Kurt was dead I think he did not want to tell the parents that Kurt had taken off with drug heads and just figured Kurt would return un harmed. When Kurt turned up dead he too may have been threatend and just stuck to his story. Based on the info we have I think this is what happened but then you have the death of Eugene Kivet another young man found near Kurt dead again with no apparent cause and missing his right shoe. If this is coincidence I can't imagine what the odds would be.

[RightOnDude]

This theory doens't fly though being that he died 4-5 days after the party

unless he didn't stop partying when the party was over...

the missing shoe could be explained by people lugging the body and disposing of it; the shoe falls off in the car or something...

I do agree with you that this girl who had the party is sketchy. She KNEW who was in her basement, that's why she didn't call the cops. I bet she was involved in some drug dealing, myself.

[RightOnDude]

Ok I have come up with somewhat of a theory here that I have not seen mentioned yet. Again without the police records this is the best I can do. Tell me what you guys think.


Kurt goes to the party and meets up with some druggies from Detroit that are not his normal crowd. He tries whatever drug they are pushing more than likely Heroin, coke or both. He develops in instant addiction to the drug and loses some of his better judgement. He leaves the party with these guys maybe to go to Detroit or wherever to get some more drugs. He continues to binge with these guys for a few days then overdoses in the back of the van he was seen in. The druggies can't seem to wake him up and he's possibly foaming at the mouth and having convulsions. Now ofcourse these paranoid drug peddlers are not going to take him to a hospital and risk having trouble with the law (Anyone seen Pulp Fiction?) So not knowing where Kurt lives they take him back to where they met him which was the duplex. They take him to the basement to hopefully recover. The girl tells them that people are looking for this guy and his mom has been at the house. The druggies split as they are again paranoid of having any association with this. She waits awhile starts to feel she sould do something then calls Kurt's dad tells him Kurt may be in the basement. She goes down to check for herself and notices he is dead. Then franticly gets ahold of someone she knows maybe one of the drug heads and says " Hey this kid you left here is dead I called his dad thinking he was just sleeping and he's on his way get this body out of here I dont need this I already lied and told them I never saw him before". The druggies beat Kurt's father to the house grabbed the body in a mad dash. They grabbed him and got him out of there so fast one of his shoes fell off. They left the show that fell off at the house and later disposed of it. While dumping his body in the ravine they noticed his other shoe was in there van. One of them hurried back to where the body was and stuck the shoe in the rocks. Ok now about the Crazy from Detroit he was involved with all of this. He is one of those idiots the other guys just let hang out with them so they will have someone to pick on. He's one of these people that feels the need to matter as his best friends treat him like crap. He says what he says to the girl at the record store just to be a factor just to maybe scare or impress her. When the others find out what he said to the girl and that he has talked to police they grab him put the fear of god in him and take him back to Detroit. They make numerous threats to Susan that if she ever talks they will kill her as they know where she lives. As for the best freind that says he left him on the fence well I think that is a lie. He said that though before Kurt was dead I think he did not want to tell the parents that Kurt had taken off with drug heads and just figured Kurt would return un harmed. When Kurt turned up dead he too may have been threatend and just stuck to his story. Based on the info we have I think this is what happened but then you have the death of Eugene Kivet another young man found near Kurt dead again with no apparent cause and missing his right shoe. If this is coincidence I can't imagine what the odds would be.

I think this is probably right on the money. I am going to watch this episode again soon, but do you know off hand what suburb of cleveland this happened in?

[crystaldawn]

I think this is probably right on the money. I am going to watch this episode again soon, but do you know off hand what suburb of cleveland this happened in?

Kurt's body was found in the suburb of Newburg Heights. I still can't see how Eugene Kvett fits in to this but the similarities in their deaths you can't ignore. With them both being found without one shoe and both had been missing for a while before their bodies were found. They both used to know each other and Eugene was found only 3 months after Kurt and was also found in a ravine only 2.5 miles away from the ravine where Kurt was found. I am curious though whether they were able to tell what Eugene died of though as UM didn't mention that.

[bbvman35]

I believe that they said they could not tell what Eugene died from either.

[kane7474]

I believe that they said they could not tell what Eugene died from either.
Ya you know they could have done a whole segment on Eugene but instead they were very vague. You know if you really think about it based on the information given on the show these deaths have to be related. How many teenage kids die with no known cause of death? How many of those kids are found in ravines 3- 5 days after they go missing? And how many of those are missing the right shoe? Now through in the fact they were found within 2.5 miles of each other and within a three month timeline and through in the victims in question knew each other. The odds on these two deaths being unrelated have to be over 1000 to 1

[Dislimb]

I am from Cleveland (still live here in fact) and have heard quite a lot about this over the years. I have been a pretty avid watcher of UM for quite a few years. I just purchased the Ghosts and the Bizarre Murders box sets about six months ago and love them both!

The strange thing is, I have never seen the Kurt Sova segment on UM... I guess I just sort of missed out on it. Is there anywhere on the net (perhaps YouTube) where someone can upload this segment? I am dying to see this. I live less than five minutes away from where this all happened.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

What a bummer! I want to say that they aired this episode not more than three weeks ago...

[RightOnDude]

I'll see if I can get it to you, send me a private message with your e-mail addy

[queenFrostine278]

wasn't eugene just a little guy? like six?

[kane7474]

I thought they said he was 10

[kane7474]

I am from Cleveland (still live here in fact) and have heard quite a lot about this over the years. I have been a pretty avid watcher of UM for quite a few years. I just purchased the Ghosts and the Bizarre Murders box sets about six months ago and love them both!

The strange thing is, I have never seen the Kurt Sova segment on UM... I guess I just sort of missed out on it. Is there anywhere on the net (perhaps YouTube) where someone can upload this segment? I am dying to see this. I live less than five minutes away from where this all happened.
You know if your really interested you should go to the local police dept and see if you can get copies of the original police reports. I think all the answers lie with them.

[Chris Billings]

I dont remember this case. Can someone give me a sypnosis?

Much appreciated,
Cber

[crystaldawn]

Well as far as Eugene Kvette he did look young in the picture they showed of him. I always just figured that was an old picture and assumed he was close to Kurt's age. When they showed a picture of Eugene's foot (remember his shoe was never found) it definitely looked big and not like like a small child's.

Cber- Kurt Sova was 17 and attended a Halloween party and never returned. His body was found 5 days later very close to the house where the party had been yet he had no signs of injury and no drugs or alcohol in his system and they couldn't determine a cause of death. They estimated that although Kurt had been missing for 5 days when his body was found that he had only been dead for 1-2 days. The lady first denied than admitted that Kurt was at a party at her house. One of his friends claimed he had been drinking a lot that night and helped him outside and he soon disappeared. Someone Kurt used to know, Eugene Kvette, also was found dead under similar mysterious circumstances in the same city and only a few months after Kurt was found. Like Kurt he was also missing a shoe that was never found.

[Dislimb]

I have watched this one about 3-4 times in the past few days (thanks Heather!) and it bothers me a bit more every time I watch it. I think I am going to hit up the library and try to get some photo copies of the newspaper articles and perhaps look into getting a copy of the police report(s) as someone mentioned earlier.

Any advice on how to go about doing that?

[kadrmas15]

Yeah this case is very strange. Well the heart condition is possible but at autopsy the coroner said Sova had no pre exisiting disease or medical condition that would have caused his death. It is hard to tell whether or not he was murdered because he really hadnt been beaten and he hadnt been shot or stabbed. It could be that he had a bad reaction to drugs but stayed alive long enough after the bad reaction for it to clear his system before he died so it didnt show up on any tests that the coroner may have run. The other boy that Kurt knew that died I think was probably around Kurt's age. I think that photo of him looked like it had been taken years before he died it looked like he had been taking in the early 70's. The things that made me think it may have been a murder was how the chick that lived in the duplex lied to Kurt's mom and also how both Kurt and other boy he knew were each missing one shoe. Could it be the calling card of a serial killer? What is everyone else's thoughts. I wonder if that person that said on here that they were going to get the police reports ever got them. I believe it was the Newbury Heights, Ohio police that investigated it. A pretty shoddy investigation on their part by the way.

[Angel4u2]

I have lived in Cleveland all my life. I have heard people talk about this case alot. One thing I don't remember hearing mentioned on the show was that Kurt had been working at a haunted house and that was one place where some people supposedly searched. I heard Kurt hung out with people he didn't even really know that well that night at the party. I heard that the shoes missing could have been part of some ritual. And I do think that the Newburgh Heights police department did a terrible job of handling this case. And I also never understood how the coroner could not determine a cause of death. Could there have maybe been something in Kurt's blood that would not show up on the test?
This case has always bothered me for years and I wish it could come out in the cold cases. I have always felt terrible for his mother and I hope someday she can have some peace.

[UMfan77]

This is for anyone that lives or lived in Cleveland: Do any of your local news channels or newspapers do any stories on the Sova family currently? I don't know if Kurt's parents are still living but he had three brothers. For instance, has his brothers done any interviews on tv on how the investigation has been progressing for the past 25 years?

The local police must not let this case be forgotten about. An innocent boy died & his family members deserve to know what happened to him.

[kadrmas15]

Yes, this case was a prime example of shoddy police work. I was just stunned at the low quality and am amazed at how badly some of these police departments are at investigating cases. The coroner not being able to find a cause of death was surprising. A seemingly healthy 17 year old male does not just die for no reason. But it was the early 80's too and they didnt have the technology at that time that they do now. Maybe they would be able to find the cause now that they couldnt find then. As for Sova's parents still living does anyone know? At the time of the segment it looked like his parents were in their early to mid 50's. That would make them probably very late 60's, very early 70's now.

[Dislimb]

The 25th anniversary of his death is fast approaching. Does anyone have any advice on how to go about finding more information about this case. I live about a 5-10 minute drive from the Newburgh Heights Police Department.

[Angel4u2]

As far as I know Kurt's mother is still alive but his father has since passed on. He does have three brothers, all of which I do believe live in the area. There has not been any interviews or articles in the paper recently or at least as far as I know.

[SiberianKiss]

I think the friend who supposedly saw Kurt Sova...this was false and just some thing to make the UM segment more interesting...they do do that you know....usually the answers are right in front of everybody...

And I wonder how much UM held back, how LE really handled this, I do get the feeling they didn't do a very good job and probably thought of him as a runaway (very common back then before all these laws) and then when they found the body...autopsy, no cause known, case closed. Did they really interview the "friend" who allegedly put KS up against the fence and then went back inside? What about the girl who had the party. Can you imagine this day in age, those two would be interrogated heavily and the real story would come out, especially since whats her name lied about having a party.

and the Detroit Crazy, like I said, if he really did say those things....there had to have been a connection with KS, who would say that otherwise?

if KS really did die due to some unkown heart ailment or whatever....what the hell was he doing in the woods???

[SiberianKiss]

Dislimb,

if you live 5 mins from the police dept of the town where KS was from....why don't you go on down to the station and ask about it.

agree they should do a cold case on this.

*edit*

if UM told us pretty much everything, this was one of the worst police investigations of all time.

[dynoguy88]

Somebody asked for a timeline of the 5 days between Kurt leaving home on Friday and when his body was found on Wednesday. I went back to watch the segment and wrote all the info down to help with people's theories.


TIMELINE -


FRIDAY AFTERNOON (October 23, 1981) - Kurt leaves his house. A block away, he meets up with one of his friends.

FRIDAY EVENING - Kurt goes to the party at "Susan's" duplex. He never returns home.


SATURDAY MORNING (October 24, 1981) - Ken Sova searches the neighborhood, Dorothy Sova callls everyone she knows asking where Kurt is.


SUNDAY MORNING (October 25, 1981) - The Sova's register Kurt as a missing person with the Cleveland Police and they put up flyers with his picture around town.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON - After talking with some of his friends, Dorothy Sova finds out about Kurt going to the party. She goes to Susan's duplex and finds out Susan is working, so she gives her phone number to the babysitter.

SUNDAY EVENING - Dorothy gets a phone call from Susan. Susan says she never had a party and she never saw Kurt. However, a pizza boy confirms that he delivered pizza to a party at the duplex Friday night. Dorothy calls Susan back again and this time Susan says she DID in fact have a party and Kurt was there drinking heavily.


MONDAY MORNING (October 26, 1981) - Kurt's friend says he spots Kurt walking with another boy along a busy road less than a mile from the Sova home. David claims he pulls to the side of the road to offer Kurt a ride, then says Kurt yelled "Franko!" to a man that pulled up in a van. The boys get in the van and drive off.

MONDAY AFTERNOON - The crazy guy from Detroit walks into a record store (after seeing a flyer) and tells the owner that Kurt will be found dead in 2 days and nobody will know how he died.


TUESDAY MORNING (October 27, 1981) - The record store owner goes to open the store and finds flowers and a note from the crazy from Detroit. The note says -

"Roses are red,
the sky is blue.
They found him dead,
and they'll find you too."

TUESDAY AFTERNOON - Police question the crazy from Detroit. But since Kurt was just missing at this time, they let him go. He is never seen again.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON - Ken Sova searches the ravine where Kurt's body would be found the next day. He sees nothing.


WEDNESDAY MORNING (October 28, 1981) - At 3:30 a.m., Susan calls Dorothy to tell her that someone is asleep in her basement and it might be Kurt. Ken Sova goes over to the duplex to investigate but doesn't find him in the basement.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON - Kurt's body is found in the ravine, just 500 yards from Susan's duplex.


The autopsy says that Kurt died 24-36 hours BEFORE his body was found - that means he officially died some time on Tuesday between the early hours and the afternoon.

[UMfan77]

Thanks for putting that timeline together, it really gives everyone a better look at when certain things happened. This whole case seems like a big puzzle. Kurt Sova R.I.P.

[SiberianKiss]

thanks dynoguy

MONDAY AFTERNOON - The crazy guy from Detroit walks into a record store (after seeing a flyer) and tells the owner that Kurt will be found dead in 2 days and nobody will know how he died.


TUESDAY MORNING (October 27, 1981) - The record store owner goes to open the store and finds flowers and a note from the crazy from Detroit. The note says -

"Roses are red,
the sky is blue.
They found him dead,
and they'll find you too."


hmmm I never noticed but he said two days on monday and wednesday is when "they" meaning the cops, family, etc found him. However on tuesday he wrote "they found him dead" well the family and law enforcement still didn't know where Sova was or what had happened to him. i wonder if "they" means somebody else in the poem. who could it be. then again maybe this whole "detroit crazy" (still cracks me up hearing that) is all nonsense....perhaps UM just trying to make it more of mystery then it really is. one of the weirdest unsolved mysteries ever imo.

[kane7474]

I just watched this episode again and noticed a few things I didnt pick up on before.

1st- The friend who claims to have left Kurt on the fence is never named in the segment. This tells me that the police never spoke to him at all. If indeed he had been questioned by the police the report and his name could have been made public by UM. But since this never happened Mrs. Sova did not speak his name on the segment

2. The whole story about the party at Susan's house came from Kurt's mom, not a police report, also the woman who hosted the party is simply known by her first name, again giving me the idea that police never questioned her.

3. David Trusec, who claims to have seen Kurt walking down the side of the road on sunday never mentions giving statements to police. His story was given directly to UM as he was the ONLY other person involved besides Kurt's parents and the girl at the record store to speak on camera.

4. There was a short interview with the head of the police dept for that city. There were no statements from a detective of any kind. The officer simply stated that it appeared someone had put the body in that area so that he would be found soon. Being that it was the head of the police dept and not a detective that was interviewed, again you must wonder if the case was investigated at all.

5. When the story of Eugene Kivet is being relayed at the end it is never stated that his cause of death is unknown. All that is said is that he knew Kurt, was found in a ravine and was missing the right shoe. I think they through this in, and give such a vauge description just to add some mystery here.

6. The Coroner states that Kurt did not have enough alcohol in his system to kill him. By this statement though we can assume that he did have some alcohol in his body at the time of death. Now, by this mans estimates Kurt actually died on Monday or Tuesday so there is no way he would still have booze in his system from the friday night party. This means whatever he did at the party did not kill him. He was up and around and continued partying through the weekend. So more then one person saw Kurt after the party and know what happened to him. Can more then one person keep a secret? Ofcourse when they are never named as suspects or even so much as questioned by police why would they ever give up there silence? Again and again the more you put this one together it all comes back to the worst job of police work I have ever seen.

[racethetrain]

my main issue with this case (as far as um is concerened) is that Kurt's parents piece almost everything together, while I'm not saying the details aren't correct I do believe Kurt's parents may lack judgement due to being blindsided by their obvious love for their son. (But can you blame them??) Unfortunatly sometimes when parents get soo involved in investigations it can throw a wrench in the overall investigations because of their lack of objectivity.

[kadrmas15]

Well, I am always skeptical when a parent says their kid never drank, never partied, never did this and that. I mean Robert Stack "Kurt was not much of a drinker" however does this mean he never drank? No. It just means it was not the end all, be all for him. I think that what happened was Kurt was partying all weekend, things got out of h and, he got hurt somehow and the people that he was with panicked and tried to nurse him back to health but he ended up dying. I mean it is such a bizarre and sad case it is hard to tell exactly what happened. According to the Social Security Death Index, Kurt's father passed away in 2001 but his mom is still alive.

[kane7474]

Well, I am always skeptical when a parent says their kid never drank, never partied, never did this and that. I mean Robert Stack "Kurt was not much of a drinker" however does this mean he never drank? No. It just means it was not the end all, be all for him. I think that what happened was Kurt was partying all weekend, things got out of h and, he got hurt somehow and the people that he was with panicked and tried to nurse him back to health but he ended up dying. I mean it is such a bizarre and sad case it is hard to tell exactly what happened. According to the Social Security Death Index, Kurt's father passed away in 2001 but his mom is still alive.
I don't think she said that he never drank or partied, she just said that they never had problems with him at school or in the neighborhood. Its pretty obvious he wasnt much of a wild child being that his parents were alarmed and reported him missing on Saturday. Im sure we've all known kids at his age that would be gone all weekend and the parents wouldnt think a thing of it.

[kane7474]

my main issue with this case (as far as um is concerened) is that Kurt's parents piece almost everything together, while I'm not saying the details aren't correct I do believe Kurt's parents may lack judgement due to being blindsided by their obvious love for their son. (But can you blame them??) Unfortunatly sometimes when parents get soo involved in investigations it can throw a wrench in the overall investigations because of their lack of objectivity.
Your exactly right about his parents piecing everything together. In this case though I think that is all UM had to go on, being that the police never seemed to question anyone involved. As far as the parents throwing a wrench into the investigations, I think you would actually have to have an investigation to have a wrench thrown in it. From what we have been presented with there is no evidence of any investigation on the part of the police.

[buddah]

no one has ever really came out and siad who he was with, I went to school with his older brothers and actually hung out with one of them, one brother was always in trouble and is in prison for a long time, I remember some of the people involved and always had a feeling on who did this.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Hi Buddah,

Thanks for posting. I'm sorry for prying, but is it possible for you to elaborate on who you think may have been responsible for Kurt's death? As you can see, we've done a LOT of speculating on these boards and would be interested to have the opinion of someone who was a lot closer to the case than we were. If you feel like revealing this information would compromise your identity, then please don't say anything, but just know that all of us would be very interested in any insights you can give us in Kurt's baffling death.

[buddah]

but during that time the neighborhood was polluted with drugs and everyone was doing them, I'll have to read through the info, but I remember something someone said at the time but it was never proven, the guy I'm thinking of was a well known tough and dealer, there was a party every night and this person preyed on his type, KS was a wannabe type, or hanger on, has it been said if he had any amount of money on him? Where he was found in Newburgh Hts, is just outside of Cleveland and the area he was found in is a dump next to the steel mill, does anyone know the name of the party host, I knew of some Detroit people who were heavy PCP users and dealers around this time, but older than KS

[kane7474]

but during that time the neighborhood was polluted with drugs and everyone was doing them, I'll have to read through the info, but I remember something someone said at the time but it was never proven, the guy I'm thinking of was a well known tough and dealer, there was a party every night and this person preyed on his type, KS was a wannabe type, or hanger on, has it been said if he had any amount of money on him? Where he was found in Newburgh Hts, is just outside of Cleveland and the area he was found in is a dump next to the steel mill, does anyone know the name of the party host, I knew of some Detroit people who were heavy PCP users and dealers around this time, but older than KS
The woman who had the party is only known as "Susan". It was never said if Kurt had money on him or not, Aside from Dan Trusec (Kurt's freind that saw him walking down the street on Sunday) and Kurt's parents there were no names mentioned.

[buddah]

posts and watching again on you tube, I know the brothers were partyers, getting high and drinking was the thing back then, I am going to try and get in touch with some people from then, I moved out a while ago, that neighborhood has become a ghetto in the worst way now, so I'll have to dig and find some old friends, I remember little Sova showing up and hanging around some, seemed to party like the rest of us back then, the mother and father seemed a little naive with all the trouble the other brother got into.

[kane7474]

posts and watching again on you tube, I know the brothers were partyers, getting high and drinking was the thing back then, I am going to try and get in touch with some people from then, I moved out a while ago, that neighborhood has become a ghetto in the worst way now, so I'll have to dig and find some old friends, I remember little Sova showing up and hanging around some, seemed to party like the rest of us back then, the mother and father seemed a little naive with all the trouble the other brother got into.
Hey any new info you can provide would be a great help. Let us know what you can come up with thanks again

[hostedbyrobertstack]

This case really gets to me, I hate when young people are found dead. Anyways, I think with the whole party thing, it was right around that time before halloween, which is well known to be a big party time, not saying the only time, but there were probably more parties/bigger parties around this time. Also, I always forget to keep in mind that Kurt Sova was only 17, I always seem to forget that. I know his parents were naive in saying he didn't drink/do drugs, but 17 is a tough age, I remember being 17 and how it was. People are always trying to fit in/rebel against their parents, and do things they wouldn't normally do. I think maybe he did something or went with those "shady" people just to feel like he belonged or that he was rebelling possibly. Also, I rarely drink, but i know that when I have, I would do many things that normally I would never think of doing, or hang out with people that normally I would never think of or want to hang out with. This could be the case with him, maybe he got very drunk and decided to do drugs, or go places with these drug dealer type of people, or as buddha said, maybe people that his brothers knew/hung out with. Who knows, maybe he wanted to go home, but the people he was with made fun of him or pressured him into staying at the parties or going with them to wherever the druggies went. There are so many possibilities, I really hope to see this solved. It seems though, with many updates from unsolved mysteries, the real answers are sometimes ones I would have never thought of. So who really knows.

[UMfan77]

Also, the fact that Kurt's neighborhood was littered with drugs didn't help matters any, it's like, in order to "fit in" he had no choice but to take that path. He probably would've had to stay in his house 24/7 if he wanted to stay away from the bad influences. It's really such a sad case all around.

[kadrmas15]

Yes, I thought his parents were a bit naive too in saying that he didnt drink or do drugs. I mean I get that it is completely natural for parents to want to think their kids dont do "bad" things but they were naive on that no doubt. But in Kurt's case, isnt it true they do not even really know what he died from? Because I know the ME said he didnt have enough alcohol in his system to kill him, he did not appear to be beaten, he didnt have any pre existing disease that would cause death. It was just very bizarre. I think the police botched the investigation from day 1. I do think it is likely that whoever killed Kurt also killed that other boy that Kurt knew.

[DarkDante]

I do think it is likely that whoever killed Kurt also killed that other boy that Kurt knew.

If we assume that that picture shown on the broadcast of Eugene was several years old by then. That kid looked about ten years old if not younger :lol: - Kurt Sova was sixteen I believe when he died so if Eugene was not around the same age, then I would find it highly unlikely that Eugene was murdered by the same individual.

[kadrmas15]

Well DD, I for one dont think the photo of Eugene was how he looked when he died. I think he was around the same age as Kurt, maybe even a year or two older. They showed a photo of how he looked when he was a kid because that photo of Eugene looked like it was taken in the very early 1970's not the v ery early 1980's.

[kane7474]

Well DD, I for one dont think the photo of Eugene was how he looked when he died. I think he was around the same age as Kurt, maybe even a year or two older. They showed a photo of how he looked when he was a kid because that photo of Eugene looked like it was taken in the very early 1970's not the v ery early 1980's.They also show a partial shot of his body at the end. You can clearly see he is wearing a large boot, this is not something a young child would be wearing. As I said before though they never state that Eugene's cause of death was unknown, so it is possible they just through him in there to add to the suspense.

[UMfan77]

I do think it's a strange conscience that both Eugene & Kurt had red hair, just a thought. I thought that no cause of death was found in Eugene's death too.

[crystaldawn]

I thought of another possibility for Kurt's death while watching an episode of North Mission Road recently and I'm not sure if its been brought up here or not. A teenager was at a party and to the horror of all the guests he collapsed and later died. A cause of death was not determined immediately and there were no drugs or alcohol found in his system. It was later found out that a partygoer had brought a big cooler of a clear liquid that some partygoers were drinking. The boy who died seemed to be consuming a lot of this liquid and it was later determined to be what is now referred to as the date rape drug (or in the family of). Even with today's forensics it was tough for them to actually determine the cause of death but with some effort were able to tie it to that. I wonder if this date rape drug (which I believe is also used as an anethesia sometimes) was around back then and if its possible that could be what Kurt died from.

[hostedbyrobertstack]

sorry to bring up an older topic, but I was just watching this case again. I don't know if anyone knows about this website called city-data.com, but anyways they have forums for each state and major cities. I just posted something in the cleveland forum on there if there are any new updates on kurt sova. A lot of people post on those forums, so hopefully something could come from it.

[Dislimb]

sorry to bring up an older topic, but I was just watching this case again. I don't know if anyone knows about this website called city-data.com, but anyways they have forums for each state and major cities. I just posted something in the cleveland forum on there if there are any new updates on kurt sova. A lot of people post on those forums, so hopefully something could come from it.

Probably not. This is a 26 year old case which will more than likely never be solved.

[ForeverPluto]

This was one of the most interesting cases I've seen profiled. I too felt that something happened at the party that night. Here's my two cents:

When that lady called Kurt's mom at 3:30 in the morning to tell her she thought her son was sleeping in the basement, she did it in a panic. She probably flipped out because Kurt died down there and her roommates or some of the guys at the party said to just keep him down there until they figured out a plan. She probably figured she would just call the mom and make up the whole sleeping story and expect Kurt's mom to come over and look for her son. When Kurt's mom got there, she was going to say she had no idea she was dead and just thought he was sleeping. But when her roommates or some guys that were there found out she called, they panicked and dumped the body in the ravine. As far as the shoe goes, it's possible that they took Kurt over there and when they got there they found out that he only had one shoe on. They could have dumped the shoe or burned it or anything.

The thing about U.M. is they never give you all the story that you want to hear. For instance, they never clarified how sure that friend was that he actually saw Kurt get into the van. Maybe he was only 20% sure that who he saw really was Kurt. It would have been nice had UM clarified that one fact, because if he really was sure, then something else went on outside of the party.
That's kinda along the lines of what I think happened too. But to take it a bit further, maybe the missing shoe thing was purposely done...as in, what if one of the partygoers or the crazy from Detroit was familiar with the other case of where the other kid was found without his shoe, decided to "take" Kurt's shoe to make it seem as though Kurt was a victim of foul play...to throw people off the fact Kurt might have taken drugs at this party.

[steve84sd]

drug testing existed back then and here is the detection times. you can see the discrepencys here on
http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/testing/testing_info1.shtml#duration
meth may be the culprit or maybe coke. but in the 70s powder coke was expensive. rember kurt lived in a working class hood
im curious though if a urine analyisis was done.

however if someone can obtain his death certificate or autopsy report.

for his death certiciate you can contact vital statistics


for the autopsy report visit the police department station in the juridiction of cleveland were kurt was found

[steve84sd]

oops he died in the 80s I was not alive in 81, does anyone know if crack made it to ohio by 81 ?

[StackTime]

Why is it that everyone here seems to be so willing to accept the "Crazy from Detroit" explanation for the creepy guy? Indeed, he may have been crazy, and from Detroit, but his lingering near the Sova's neighborhood and the quote/note with the storeperson warrants at least SOME grounded suspicion.

Also, the M-E seems to be out of it. Quoting Sherlock Holmes in an interview regarding a case which was gaining national attention? A "new" drug may have done Sova in. I have a hard time believing that the DET crazy knew nothing, and the M-E found everything.

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

How did the crazy from Detroit know when he would be found and that the cause would be undetermined? Would the store clerk have even had access to such information to invent this? (I forget whether the store clerk came forward before or after the body was found.)

[LiveByTheSea]

I feel bad for Kurt and his family but his death was the result of drugs, not the work of a killer. hell, even his mom didn't know that he drank. he probably did at the party. don't know why they brought in the Eugene kid, it was just an odd coincidence he was found the way Kurt was.

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

I feel bad for Kurt and his family but his death was the result of drugs, not the work of a killer. hell, even his mom didn't know that he drank. he probably did at the party. don't know why they brought in the Eugene kid, it was just an odd coincidence he was found the way Kurt was.

So the people with Kurt when he O. D.'d dumped his body and took his shoe to make it look like the work of a shoe bandit killer?

[UMfan77]

It's very possible that Kurt Sova had a preexisting heart condition that was never know about, and considering the time that this took place, it's very reasonable to assume that they didn't look for these things when doing Kurt's autopsy.

Does anyone here think that maybe Kurt's body should be exumed and a second autopsy be performed? It's been done on other victims that have been profiled on UM, such as Shannon Davis and Leroy Drieth. Just a thought.

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

Elvis was never exhumed--he was simply buried without his heart, which was preserved at the hospital where he died. That's how they were able to recently determine that a heart condition killed him--whatever role drugs may or may not have played. Probably this isn't the usual custom, though, and who knows what shape someone's heart would be in after being buried all that time.

As for Kurt, so they didn't know what killed him. Did they know how long he had been dead? Was it considerably less time than he had been missing?

[Cloberella]

Hi, so I just saw this episode of UM on TV and googled "Kurt Sova" which led me to this thread. I read through it and there are alot of good ideas in here. This story is so fascinating! I think what happened is pretty close to what a poster on the previous page said. That Kurt took something at that party. The boy who "left him on the fence" more than likely gave it to him. What teenager thinks to go back inside to get his buddies jacket because it's "chilly" out? If he took Kurt out to get some air, he probably wouldn't think to get the jacket. The jacket seems like an after thought, a way to leave open a window for Kurt's disappearance from the party.

The combination of alcohol and whatever Kurt took probably caused some sort of reaction. He went and laid down in the basement of the duplex. The party went on, no one really thought about it. The next morning Kurt is still ill. Suzanne, being older doesn't want him to go home, fearful that whatever Kurt took would be traced back to her party (where there was underage drinking and drugs). The Jacket Friend agrees, since he is the one who gave Kurt the drug. They decide to just let him try and sleep it off, not wanting him to get medical attention for the same reasons listed above.

Kurt's mom visits during the day and is given the run around. When the woman calls her that night she's still trying to conceal the party because Kurt is not getting better. She lies to Kurt's mother.

Sometime after that, Kurt's condition worsens greatly. At this point they can only hope he gets better, since admitting they lied would only get them into even more trouble. Especially the woman who is possibly the only legal adult in the situation.

Kurt is reported missing, flyers go up and the pizza dude rats the woman out. She admits Kurt was there but that he left, and that's when Jacket dude comes forward with his thoughtful addition to the story.

Sometime after this, Kurt dies. Suzanne, the duplex owner, panics. They enlist a friend to pose as Crazy Detriot guy. They want him to make the death seem like foul play. The shoddy police work here allows their friend from out of town to get away with the deception.

At this point Duplex Dolly and Captain Jacket need to do something with Kurt's body. They can't decide on what to do and eventually go to bed. Panicked, Suzanne decides to call the Sova's in the middle of the night. When Jacket Man finds out, he freaks, grabs Kurt's body and leaves.

It takes him a little while to decide what to do with Kurt's body. Before he settles on the ravine, Mr. Sova searches the area and finds nothing. Then Kurt's body is dumped. The missing shoe either purposefully done to tie in with their skit involving the Crazy guy from Detroit, or because it was actually lost in Jacket man's haste to remove Kurt's body before Mr. Sova arrived at the duplex.

Now, Eugene. Perhaps he took the same fatal combination of drugs that Kurt did, and Jacket man, once again involved in the peddling of the poison, decided to just dump the body and remove the shoe this time, assuming they would connect the case to Kurt's, making it seem more like a serial killer (as that seems to be what he was going for with the roses and the poetry).

Boy I watch too much Law & Order. . . .

Has there been any new developments on this that anyone knows?

[StackTime]

That seems like a really solid theory you've laid out....good stuff

[Cloberella]

That seems like a really solid theory you've laid out....good stuff


Thanks. I saw some people here lived in the area and were planning on looking into it to see if there were any updates -- did anyone ever find out anything more?

[UMfan77]

Yeah, a few years back, someone that personally knew the Sova's posted here a few times and we never heard from him again.

Now, I have a question. Was it ever confirmed that Kurt ACTUALLY BROUGHT A JACKET TO THE PARTY? If not, then that kid that supposedly brought Kurt outside to the fence is lying.

The police really need to pick this case apart and re-investigate it.

[ms_bates]

Here are my thoughts after re-watching this segment recently.

The woman who held the party did lie about having done so when first questioned by Kurt's mother. But I don't think that automatically points to her being involved in, or even knowing about of some sort of foul play involving Kurt. Think about it, there was a party at her home that involved lots of booze, most likely drugs, and some people of questionable legal age. While it is hardly the height of social responsibility to throw such a party, I can understand why she would initially lie when a parent came nosing around.

Why she would later call back and say that someone -maybe Kurt- was sleeping in her basement, I haven't the foggiest idea. If her place was the local party spot, then it is quite likely she did have people crashing there from time to time, perhaps friends of friends she didn't know very well. I do find that part of the segment to be very odd, though, and not to mention creepy when the dad goes into the dark basement!

Maybe she knows something, maybe she doesn't. I found it hard to form a strong opinion one way or another from the segment alone.

The supposed sighting of Kurt by a friend of his, I'm leaning toward that being a valid sighting. If the autopsy results were correct, then Kurt certainly did survive the night of the party. Maybe he hooked up with some people at that party and spent the next few days doing drugs. Eventually, he did overdose or suffered some fatal complication and they dumped his body to rid themselves of any possible responsibility or consequences.

Now, here is where I am confused. I know the pathologist said that Kurt did not have enough alcohol in his system for it to be fatal, but what about drugs? Did they run toxicology screenings back in 1981? You'd think that would be an obvious thing to check for when a healthy young man dies, with no apparent signs of foul play. It would be interesting to have another forensic pathologist take a look at the autopsy report now. Perhaps all the advances in forensics over the past twenty-eight years would shed new light on the findings back then.

[justins5256]

The following is an old post from someone who claims to have known the Sova family and Kurt...

but during that time the neighborhood was polluted with drugs and everyone was doing them, I'll have to read through the info, but I remember something someone said at the time but it was never proven, the guy I'm thinking of was a well known tough and dealer, there was a party every night and this person preyed on his type, KS was a wannabe type, or hanger on, has it been said if he had any amount of money on him? Where he was found in Newburgh Hts, is just outside of Cleveland and the area he was found in is a dump next to the steel mill, does anyone know the name of the party host, I knew of some Detroit people who were heavy PCP users and dealers around this time, but older than KS

My gut feeling is that Kurt hooked up with some druggies at that party, possibly people who were not his usual circle of friends. He got drunk or stoned or both. His parents seemed oblivious to his wild ways so I could totally see Kurt waking up the next morning and possibly being too hung over or stoned to return home to face his parents. I wonder if these people convinced Kurt to come hang out with them and do more drugs. This would account for the sighting of Kurt after the party. I also wonder if maybe "they" had some new drug or substance that they wanted to test out but didn't want to take it themselves so they used Kurt as a guinea pig of sorts. Obviously, I'm majorly speculating here but this guy says Kurt was a "wannabe" or "hanger on" type. Kurt takes the substance and has a reaction to it and dies. The druggies panic and bring Kurt back to the duplex and have the party host call the parents with this bogus story about Kurt possibly being in the basement. I'm thinking that she must have known he wasn't really sleeping in the basement because if we follow the timeframe, he would be dead by this point. Perhaps they took him to the ravine at that time thinking the parents would think Kurt - still alive - got up and wandered off. Maybe they were hoping it would be a day or two before his body was found in that ravine and that takes the party host out of the hot seat because she DID attempt to call Kurt's parents for help. But, if we follow their logic, Kurt went out on his own and died of some other cause and everyone involved before that is absolved.

Just a theory...

Now, who can explain the eerily similar death of Eugene Kivet? :)

[egswanso]

I just saw this case again on UM and have to say it doesn't seem that mysterious to me... kid ODs at party (drug, drink, both), kids panic and try to hide it.

Maybe he died right away, maybe he lingered, but to me, that seems the simplest, most logical explaination, and explains most all of the points presented. Albeit, it is one most unpleasant to the parents, so I can understand their unwillingness to accept it.

As for Eugene, the UM segment really didn't present much of a case that the two cases have anything to do with each other beyond the fact that the boys were acquainted and some general similarities.

[MegtheEgg86]

Kurt takes the substance and has a reaction to it and dies. The druggies panic and bring Kurt back to the duplex and have the party host call the parents with this bogus story about Kurt possibly being in the basement. I'm thinking that she must have known he wasn't really sleeping in the basement because if we follow the timeframe, he would be dead by this point. Perhaps they took him to the ravine at that time thinking the parents would think Kurt - still alive - got up and wandered off. Maybe they were hoping it would be a day or two before his body was found in that ravine and that takes the party host out of the hot seat because she DID attempt to call Kurt's parents for help. But, if we follow their logic, Kurt went out on his own and died of some other cause and everyone involved before that is absolved.

That's interesting. Although I always believed Kurt ODed or suffered a fatal reaction, I never thought to consider that Kurt could've been used to "test out" a new drug. That would've been all the more reason to try to cover up his death.

Now, who can explain the eerily similar death of Eugene Kivet? :)

This has probably been put out there before, but do you think the conspirators were competent enough to stage Kurt's death to look like he ran into the same person who murdered Eugene Kvett? I mean, if they ran in rough circles, it's possible they even knew Kvett's killer personally at some point or another.

[soilentgreen]

I don't know if this has been posted:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/cleveland/128846-any-new-info-kurt-sova.html

I tend to accept the OD/undiagnosed medical condition theory. Kurt may have had seizures or overheated and his shoe came off at that time, or as they were moving him. It's possible they even put him in a bathtub to revive him or clean him up. He didn't have to be a regular partier; it's easy enough to OD on initial use of certain drugs or combined with alcohol.


The big mystery for me is the exact the circumstances of Eugene Kvett's death. Possibly it involved drug/alcohol use and exposure (it's not uncommon for people in advanced stages of hypothermia to remove shoes, gloves and other clothing articles) or a boot was lost while someone was moving his body. UM doesn't give enough information to determine what happened to him.

[hostedbyrobertstack]

[QUOTE=soilentgreen]I don't know if this has been posted:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/cleveland/128846-any-new-info-kurt-sova.html

Hey, that was I who posted that message on city-data a couple of years ago, ha. I just added another reply to it to bump it up to the first page, see if anyone new sees it.

[MegtheEgg86]

[QUOTE=soilentgreen]I don't know if this has been posted:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/cleveland/128846-any-new-info-kurt-sova.html

Hey, that was I who posted that message on city-data a couple of years ago, ha. I just added another reply to it to bump it up to the first page, see if anyone new sees it.

I had a feeling that was one of our own. ;)

[klavkhalash]

I thought of another possibility for Kurt's death while watching an episode of North Mission Road recently and I'm not sure if its been brought up here or not. A teenager was at a party and to the horror of all the guests he collapsed and later died. A cause of death was not determined immediately and there were no drugs or alcohol found in his system. It was later found out that a partygoer had brought a big cooler of a clear liquid that some partygoers were drinking. The boy who died seemed to be consuming a lot of this liquid and it was later determined to be what is now referred to as the date rape drug (or in the family of). Even with today's forensics it was tough for them to actually determine the cause of death but with some effort were able to tie it to that. I wonder if this date rape drug (which I believe is also used as an anethesia sometimes) was around back then and if its possible that could be what Kurt died from.

the clear liquid "date rape drug" you mentioned is a very unlikely candidate.
Although, the cause of death would probably go undetected in the 80s.
The drug you are speaking of, most likely GHB or GBL, was not common in the 80s. "t's use as a sleep aid and body building supplement in the 80s and as a recreational psychoactive in the 90s led to it being scheduled in the U.S. in March of 2000." -erowid
although unscheduled, GHB and its analogs were virtually unknown, in america, in the early 80s.

[hostedbyrobertstack]

I have been looking up on people finder, and I believe they still live in newburgh heights. It also says Kurt's fathers current age 76, and dorothy at 71...so I am not sure if he did pass away in 2001 as someone stated. I did find a number and it would be very interesting to call up and see if there were any new info...but in a way I would feel bad doing that. It would be nice to be able to get ahold of some of the families from these crimes and find out their views or new information.

[hostedbyrobertstack]

Somewhat of an UPDATE...but not too much. I just called up the Newburgh Heights Police Department and asked who I would get ahold of to find out about any updates of an older case. She didn't really know, but once I said Kurt Sova, she knew who I was talking about. She then transferred me to a detective there. He said that he actually had the opportunity to speak with some of the people involved with the case, but they have all since retired. He told me to call the county sheriff's dept. and that they would have the case file, but that it was probably on a shelf somewhere as it has been so long. He said there have been some theories around there, but he did not want to misquote anyone. He did say that he believes a DNA sample was given for testing.

[MegtheEgg86]

Somewhat of an UPDATE...but not too much. I just called up the Newburgh Heights Police Department and asked who I would get ahold of to find out about any updates of an older case. She didn't really know, but once I said Kurt Sova, she knew who I was talking about. She then transferred me to a detective there. He said that he actually had the opportunity to speak with some of the people involved with the case, but they have all since retired. He told me to call the county sheriff's dept. and that they would have the case file, but that it was probably on a shelf somewhere as it has been so long. He said there have been some theories around there, but he did not want to misquote anyone. He did say that he believes a DNA sample was given for testing.

I very recently rewatched this segment. My husband is currently working near Cleveland and that gave me the opportunity to check out Newburgh Heights and the vicinity of Harvard Ave. I'm assuming NHPD directed you to Cuyahoga County SD?

Please let us know if you find out anything. I'd be quite curious.

[hostedbyrobertstack]

I very recently rewatched this segment. My husband is currently working near Cleveland and that gave me the opportunity to check out Newburgh Heights and the vicinity of Harvard Ave. I'm assuming NHPD directed you to Cuyahoga County SD?

Please let us know if you find out anything. I'd be quite curious.

Meg,

I ended up calling the Cuyahoga sheriff's dept....the man I talked to actually didn't even know the case I was talking about (as opposed to NH, who actually knew the case and the detective had actually talked to some of the original detectives. When I actually called the operator there, and said Kurt Sova, I could hear the detective in the back telling her to let him speak with me. It must have been a big case for NH to this day.) Anyways, so no new news there..i was disappointed with that. Although he did say that in 2 weeks the guy would be back in the department that may know more. It also seems as though the family still lives there, actually a few streets away from Harvard Ave. I actually live in Dayton...and would like to see that area sometime...as I'm sure the houses look the exact same as they did back then.. I wonder if the ravine is still there?

[MegtheEgg86]

Oh yeah, it's still very similar to what was shown in the UM segment. Please update us if you decide to call back in two weeks.

(I've been through ol' Dayton many a time, btw. I always manage to get myself caught in the rush hour traffic on 75 when I come up to see my husband. Guess I ought to leave TN a bit earlier. :cool: )

[kane7474]

That's interesting. Although I always believed Kurt ODed or suffered a fatal reaction, I never thought to consider that Kurt could've been used to "test out" a new drug. That would've been all the more reason to try to cover up his death.



This has probably been put out there before, but do you think the conspirators were competent enough to stage Kurt's death to look like he ran into the same person who murdered Eugene Kvett? I mean, if they ran in rough circles, it's possible they even knew Kvett's killer personally at some point or another.

You guys seem to be leaving out the details that really make this case odd. Sure he could have just o'd and they dumped his body because they were scared. However keep in mind he was missing for three days, his father searched the ravine after he went missing and Kurt was not there, Some crazy guy told a store cleark that they would find him and no one would know what he died of, the party host called the dad and said she thought Kurt was in the basement three days after he dissapeared. And we can't forget that one of his freinds claims to have seen him just one day before his body was found.

[MegtheEgg86]

You guys seem to be leaving out the details that really make this case odd. Sure he could have just o'd and they dumped his body because they were scared. However keep in mind he was missing for three days, his father searched the ravine after he went missing and Kurt was not there, Some crazy guy told a store cleark that they would find him and no one would know what he died of, the party host called the dad and said she thought Kurt was in the basement three days after he dissapeared. And we can't forget that one of his freinds claims to have seen him just one day before his body was found.

Oh no, that point was addressed, actually:

The supposed sighting of Kurt by a friend of his, I'm leaning toward that being a valid sighting. If the autopsy results were correct, then Kurt certainly did survive the night of the party. Maybe he hooked up with some people at that party and spent the next few days doing drugs.

My gut feeling is that Kurt hooked up with some druggies at that party, possibly people who were not his usual circle of friends. He got drunk or stoned or both. His parents seemed oblivious to his wild ways so I could totally see Kurt waking up the next morning and possibly being too hung over or stoned to return home to face his parents. I wonder if these people convinced Kurt to come hang out with them and do more drugs. This would account for the sighting of Kurt after the party.

Just theorizing, of course.

[UMfan77]

My husband is currently working near Cleveland and that gave me the opportunity to check out Newburgh Heights and the vicinity of Harvard Ave...

So, what did you think of the area? About a year or so ago, someone that personally knew Kurt Sova posted here and said at the time Kurt died, the area was littered with drugs. Did you get that impression?

[MegtheEgg86]

So, what did you think of the area? About a year or so ago, someone that personally knew Kurt Sova posted here and said at the time Kurt died, the area was littered with drugs. Did you get that impression?

I actually wasn't able to judge one way or the other whether or not I was in a "rough" section of town, actually, which is why I kind of shied away from commenting on that point. Did it feel "safer" than downtown Cleveland to me? Yes. Is it today's comfortable, middle-class, blase suburbia? No, but it's just an older section of the metropolitan area--neither a good nor bad thing. It's rather hard to say. Appearances can be deceiving. I think I'd have to make a few more visits to really make an educated judgement.

[ms_bates]

I watched this segment today and paid close attention to the part where they bring up a possible connection between Kurt's death and the death of another local boy named Eugene. I think someone brought this up earlier in the thread, but I think it is worth mentioning again: they do not say how Eugene died. He could have been shot for all we know. If he had died of unknown causes like Kurt did, I feel pretty certain that they would have mentioned that, as it would have supported the "possible connection" angle strongly.

The fact that they both happened to be missing a shoe doesn't really reach out and grab me as a shocking similarity. Depending on the manner in which Eugene died, he might have lost the shoe in a struggle. Kurt's might have come off while they were moving the body, and was left at the scene where he died or in the vehicle they put the body in. There are lots of logical possibilities.

I tried to find out more about Eugene's case via Google, but got nothing. I've seen a few variations in spelling of his last name in this thread. Are any of those confirmed or just educated guesses based on the way they pronounced his name in the segment?

[MegtheEgg86]

I watched this segment today and paid close attention to the part where they bring up a possible connection between Kurt's death and the death of another local boy named Eugene. I think someone brought this up earlier in the thread, but I think it is worth mentioning again: they do not say how Eugene died. He could have been shot for all we know. If he had died of unknown causes like Kurt did, I feel pretty certain that they would have mentioned that, as it would have supported the "possible connection" angle strongly.

The fact that they both happened to be missing a shoe doesn't really reach out and grab me as a shocking similarity. Depending on the manner in which Eugene died, he might have lost the shoe in a struggle. Kurt's might have come off while they were moving the body, and was left at the scene where he died or in the vehicle they put the body in. There are lots of logical possibilities.

I tried to find out more about Eugene's case via Google, but got nothing. I've seen a few variations in spelling of his last name in this thread. Are any of those confirmed or just educated guesses based on the way they pronounced his name in the segment?

I think that's an excellent point. unsolved.com has Eugene's last name as Kvett.

[MegtheEgg86]

Something I found. Apparently there's a ton of controversy surrounding the Newburgh Heights detective interviewed in the segment, as well as the entire investigation in general:



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

[UMfan77]

Very interesting article and it definately lowers the hope of this case ever being solved. Without a thorough investigation, the only way this will ever be solved is if someone came forward with a confession. By the way, I couldn't view the two pictures.

[peachysquirt21]

I agree, very interesting article & information about this case that we did not hear on the UM segment. I think there is a very good chance that the woman who saw 2 males dragging a young boy was in fact Kurt Sova. They should have never let that homless person go. I believe he knew what exactly happened to Kurt. Because he was homeless & acted strange, LE just didnt take him seriously. Sadly I don't see this case ever being solved. The only way it will be solved is if someone comes froward who has info.

[Lightners322]

My heart just breaks for this family. I think in all reality, despite what they may say publicly, that his parents accept and believe that Kurt did indulge in alcohol and possibly drugs. That does not necessarily make a tenneager a bad kid. Nearly everyone I went to school with dabbled in it at some point.

But anyways...I doubt it will ever be solved. Maybe in many years if someone confesses, if there is anything to confess. I think that woman's testimony has a 50/50 chance of being accurate. However, since there was such shoddy policework, I am sort of apt to believe it is true. Only because I think if Kurt died alone he would have fallen in that ravine days before he was discovered.

[MissFit29]

The police were barely interviewed in the UM segment. I think Kurt's parents were the only ones doing the work.

Apparently the Newburgh Heights police went to the same academy as the Baldwin Borough, PA police.

[TracyLynnS]

I read through this whole thread today, and just about every other post said "bad police work here" and "bad police work there".

I figured it was a pretty accurate accusation, since you guys usually know your stuff, but holy cow! I got to this page, read the article, and good grief! who would think that the bad police work would actually be that extreme!?

Unbelievable.

That's one of the worst, if not actually THE worst, suspicious death investigation I've ever read about. They didn't know if it was a murder, and yet... no crime scene photos! Not one! And that's just plain weird.

I'm guessing the reason that the local cops turned down the offer of help from the bigger police department was that they knew if the bigtime cops got into their corrupt little local place, all their criminal crap (unrelated to Kurt's case) would be quickly discovered.

[UMfan77]

Apparently the Newburgh Heights police went to the same academy as the Baldwin Borough, PA police.

Apparently! :rolleyes:

[UnsolvedMystFan]

Just registered today, also went through the entire thread. I am 100% convinced that this "case" is simply about a young man who experimented with alcohol and likely drugs also, and died as a result. It happen more often than you think. Like any group of all-american kids, the kids at the party freaked out and disposed of the body. There really isn't a mystery here. His death was no doubt accidental - sure, the police bungled the whole thing BIG-Time, but it isn't as if the boy was found to have died as the result of foul play; at worst, the kids moved his deceased body to the ravine knowing if police found out about the drugs and such at he party, they would be toast. Typical teenager thinking.

My problem is that UM made what was basically a simple OD case into something 'mysterious'; the information at the end about the 13 year-old boy found back there shortly thereafter was totally irrelevant. So what if the kid also had a shoe missing; that's the standard for inclusion into a national broadcast? The problem with this story is that it was done entirely from the perspective of a grieving mom and pop which of couse would be inherently biased. The autopsy determined that at the least the boy wasn't murdered; so again, at worse, he OD'ed and someone disposed of him. Not an unsolved "mystery".

Also, from what case is the Baldwin Borough, PA police you guys are referencing?

[TracyLynnS]

Well, sure the kid probably OD'd at a party but there were numerous unsolved crimes involved.

Did someone slip him something that caused the OD? His post mortem tox screen came back with just alcohol in his blood, and not enough to kill him.

And who kept him alive for a few days, denying him medical attention that he obviously needed? What would those charges be? Negligent homicide? Manslaughter?

Who moved the corpse and placed it in the ravine (after that area had already been searched)? Abuse of a corpse, and some other charges could be filed against the people who did that.

And the reason that the whole UM episode was told from only the point of the grieving parents is because they were the only ones investigating the case. The cops bungled it, covered stuff up, refused to investigate, and refused help from a larger precinct because they didn't want real cops to discover all of the illegal stuff they were engaging in at their little podunk police station. One of the "investigators" ended up in jail because he was so corrupt, he was engaging in very illegal activities involving drug deals, among other things.

That cop was known to take a cuffed person into the general area (behind the furniture store) where Kurt was found, and beat him up, while he was cuffed. What if on the night of the party, Kurt's friend left him outside on the fence, drunk, and maybe puking, when this cop drives by because of complaints of a loud party...

Well, there's drunken Kurt wandering around and the bad cop singles him out for harassment. "Get in the car kid, you're going to jail for underage drinking and use of illegal narcotics." The kid gets shoved into the cop car (just like this cop's last victim), and is later found dead near the cop's favorite spot to beat up handcuffed suspects.

My point is that this case may have been a drunken kid at a party who died of unknown causes, but it evolved into a case of massive police incompetence and even coverups. The parents deserve to know what happened to their child.

Kurt was alive when the dad went to that party house looking for him. The kid could have been taken to the hospital and his life would have been saved if so many people weren't more concerned with covering their own asses to the point that they let a kid die just so they wouldn't get caught possessing drugs.

[MissFit29]

My problem is that UM made what was basically a simple OD case into something 'mysterious'; the information at the end about the 13 year-old boy found back there shortly thereafter was totally irrelevant. So what if the kid also had a shoe missing; that's the standard for inclusion into a national broadcast?

Also, from what case is the Baldwin Borough, PA police you guys are referencing?

I also thought the Eugene Kvett reference was a little out of left field. There wasn't really a strong enough connection between the two on the information that was provided in the segment.

Baldwin Borough, PA is from the Michael Rosenblum segment. I don't think Michael Rosenblum was murdered; however, the police bungled many things in that case as well, so we'll probably never know.

[Clockworkhigh]

Does this sound accurate enough?

Young kid is a good kid, but still a kid. He is seemingly well behaved as witnessed by his mother. He never lets on that he drinks or does drugs. He OD's at a party. There is panic. Lies happen. A mother asks about a party. The owner of the house denies there was ever a party being afraid of being reprimanded. Kurt's body is dumped somewhere. No one talks about it. Everyone misremembers it. The eyewitness account is inaccurate. No one has the heart to tell the kid's mother that he went all "Jimi Hendrix" on them and died.

I don't know I could be wrong, but it's happened before and no mother wants to think that her son did drugs. I do feel for Mrs. Sova though, seemed like such a nice lady.

[ms_bates]

I'd really like to know more about the autopsy results, and I'd be very interested in having a forensic pathologist go over them with a fresh eye and perhaps new insights that have come to light over the past twenty-eight years. Maybe there is something there that they missed in 1981.

[UnsolvedMystFan]

You know, since they're saying that he did have acohol in his system, but not enough to kill him, then I must ask is there sucha thing as an allergy to alcohol? I've never heard of such a thing, but perhaps the few sips he took were enough to cause an anaphylactic shock of some sort?

From wiki:
Minute amounts of allergens may cause a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction. Anaphylaxis may occur after ingestion.

To the last poster, if his toxicology results came back all negative with the exception of alcohol, a second opinion really makes no difference. The only unusual chemical found in his blood was alcohol; thus it stands to reason whatever initiated his body's descent into 'shutting down'; it no doubt arose from that. The coroner said he absolutely found no evidence of anything else and for certain homicide could be ruled out.

I'm still convinced he simply od'ed at the party, and being normal American teenagers more concerned of their own welfare someone eventually moved him to where he was found. So 'negligence' at worst, but the statue for that ran out long, long ago no doubt.

Still this brings me to the original question, is it possible that in extremely rare cases a person may have an unusually low tolerance to alcohol that might be fatal?

[Mastermind]

Still this brings me to the original question, is it possible that in extremely rare cases a person may have an unusually low tolerance to alcohol that might be fatal?

Yes, but that doesn't cause a body to be moved and placed in a quarry.

Kurt Sova's body was placed there. Which means someone committed a crime. To what degree and whether it is murder, manslaughter or whatever, who knows. But a crime was committed!:mad:

[spark19]

You know, since they're saying that he did have acohol in his system, but not enough to kill him, then I must ask is there sucha thing as an allergy to alcohol? I've never heard of such a thing, but perhaps the few sips he took were enough to cause an anaphylactic shock of some sort?

From wiki:
Minute amounts of allergens may cause a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction. Anaphylaxis may occur after ingestion.


Not necessarily alcohol, but maybe an allergy to something in the drink or alcohol. I have a friend who is allergic to corn, and so she cannot eat/drink anything that contains corn syrup in it (so no mixed drinks), and no alcohol that has been distilled with corn (er, is that the proper terminology) - such as types of whiskey, beer, etc. Usually someone with that serious of an allergy is very, VERY familiar about what they can and cannot consume. However, considering that Kurt was underage, he may not have been aware that the alcohol he consumed may have contained something that could have harmed him.

But, as Mastermind stated, that wouldn't place his body in the quarry. So yep, a crime would still have been committed.

[synthisislab]

Something I found. Apparently there's a ton of controversy surrounding the Newburgh Heights detective interviewed in the segment, as well as the entire investigation in general:



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
Wow! This article pretty much answers many of the questions that I've had with this case. Good find, Meg.

[rubber4532]

Wow! This article pretty much answers many of the questions that I've had with this case. Good find, Meg.
Let's not forget KS had been missing for five days but had been dead for no more than 36 hours when found. Where had he been during the previous three days? Someone suggested "Susan" had kept him in the basement in a coma or something. Didn't it occur to anyone to, after about say 24 hrs, seek medical attention and maybe save his life? Who wants a dead body on their hands?

[BlingBlong]

I just read the entire article posted here by MegtheEgg from the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1991 and I wanted to highlight a few things and see what people thought...


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.

Friday, 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.
This certainly lends credibility to the idea that Kurt was not in fact as straight laced as his parents and UM made out.

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.
Why was Debbie Sams and/or her brother never mentioned in the UM segment (that I recall)? And is the "female roommate" Susan? And why is she not identified in this article?

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.
Besides the fact that it is ridiculous that the Police Chief ordered the Sova family to stay away from the last place their son was seen alive, and apparently did no investigating there himself; I do find it interesting that Kurt's jacket was there. That wasn't mentioned on the show either, but it lends some credibility to what seemed like a ridiculous story about the friend going upstairs to get their jackets and coming back to find Kurt gone. Doesn't mean it is the truth but that definitely makes me believe the story a little more.

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 bodies.
What?! I don't get the part about the bodies being flown into the airport, but if he was hanging around for weeks and bragging about stealing shoes from bodies and he then goes on to predict the outcome of Kurt's disappearance I think he deserves a bit more attention than a cursory examination in a police car where the officers apparently did not get a look at his ID since they have no idea who he is...

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.
I don't remember hearing about bruises and scratches and nicks on the show? Don't you only bruise when you are alive? Where'd all those injuries come from?

"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.
So who talked to him in the car if the police didn't? The sherrif's office?

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.
Unbelievable. She wasn't in the UM segment either.

I just thought that this article had some pretty interesting stuff in it, but not many people commented on it so I thought I would throw in my two cents.

[Hambone2421]

I just read the entire article posted here by MegtheEgg from the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1991 and I wanted to highlight a few things and see what people thought...


This certainly lends credibility to the idea that Kurt was not in fact as straight laced as his parents and UM made out.


Why was Debbie Sams and/or her brother never mentioned in the UM segment (that I recall)? And is the "female roommate" Susan? And why is she not identified in this article?


Besides the fact that it is ridiculous that the Police Chief ordered the Sova family to stay away from the last place their son was seen alive, and apparently did no investigating there himself; I do find it interesting that Kurt's jacket was there. That wasn't mentioned on the show either, but it lends some credibility to what seemed like a ridiculous story about the friend going upstairs to get their jackets and coming back to find Kurt gone. Doesn't mean it is the truth but that definitely makes me believe the story a little more.


What?! I don't get the part about the bodies being flown into the airport, but if he was hanging around for weeks and bragging about stealing shoes from bodies and he then goes on to predict the outcome of Kurt's disappearance I think he deserves a bit more attention than a cursory examination in a police car where the officers apparently did not get a look at his ID since they have no idea who he is...


I don't remember hearing about bruises and scratches and nicks on the show? Don't you only bruise when you are alive? Where'd all those injuries come from?


So who talked to him in the car if the police didn't? The sherrif's office?


Unbelievable. She wasn't in the UM segment either.

I just thought that this article had some pretty interesting stuff in it, but not many people commented on it so I thought I would throw in my two cents.

This case is a classic example of very crappy police work. I'm positive that if a competent LE agency had looked at this case, arrests would have been made. I feel terrible for Kurt's parents. All these years later and still no answers....

[UnsolvedMystFan]

I really just feel like that kid overdosed on that everclear. It killed another man in the weeks prior. I know the coroner feels there was some other cause, but it wouldn't be the first time an autopsy was incorrect. The whole thing was just a tragic accident.

[crystaldawn]

I've been meaning to post this but had forgotten. I received a few emails a few months ago with a friend of Eugene's that may interest you guys. He said him and Eugene would sometimes skip school and meet at the tracks about 500 feet from the falls near where he was found. He did state that Eugene "fell" at the Falls which I don't believe UM ever mentioned. He said it was in a bad area and a gang called B.C.O (Brick City Outlaws) had been bothering them a lot. The friend got sick that day and couldn't meet Eugene. He wonders if the gang had something to do with his death. He sent a pic of what the falls look like:

http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/1199562915049232934eiLZsK

[Steve W.]

I still believe that Kurt's body needs to be exhumed and that another autopsy needs to be done. Testing for only 2 drugs doesn't cover the whole gamut of what he could have taken or been given. Also, maybe it wasn't even some type of "drug", for all we know, he could have been given something that had a poison in it, but would that have just been found when the original autopsy was done if he had been poisoned?

How much does it cost to exhume a body and have an autopsy performed?

Also, if Samuel C. Carroll, Debbie Sams, or Clayton Sams are still alive, those are three people who were with/around Kurt at the duplex party that probably know what REALLY happened to him and didn't initially tell the truth.

[TracyLynnS]

How much does it cost to exhume a body and have an autopsy performed? Also, if Samuel C. Carroll, Debbie Sams, or Clayton Sams are still alive, those are three people who were with/around Kurt at the duplex party that probably know what REALLY happened to him and didn't initially tell the truth.

Dangit, I wish I knew more on this kind of thing to be of real help in answering your questions. Maybe one of the LE or legal professionals who posts here can give some accurate details.

I think a fairly high ranking official has to file paperwork to for an exhumation to take place. I'm not sure if this would be done by a judge's order, requested by a police chief, or maybe a medical examiners office (coroner's inquest, coroner's jury, or something on the legal end of an ME's office).

Wiki says that in the US, a coroner and ME are different. Coroners in the US do not have to have medical training, but act in a legal capacity of investigating suspicious deaths, ordering subpoenas , etc, and that in some states, a sheriff holds the position of coroner, while Medical Examiners must be a physician, and sometimes, also have a law degree. (I wonder how accurate all this info is, I've never heard about these details.) Apparently, there must be "substantial and compelling reasons" to order an exhumation. (deathreference.com) I think paperwork has to go through the health department, too.

I know that I have read of investigators, or family members, etc, requesting an exhumation, only to have the official who has the power to okay it to deny the requests, for whatever reason. Deathreference.com also states that next of kin can deny an exhumation request, but it doesn't say under what circumstances this applies. For example, if a murder is suspected, can the officials overrule the family's wishes and perform an exhumation? I couldn't find info on that.

I found a forum where someone else asked about how much it costs to exhume a body. http://www.fluther.com/52258/how-much-does-it-cost-to-exhume-a-body-and-have/ One person gave this answer, which if accurate, I suppose can serve as guideline for estimating the costs of this procedure in the US:

It will vary a lot depending on a number of factors. One example, in Canadian dollars:

Professional Services
• Planning, coordination and supervision of the exhumation process $250.00
• Procurement of exhumation license, authorization and preparation of other
documents $250.00

Transportation
• Use of funeral coach $125.00 [I don't know if in the US a hearse, ME's van, or if an ambulance would be used for this. I know that in my state a trip in an ambulance is roughly $600 US dollars.]


Third Party Expenses
• Cemetery charges including the opening, closing and restoration of the plot $500.00

[I don't know if there are any additional legal fees associated with an exhumation, since it's looking like this procedure require a court order.]

Then if you are wanting an autopsy done, you may be paying for that, which seems to be around $2000 or so, depending on what all tests need to be run.

However, if it is a possible case of homicide and law enforcement wants to check the body, you wouldn’t pay for the process, unless you wanted some sort of ceremony.

----
That's all the info I was able to find out online, and you know how inaccurate info on wiki and random poster's comments can be....

[Steve W.]

Thanks for your help, TracyLynnS, I appreciate it.

[sdb4884]

Certainly a lot more to this case than first thought, surely UM could have done a bit more investigating.

[rubber4532]

whoah so Eugene's body was found in a different ravine?? I though it was the same one Kurt's body was found in!

[sdb4884]

whoah so Eugene's body was found in a different ravine?? I though it was the same one Kurt's body was found in!

Definatley a different ravine, i'm sure it wasn't far away though.

[Steve W.]

"whoah so Eugene's body was found in a different ravine?? I though it was the same one Kurt's body was found in!"

I think "technically" it's the same ravine, but I'm guessing that the ravine is pretty big so Eugene probably was found at a significantly different section of it than Kurt was. I think Unsolved Mysteries made this case more complicated for the viewer by trying to tie these two deaths together because of the missing shoe and it "technically" being the same ravine. But, as has been discussed earlier in this thread, we've come up with plenty of reasons for why Kurt could have been missing a shoe when his body was found: we didn't find out until after UM aired the segment that a husband and wife SAW two guys carrying Kurt's body to that ravine, which is one of many ways he could have lost his shoe.

And the person a couple of posts above said that Eugene either just accidentally fell or a local gang at the time might have pushed him in, so either one of the gang guys could have had the shoe and disposed of it OR the crappy police that worked in Newburgh Heights at the time just didn't do a good enough job of looking for it (very plausible given how they handled Kurt Sova's case).

The bottom line: I truly don't think those two deaths are related in any way (unless some of that gang the poster above talked about were at the party Kurt was at, that's the only way I could see it being related at all), it's just an unfortunate coincidence.

[rubber4532]

The ravine behind Goodman furniture, where Kurt was found and the Mill Creek Fall ravine, where Eugene Kvet was found are in fact a considerable distance from each other. The ravine behind Goodman doesn't look very deep so its hard to imagine somebody falling to their death in it. Mill Creek Falls , on the other hand, is about 40-something ft deep.

The death of Eugene Kvet may or may not be related (probably not), but its still an unsolved mystery in itself. Did he fall? Did he jump? Was he pushed/ thrown? His shoe was probably thrown off from the impact, fell into the creek and was washed downstream.

[Steve W.]

Tonight makes it 29 years now since Kurt went to the party at the duplex. I still can't believe that this has never been solved, or at least updated.

I honestly don't think anyone has ever interviewed any of the people that lived at the duplex or that were at the party with Kurt. If they're still alive and there was a way to question them, I would think that would make a big difference in this case.

[DarkDante]

Tonight makes it 29 years now since Kurt went to the party at the duplex. I still can't believe that this has never been solved, or at least updated.

I honestly don't think anyone has ever interviewed any of the people that lived at the duplex or that were at the party with Kurt. If they're still alive and there was a way to question them, I would think that would make a big difference in this case.

The investigation was bungled right from the start from the police to the pathologist and right down the line. Just really bad work by the authorities which may have ultimately put an end to any chance that this case will ever be solved. The theory that seems most likely though is some type of drug overdose at the party and the teenagers he was with panicking and not knowing what to do in that situation. In the end I'm sure they just dumped his body out in that ravine because as Dorothy Sova put it "they didn't want to be seen with him".

I have no idea what was going on with all the sightings of Kurt after he allegedly vanished but I'm not all together certain that they are accurate either. I think while it's possible that Kurt didn't die on the night of the party that he might have been violently ill and instead of calling in the paramedics the teenagers at the party may have tried to nurse him back to health on their own over the course of several days in the basement of the duplex. Kurt may have ultimately died at some point in that basement but without a proper pathology report being done it probably would have been hard to determine an exact time of death.

[sdb4884]

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/2659/

anyone seen this, interesting write up on UM in general and mentions the Sova case in the top 10 of his insomnia-inducing offenders.

[sdb4884]

Can anyone pinpoint the locations of the bodies, the location of the duplex for us on Google Earth?

[Steve W.]

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/2659/

anyone seen this, interesting write up on UM in general and mentions the Sova case in the top 10 of his insomnia-inducing offenders.

That was made by MegTheEgg, a regular poster on this message board.

[Steve W.]

"I think while it's possible that Kurt didn't die on the night of the party that he might have been violently ill and instead of calling in the paramedics the teenagers at the party may have tried to nurse him back to health on their own over the course of several days in the basement of the duplex. Kurt may have ultimately died at some point in that basement but without a proper pathology report being done it probably would have been hard to determine an exact time of death."

I remember reading in the 1991 newspaper article linked in this thread (something not mentioned in the UM segment) where it said on Friday, October 23rd (1981), Kurt skipped school that day and gave someone over 21 money to buy Everclear for him at a store and then supposedly took it over to his girlfriend's (no girlfriend ever mentioned in the UM segment, no name given in the article either) house and drank (who knows how much?) some of it.

Everclear is 95% alcohol, so he could have already been super wasted by the time he went with his friend Samuel C. Carroll to the duplex party. Obviously, Samuel, one of the people that lived at the duplex (Debbie Sams, Clayton Sams, etc.), or just someone who was a friend of the duplex people must have given Kurt something while he was there or snuck something into a drink or narcotic that they gave to him. Otherwise, there would be no reason to lie about what happened to him or to lie about having a party if Kurt brought this on himself and passed out from his own alcohol drinking. If that was the case, they probably would've just said that he was drinking his own Everclear and passed out from it.

A scenario I can imagine is that he was pretty buzzed or drunk when he was walking there with Samuel and when he got there, depending on how much of the Everclear he drank over the course of that day, and everyone at the party could probably tell he was buzzed or drunk, so one or more of them thought it would be funny to give him something else, because in his altered state they probably knew he'd be like, "yeah" or "okay" and take whatever it was and that's probably what ended up putting him over the edge.

[TheCars1986]

Yeah I agree with everyone who's on board with the drug scenario. It makes the most sense. Although why hasn't someone from the party came forward after all of these years (not even one innocent bystander who happened to see Kurt at the party) to say what really happened to Kurt, or even offer some more information on the case? I really think Kurt's friend who saw him get into a van was mistaken...I think Kurt was in the basement for the 3 days he was missing (probably unconscious). I think he had a weird reaction/overdose on some drugs he was doing, some partygoers panicked, then decided to put him in the basement until they figures something out to do. Why wouldn't they just take him to the hospital? Obviously for fear of getting in trouble for drugs, and there was most likely some selling going on and distribution to a minor is a pretty heavy offense. This "Susan" lady was in on everythig as far as I'm concerned. She knew what happened to him, why else would she lie Kurt's mother if all she did was throw a party that Kurt attended? Also, I think she phoned Kurt's parents at 3:30 was because her conscious was getting the better of her and she knew something was seriously wrong with him after 3 days of being down there, so in a last ditch attempt to redeem/clear herself she called and said she thought it was Kurt who was down there. Obviously that was a lie as well (she had to know who was in her basement), and someone overheard that phone call and freaked out, went down to move Kurt but he was most likely already dead (He also may very well have been dead before Susan called his parents, and after whoever moved his body found out she called his folks, then they decided to dump the body). Then in a frenzy someone/they moved his body to the nearby ravine. The story about the friend who left him on a fence? Lie. Why wouldn't the friend have come forward sooner and notified Kurt's parents that he didn't know what happened to Kurt? That was just a quick lie to make it look like Kurt had wandered off and died from being too intoxicated/stoned. And in all honesty as much of a stretch as it sounds, I think it's just a coincidence about Eugene's shoe being missing as well as Kurt's. Whoever moved Kurt got rid of his shoe, and if there were more ties between the two boys, I'm sure UM would have aired it on their segment.

All in all this was a strange case, and I'd love to hear what happened to this "Susan" and if Kurt's parents are still alive and if their still pushing for the case to be solved.

[mozartpc27]

I have to confess this case has never interested me all that much, in that it seemed perfectly obvious what happened here: the kid went to a party where he had too much to drink, and the people at the party panicked because they could obviously be charged with his death. Why else the lady who threw the party - Susan - deny all knowledge of said party when asked the first time? In the end, they had to dump him.

Not really all that mysterious. I'm a little surprised that the police weren't able to put enough pressure on Susan to make her give up more information.

[mozartpc27]

For those who do see something of interest in this case, I am surprised that no one pointed out this discrepancy between the UM segment and the enlightening article about the Sova case found by MegtheEgg. According to the UM segment, the "crazy from Detroit" left his little poem on Tuesday, the day before Sova was found, and was questioned by police later that afternoon. dynoguy88's timeline from page 4 of this thread lays this out nicely:

TUESDAY MORNING (October 27, 1981) - The record store owner goes to open the store and finds flowers and a note from the crazy from Detroit. The note says -

"Roses are red,
the sky is blue.
They found him dead,
and they'll find you too."

TUESDAY AFTERNOON - Police question the crazy from Detroit. But since Kurt was just missing at this time, they let him go. He is never seen again.

But according to the article, our colorful homeless man left his verse for the shopkeep on Thursday morning, or the day after Sova was found:

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.

It's possible, of course, that the author of the article, and not UM, was wrong. But I think it a good deal more likely that our homeless man was a good listener, rather than a soothsayer.

But, in terms of pursuing this case, the big thing to me seems to be what kind of crime anyone will ever be able to prove went on here. A kid under 18 begins the last day anyone can say for absolute CERTAIN he was alive by drinking Everclear - **** you should not **** around with, by the way - and winds up dead. Well, they evidently know he got the Everclear, before he ever got to the party, and that means they probably know who got it for him. Anyone at the party can claim, and it will never be disproven, that Kurt was already significantly intoxicated before he ever arrived, you know, from that Everclear he had been drinking all day. So, if Kurt then subsequently drank some more and got even worse, or took a drug that reacted badly with the alcohol - highly likely, IMHO (i.e., that neither the alcohol nor the drug in question would have been enough by themselves to kill him, but the COMBINATION of the two were what did it), the people at the party can always plausibly claim that what truly began the process of killing Kurt began before he ever arrived at that party. At this point, there is no way to disprove that assertion.

So, I don't think filing any sort of murder charge, no matter how convoluted, is in the offing. And everything else that you might conceivably envision someone being charged with in connection with this event has long since passed its statute of limitations: drug possession or distribution, the sale or providing of alcohol to an underage person, improperly disposing of a body, obstruction of justice, etc.

Thus, even if we could get a blow-by-blow description of what happened from the time Kurt left his house that Friday until the time he was found dead, and the names and current locations of everyone he was with those five days, I have my doubts about whether any of htem could be prosecuted for anything at this point.

[Steve W.]

That was well(written)-said, mozartpc (both posts).

I agree that no one will ever be charged with his death or contributing to his death, but I would still like to hear, read, or see that someone that lived at that duplex (Clayton Sams, Debbie Sams, "Susan", or whoever else) or someone that was at the party with Kurt (Samuel Carroll or whoever else) ADMIT publicly/or to authorities that they know what really happened to him at the party. That would bring some closure for me at least, and I'm sure a lot of others as well (including his surviving family and friends). Technically, that would be an "Update" to the case if one of those people would come forward and tell the truth about Kurt that night/early morning and the five days that followed before he was found.

Assuming he drank a decent amount of that Everclear before he passed out and/or died, he obviously partly brought his demise on himself BUT all of the people at the party who were questioned once (and probably ONLY once) by authorities definitely know WHO ELSE is partly responsible for his death, too, because, as we agree on, "Susan" wouldn't have lied about having the party and Samuel Carroll wouldn't have lied about Kurt leaning on the fence outside and wandering off if there wasn't SOMEONE ELSE who contributed to his death (giving him something to drink, smoke, sniff, shoot up, whatever the case was).

If none of these people ever tell the truth, the one other option for potentially solving the case would be to exhume his body and have another autopsy done, where tests are done for a wide variety or narcotics instead of just three.

I just want some closure to this case!

[TheCars1986]

I thought the coroner said there wasn't enough alcohol in his system to say that he had been intoxicated at the time of his death. I wonder if he had some reaction to whatever he was drinking which knocked him unconscious for three days and that was enough time for the alcohol to pass through his system...?

[egswanso]

I have to confess this case has never interested me all that much, in that it seemed perfectly obvious what happened here: the kid went to a party where he had too much to drink, and the people at the party panicked because they could obviously be charged with his death. Why else the lady who threw the party - Susan - deny all knowledge of said party when asked the first time? In the end, they had to dump him.

Not really all that mysterious. I'm a little surprised that the police weren't able to put enough pressure on Susan to make her give up more information.

This is my opinion as well. Especially with the revelations in some of the articles posted herein. Kurt was hardly the choirboy presented in the segment. If Kurt had been drinking Everclear (which I remember from college) all day, he would have been totally wasted. Add in the other alcohol and drugs he likely did at the party and it's no surprise if he just passed out and choked on his own vomit.

I don't see murder here and the other crimes are SOL blown. If this scenario is correct, though, it would be nice for a partygoer to come forward and just give closure to the family.

[alistaircrane]

I think there is something more mysterious here than a simple alcohol overdose. Hopefully we will find the truth one day.

[sdb4884]

This is my opinion as well. Especially with the revelations in some of the articles posted herein. Kurt was hardly the choirboy presented in the segment. If Kurt had been drinking Everclear (which I remember from college) all day, he would have been totally wasted. Add in the other alcohol and drugs he likely did at the party and it's no surprise if he just passed out and choked on his own vomit.

I don't see murder here and the other crimes are SOL blown. If this scenario is correct, though, it would be nice for a partygoer to come forward and just give closure to the family.

Agree with you there.

[rubber4532]

If this was a simple O/D why are all the parties involved so secretive about it??? There's something more to this!

[MegtheEgg86]

If this was a simple O/D why are all the parties involved so secretive about it??? There's something more to this!

A simple OD involving an underage individual with alcohol he obviously didn't purchase. It's not a wonder at all there seemed to be a great effort to cover it up, especially if the individual(s) who had given Kurt the alcohol had prior arrests, convictions, were on parole, or were otherwise trying to keep his/her/their head(s) down.

[MegtheEgg86]

For the record, I tend to agree with some of you. I've reflected on this case for years now, and I've pretty summarily come to the conclusion Kurt died from either some sort of poisoning--alcohol or otherwise--or asphyxiation on vomit, and the parties involved probably tried to keep him hidden for a few days before finally deciding to just leave his body in the ravine, too. It's the most logical explanation given the information in the segment and in the articles I found. I tend to discount the eyewitness testimony from Kurt's friend.

[Steve W.]

"I tend to discount the eyewitness testimony from Kurt's friend."

Agreed, as has been learned from watching UM, "eyewitness accounts" are very often not accurate. There were probably plenty of teenagers walking around with the same kind of haircut, etc. and kinda looked like Kurt at the time and David Trusnick wanted to believe he saw Kurt.

In fact, I think I saw Kurt, towards the beginning of "Fast Times At Ridgemont High". He was one of the teenagers talking with Mike Damone in front of the Hallmark store at that mall. So, how could be in a state of unconsciousness or worse at the time when he was making some kind of deal with Damone? hmm....

[rubber4532]

A simple OD involving an underage individual with alcohol he obviously didn't purchase. It's not a wonder at all there seemed to be a great effort to cover it up, especially if the individual(s) who had given Kurt the alcohol had prior arrests, convictions, were on parole, or were otherwise trying to keep his/her/their head(s) down.

The statute of limitations would have expired long ago on any minor offences that would have been committed so theres no reason not to come forward now and give everybody closure.

[haloworld]

This case has always stood out as a particularly eerie one for me. As has already been mentioned, the grieving parental subtext needs to be recognized. It seems very likely that Kurt was involved in drugs (to what extent is unknown), and the circumstances of any untimely death of a child is bound to make a parent feel guilty/ashamed/saddened beyond belief. I think much of the "eerieness" of the episode comes from the suspicions and accusations made by the mother, who was probably in such disbelief over the situation herself that she needed to be in disbelief of the people she questioned. I have to put myself in the shoes of the woman who hosted the party--imagining a grieving and furious parent on my doorstep, asking me questions about a party. In all likelihood, like so many high school parties, there was underage drinking and drug use. Whether Kurt was involved in this, and whether this led to his death is not necessarily the only reason the woman wouldn't have been fully forthcoming. On top of that, even if the woman had been even a little deceptive or misleading, Kurt's mother would have likely clung to this in the hopes of understanding the cause of her son's death.

Though I'm wary of creating conspiracy theories here, I think the effects of hard drug use on a small town/community can explain a lot of this story. For one thing, your theory about Kurt's death makes a lot of sense. Many OD-ed people are abandoned by friends, or hidden and not given appropriate medical care. If there was some kind of bad dose of hard drugs going around the town this might even explain the death of Eugene Kveit. We really don't know much about what kinds of issues were affecting young people in the town at the time, and many small communties have suffered from a series of drug deaths linked (directly or indirectly) to a particular trend in drug use.

I almost entirely discount a lot of the doubletalk going on about Kurt being at the party, staying in the basement, etc. To me, it sounds like the woman who hosted the party may have had quite a drug habit herself, and she honestly might have had people staying in the house, attending impromptu parties, etc. all the time--it's part of that drug-induced lifestyle.

I really think that so many of these UM cases involving a child's death really become a crusade for the parents to console themselves over these tragic losses by creating mystery and intrigue to ameliorate the pain of such unexpected and seemingly senseless loss.

For all we know, Kurt could have had a very regular drug habit, as could his friends. His friends could have been equally inclined to discount this fact to protect themselves, or lift some of their guilt in Kurt's death.

[rubber4532]

All the people at the party probably made a pact, saying we'll never speak of this again. Like in that movie "I Know What You Did Last Summer"

[cocytus]

1) Kurt's friend said he went to get Kurt's jacket. Knowing teenagers, it must have been pretty cool outside for him to have worn a jacket. Since he wasn't found wearing a jacket, then exposure would have been a factor.

2) I've never held too much faith in the coroner's time of death estimation. If he used insect infestation as the method then the cool weather could have offset that. And if he used the decay of the body, then that could also have been offset by the cool weather.IMHO, a lot of the "mystery" involved w/ this case comes from the coroner's reporting the time of death.

3) The "sighting" by his friend was probably a red herring or a mistake by his friend. Especially since he didn't state that Sova acknowledged him or even talked to him. Also, Sova took a ride from from a stranger and not one from his friend that pulled over to give him one?

4) While the show portrayed the woman in whom's house the party took place as a "druggie" and a low-life, I can think of a number of reasons (some legal, some illegal) why she wouldn't want to get involved or have people search her home.

In fact, I think that Sova's father (and yes I can understand he was desperate) may have damaged any case the police would have been able to make by searching the home by himself. Nothing he found could have been used and defense lawyers could even claim that he planted evidence.

Having watched this segment several times, my "gut feeling" is that this case falls into one of three areas:

1) Accidental death from exposure due to excessive alcohol or drug usage.
2) Accidental death from excessive alcohol and/or drug usage and the body was dumped in the area by party goers that feared arrest.
3) Involuntary manslaughter when party goers dumped the still alive Sova in a remote area and he succumb to exposure and/or excessive drug/alcohol intake.

Only the last two would result in criminal charges being filed, which at this late date seems unlikely w/o DNA evidence or some type of confession.

[Steve W.]

All the people at the party probably made a pact, saying we'll never speak of this again. Like in that movie "I Know What You Did Last Summer"

I agree and apparently they've done a pretty good job of it since no one has heard them slip up and tell the truth for 29 years.

[TheCars1986]

3) Involuntary manslaughter when party goers dumped the still alive Sova in a remote area and he succumb to exposure and/or excessive drug/alcohol intake.

This seems very plausible. Maybe they waited for three days hoping he would come to and then out of fear decided to dump him in the ravine.

[Steve W.]

This seems very plausible. Maybe they waited for three days hoping he would come to and then out of fear decided to dump him in the ravine.

That's true! I hadn't really considered that he could have still been alive (although unconscious) when the duplex people (two guys, as the newspaper article previously linked mentions) dumped him out in the ravine. In fact, Kurt's father (RIP as well) said that when he saw him at the morgue shortly after his death one thing he really noticed was how cold he looked, maybe moreso than he would have looked if he was already deceased when placed in the ravine?

[hostedbyrobertstack]

I am posting again after looking and reading through this thread again. This is probably my all-time number one case, I don't know why, but anyways... I have been obsessed lately w/ finding the locations of different UM cases, as it is almost detective work in itself, ha! Some of these locations are quite difficult. Anyways:

I was able to locate the previous location of the J.L. Goodman furniture store that was mentioned in the news articles. Kurt was supposedly dumped behind this location in the ravine. The location on Google streetview is: 3201 Harvard Ave., Newburgh Heights, OH

Now, when you are looking at this location on streetview, you can actually (on the same side of the street) go to the left for a minute and you will actually come across the duplex where Kurt attended the party and was last seen alive. I am amazed that I had actually found this location and it looks almost exactly as it did in the UM segment!

I also had found Kurt's house, but I won't post that for privacy reasons...

Hopefully this helps some people, as I always find it very entertaining to see the locations as they are today!

[curiousasever]

Your exactly right about his parents piecing everything together. In this case though I think that is all UM had to go on, being that the police never seemed to question anyone involved. As far as the parents throwing a wrench into the investigations, I think you would actually have to have an investigation to have a wrench thrown in it. From what we have been presented with there is no evidence of any investigation on the part of the police.
this was such an interesting case and i really feel bad for kurt and what happened to him that night at the party if something did happen at the party since i am very young i now know that things like that are dangerous dealing with drugs and drinking. i just hope the police figures out what really happened to kurt sova on the day that he died. r.i.p. kurt sova

[dynoguy88]

I really think that so many of these UM cases involving a child's death really become a crusade for the parents to console themselves over these tragic losses by creating mystery and intrigue to ameliorate the pain of such unexpected and seemingly senseless loss.

In some cases, yes. But I don't think the Sova's were trying to create more mystery to ease the pain over losing their son. They simply wanted to know how Kurt died and who put his body in the ravine.

What had to have been most frustrating for the Sova's was the conflicting stories they were told. The worst coming from Susan, the owner of the duplex. First she tells Dorothy that she had never seen Kurt and that she didn't have a party. Then, only after she knew she had been caught lying by the pizza boy and other party members, did she call Dorothy back and admit to having a party and that Kurt might have been there.

Despite the eye witness sightings and the crazy from Detroit, Dorothy Sova admitted in the segment that Kurt was most likely drinking and possibly doing drugs at the party and he died from that. The party members panicked and eventually dumped his body in the ravine. No mystery about that except who they were. Just a few short answers could have done a world of difference for the grieving parents. It's already painful enough to lose a child. But knowing that there are people in the neighborhood that know all the answers about your child's death that you don't know...that must magnify the pain to extreme levels.

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

Wasn't there an autopsy, and wasn't cause of death undetermined? With such a recent death, wouldn't drugs have shown up?

[TheCars1986]

Wasn't there an autopsy, and wasn't cause of death undetermined? With such a recent death, wouldn't drugs have shown up?

I don't know if they would have still been in his system since he was missing for days. I think he just had some weird reaction to some type of drug at the party and eventually died from it. The reason his father never found him in the ravine where he would eventually be found was that he was placed there after he died.

[Drakken]

Wasn't there an autopsy, and wasn't cause of death undetermined? With such a recent death, wouldn't drugs have shown up?

The autopsy revealed nothing. In fact, the conclusion of autopsy according to the coroner being interviewed was he died of "instantaneous physiologic death" with "probable accidental" cause.

In other words, he died instantaneously, it was probably accidental, but they could never pinpoint the exact cause. They found no trace of drugs in his blood, and he didn't have enough alcohol in his blood to cause his death.

[Steve W.]

Wasn't there an autopsy, and wasn't cause of death undetermined? With such a recent death, wouldn't drugs have shown up?

Lester Adelson, who performed the autopsy, only tested him for three recreational drugs. This is stated in the newspaper article linked within this thread.

[Cori aka ChrisSCrush]

Oh, then maybe his new "friends" tested some weird new drug on Kurt to see what it would do, either to see if it was safe for themselves or would work on someone they had reason to kill.

Would something like inhalation (huffing) be missed in such tests? Death with that can be pretty instantaneous.

[rubber4532]

Hey I saw the duplex in street view. It hasn't changed at all! I wonder if Susan still lives there?

[curiousasever]

Hey I saw the duplex in street view. It hasn't changed at all! I wonder if Susan still lives there? has anyone ever thought that maybe kurt died of alcohol poisoning? there's something like that maybe after he drank so much beer and liquor he finally just passed out and from drugs too and they tried to help him but failed so they dumped his body in the ravine maybe he died that way it can happen

[cocytus]

has anyone ever thought that maybe kurt died of alcohol poisoning? there's something like that maybe after he drank so much beer and liquor he finally just passed out and from drugs too and they tried to help him but failed so they dumped his body in the ravine maybe he died that way it can happen

Yes, I've always thought that alcohol poisoning or a drug overdose were likely causes of death. Whether or not that was exacerbated by exposure, we'll never know.

[curiousasever]

Yes, I've always thought that alcohol poisoning or a drug overdose were likely causes of death. Whether or not that was exacerbated by exposure, we'll never know. well it's obvious to me, how could he have died? unless he just fell out dead he was so young i just feel it was alcohol and drugs he was only 17 years old and more than likely his heart gave out they didn't know what to do they were to afraid to go to his parents so they basically dumped him in that ravine like garbage i'm only fifteen i watch this show with my dad a lot and i thought this case was pretty interesting i feel bad for kurt sova i just wanted to put my thoughts in an order some did they poison him? they said they didn't sense any poisoning or a sign of foul play he wasn't murdered was he? too bad he can't be here to tell the story of what happened to him that night all's i can say is the police has closed this case and isn't wanting to talk more about it it looks like they had something to do with it someone is hiding something susan is hiding something she knows she had a party.

[cocytus]

well it's obvious to me, how could he have died? unless he just fell out dead he was so young i just feel it was alcohol and drugs he was only 17 years old and more than likely his heart gave out they didn't know what to do they were to afraid to go to his parents so they basically dumped him in that ravine like garbage i'm only fifteen i watch this show with my dad a lot and i thought this case was pretty interesting i feel bad for kurt sova i just wanted to put my thoughts in an order some did they poison him? they said they didn't sense any poisoning or a sign of foul play he wasn't murdered was he? too bad he can't be here to tell the story of what happened to him that night all's i can say is the police has closed this case and isn't wanting to talk more about it it looks like they had something to do with it someone is hiding something susan is hiding something she knows she had a party.

Unless they actively placed Kurt Sova outside and he died as a result, there are few legal remedies to this case. Since both of Mr. Sova's parents have passed away, there really wouldn't be too many people left to pursue this. And even if they did, given the passage of time, the possible deaths of witnesses and fading memories, it's doubtful that anybody would ever be convicted in this matter.

[curiousasever]

Unless they actively placed Kurt Sova outside and he died as a result, there are few legal remedies to this case. Since both of Mr. Sova's parents have passed away, there really wouldn't be too many people left to pursue this. And even if they did, given the passage of time, the possible deaths of witnesses and fading memories, it's doubtful that anybody would ever be convicted in this matter.
like his mother said i believe kurt was dead on that cot when susan said he was sleeping in the basement they might have put him there for the night and then dumped his body in the ravine later that next day this case is pretty tough to figure out but i have some weird vibes that he just passed out someone is hiding something i can feel it, if only i can summon kurt like a psychic i would call him up and ask him what happened to him but i can't though. i just know that kurt is in a better place now and hopefully he's doing better now is it wrong for me to miss him too even though i'm not his friend and i don't know him?

[Steve W.]

Yes, I've always thought that alcohol poisoning or a drug overdose were likely causes of death. Whether or not that was exacerbated by exposure, we'll never know.

But the coroner (Lester Adelson) said that he didn't have enough alcohol in his system to kill him. I'm not sure how that's possible, given that it is a fact that he was drinking Everclear before and maybe during the party that day/night, but that's what the coroner said.

[cocytus]

But the coroner (Lester Adelson) said that he didn't have enough alcohol in his system to kill him. I'm not sure how that's possible, given that it is a fact that he was drinking Everclear before and maybe during the party that day/night, but that's what the coroner said.

While I have to respect the coroner's position , I'm not a big "fan" of his judgment. He states that Mr. Sova was in that area deceased for a set amount of time and yet never provides evidence on why this was the case.Honestly, Mr. Sova could have had an enlarged heart and that could have been the cause of his death.

It's too bad that the family couldn't afford to hire their own medical examiner have a more professional (and thorough) autopsy done.

[curiousasever]

But the coroner (Lester Adelson) said that he didn't have enough alcohol in his system to kill him. I'm not sure how that's possible, given that it is a fact that he was drinking Everclear before and maybe during the party that day/night, but that's what the coroner said. '
then it must have been an over-dose of drugs then, it had to have been something kurt didn't just die he didn't just fall out dead he have to have drank too much or exhaled too many drugs something happened to him and if it's not any of those then god must have took him at a young age

[curiousasever]

This is for anyone that lives or lived in Cleveland: Do any of your local news channels or newspapers do any stories on the Sova family currently? I don't know if Kurt's parents are still living but he had three brothers. For instance, has his brothers done any interviews on tv on how the investigation has been progressing for the past 25 years?

The local police must not let this case be forgotten about. An innocent boy died & his family members deserve to know what happened to him.
does anyone else find kurt sova's picture a bit eerie looking just looking at his face? it doesn't look real i really did like this case but i'm a bit too chicken to look at it on youtube on my laptop but i would like to see it again on tv i just wonder sometimes if kurt knew he was going to die from drinking

[Steve W.]

does anyone else find kurt sova's picture a bit eerie looking just looking at his face? it doesn't look real i really did like this case but i'm a bit too chicken to look at it on youtube on my laptop but i would like to see it again on tv i just wonder sometimes if kurt knew he was going to die from drinking

Haha, yes for some reason I kind of get that feeling too when I've looked at his photo. I think it might be because it's the first case I ever watched (on a Lifetime rerun in the middle of the night when I was about 10, watching it by myself, it was probably 1993) that really grabbed me and scared me. I think I have a better grasp of what might have happened to him now but when I first watched it back then, all the scenarios of what might have happened really scared me and naively I remember thinking back then that maybe he was murdered while sleeping in the cot in the basement if he stayed there for the night (I didn't know anything about drinking, alcohol, or much about other drugs yet) and it might made not want to ever sleep alone in a basement for awhile, lol.

Anyway, I think it's a combination of how I remember feeling when I first watched the segment and combine that with the music/score in the segment whenever I've watched it again and that's probably why I feel like I do when I see his photo. And with anyone that's been featured on the show that has died, I often get this irrational feeling that maybe they're looking back at me in some kind of ghost/spirit form when I look at their photo.

Sorry, that was a long response to just one part of your message, lol.

I just wish one of the people named in the newspaper article (the one that's linked in this thread), "Susan" from the UM segment, or somebody that was there would just come forward and re-tell authorities or a media outlet what happened and tell us what REALLY happened to him that night of the party.

[curiousasever]

well they are looking back at us in a spirit form of some sort, they just don't know us and not in our homes thanks god! but yeah his pic kind of creeped me out a little the person who portrayed kurt looked real but the photo was kind of scary it looked like a mask to be honest did you see his lips how big they were? i think it was because i too had a crush on kurt sova but was too young to know what was going on in the case thanks for replying to me

[dynoguy88]

Hey I saw the duplex in street view. It hasn't changed at all! I wonder if Susan still lives there?

I just went up and and down the street in google street view and I couldn't find it. What's the address?

[Steve W.]

well they are looking back at us in a spirit form of some sort, they just don't know us and not in our homes thanks god! but yeah his pic kind of creeped me out a little the person who portrayed kurt looked real but the photo was kind of scary it looked like a mask to be honest did you see his lips how big they were? i think it was because i too had a crush on kurt sova but was too young to know what was going on in the case thanks for replying to me

I'm not sure who else you think stated had a crush on him, but it's possible there are other viewers that did.

[hostedbyrobertstack]

Dynoguy, I sent you a PM. On another note, I really dislike speaking ill of the way that people look, especially of those missing or deceased, and I don't think it is necessary. I simply think that picture of Kurt was a school picture, which, in all reality, I bet he hated and wished his parents would have sent out a different picture of him. Honestly, I hated my school pictures but my parents always liked them...case in point. Anyways, I would hate for any of Kurt's family to come on this board and see people writing about his appearance, of all things related to this case. Just my opinion.

[sharonite]

I don't think the posters above were necessarily "speaking ill" of Kurt Sova's appearance, though I do agree that that topic is neither relevant nor particularly appropriate.

This is one of those cases that I believe could have been solved had modern-day forensic and toxological tools been available at the time of its occurence. At the very least, a more definite cause of death could likely be determined today, which would have answered many of the lingering questions surrounding the case in and of itself.

[Godfather71190]

I just went up and and down the street in google street view and I couldn't find it. What's the address?
It is 2717 harvard

[dynoguy88]

More fun with Google Street view.

Here is Susan's duplex on Harvard Avenue in Newburgh Heights.

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad64/andy80_bucket/Sova1.jpg

The fence where Kurt's friend supposedly left him to go back inside and get his jacket is still to the left side of the house.

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad64/andy80_bucket/Sova2.jpg

Just down the street on Harvard Avenue is this old building. It was a J.L. Goodman furniture store at the time of Kurt's death in 1981. Apparently behind this building is the ravine where Kurt's body was found.

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad64/andy80_bucket/Sova3.jpg

It was stated on the UM segment that the duplex and the ravine where Kurt's body was found were just 500 yards apart. This final picture is a street view to give you a better idea of just how short of a distance it is between the two spots. The circle on the left is the house that's right next door to the duplex. The circle on the right is where the ravine is located behind the building.

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad64/andy80_bucket/Sova4.jpg

[hostedbyrobertstack]

Wow,dynoguy, you've come a long way w/ the street view! haha...what did you use, some snag it program I assume? I have the location for his house that was in the UM segment as well, and the "store/street" where he crosses to meet up w/ his friend. I think we need to make an entire thread about UM locations and images... I have found many others!

[Steve W.]

Thanks dynoguy. It makes a case even more real to a viewer (at least to me anyway) when you can see pics like that of the actual location. It's crazy that all of that stuff is still there after 29 years! But I suppose it was never a wealthy part of town so maybe that's not as surprising as I think it is.

[Apostapler]

Oh wow. Are there any building behind that building? Wonder if streetview could get us a better view of the Ravine.

Thanks dynoguy. It's so much easier to get how close they were with visuals.

[Godfather71190]

Here's the bad part about this the ravine where Kurt's body was found has been turned into a golf course

[Steve W.]

More fun with Google Street view.

Here is Susan's duplex on Harvard Avenue in Newburgh Heights.

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad64/andy80_bucket/Sova1.jpg

The fence where Kurt's friend supposedly left him to go back inside and get his jacket is still to the left side of the house.

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad64/andy80_bucket/Sova2.jpg

Just down the street on Harvard Avenue is this old building. It was a J.L. Goodman furniture store at the time of Kurt's death in 1981. Apparently behind this building is the ravine where Kurt's body was found.

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad64/andy80_bucket/Sova3.jpg

It was stated on the UM segment that the duplex and the ravine where Kurt's body was found were just 500 yards apart. This final picture is a street view to give you a better idea of just how short of a distance it is between the two spots. The circle on the left is the house that's right next door to the duplex. The circle on the right is where the ravine is located behind the building.

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad64/andy80_bucket/Sova4.jpg

I remember in the newspaper article linked a few pages back in this thread, it said that some people that lived nearby saw two young men carrying Kurt's body to the ravine (probably on Tues. 10/27/81 or Wed. 10/28/81). They were the people who told Kurt's parents that in 1983 but the Newburgh Heights police never had them on record stating that until 1989 (probably because that was right after the UM segment came out)! Anyway, from the looks of the google streetview, I would assume that the middle-aged couple was probably living in the house/residence right next to the duplex because it doesn't look like there are any other houses from there to the ravine (or what used to be the ravine). It's just yet another example of how crappy of a job the police did in this case (during the
80's at least).

[dynoguy88]

The duplex and the house next door are the only homes on Harvard Avenue. I looked up and down the street on street view. Going down the block across the street are nothing but factories and abandoned buildings.

However, there are 2 blocks of homes behind the duplex that dead end in to the ravine, which is now a golf course. So plenty of people could have witnessed a body being carried. I always assumed Susan's buddies carried Kurt to the ravine at maybe 3:00 in the morning, or at least very early so there would be less witnesses. But I didn't know that two people still spotted them. I'll have to go back and find that article.

[Thiussat]

I just watched this for the first time in many years and it was really like a new story for me. I didn't remember much about the case. At any rate, as Joe Friday says, let's just have the facts, ma'am. Let's just cut through speculation and start with what we know for sure. The way I see it, there are only a couple of indisputable facts here.

Fact 1) We know that there was no trauma to the body -- he was not shot, stabbed, beaten or strangled. As the coroner said, it's a matter of exclusion -- you rule out all possibilities and you're left with what you've got, and in this case what you've got is an undetermined death. Therefore, you start with the body and work backwards, and the body itself does not show any signs of obvious murder (the only possibility for murder would be chemical in nature).

My thoughts: An undetermined death of a 17 year old means only one of two things: a drug overdose or some sort of latent illness that no one was aware of. A drug overdose can probably be ruled out, as I am sure the coroner checked for drugs and alcohol. He didn't mention what his findings of drugs were, but he did say there was not enough alcohol present to have killed him. That leaves us with an unknown illness. I know people who have died as teenagers from aneurysms and other rare stuff. You hear about college athletes dying after practice from undiagnosed heart conditions, etc. I am not a doctor, so I am not sure how difficult it would be for a coroner to find such abnormal causes of death in an autopsy. I do know that sometimes young, healthy people do just die for no apparent or obvious reason. Watch "Dr. G" sometime.

Fact 2) It is pretty certain Kurt was at that party (as the renter of the apartment later admitted after having lied first). Other people at the party also admitted he was there. Therefore, the only question that remains is what happened between the party and the time he was found.

My thoughts: I think there is a shred of truth to the guy's story about Kurt being disoriented and going outside for air. Think about it, if the story were a lie, why would the guy even come forward at all? He didn't have to give the Sova's any information. If Sova was that disoriented or in a panic, it's very possible he may have wondered off during the time the guy went inside to get the jacket. Such behavior could very possibly be due to a hallucinogenic drug. I know because I have been there. ;)

Fact 3) The fact that the woman who was renting the duplex initially lied about Kurt being there obviously means that something was amiss at the party. There's not much doubt about that. However, it should be stressed that what exactly she was scared of is not certain.

My thoughts: I am inclined to believe the apartment owner (Susan) was simply nervous about maybe getting in trouble for the drug use that was going on. This would explain why she first lied about the party and then later admitted it after she realized Mrs. Sova was only looking for her son.

Now for the mysteries of this case:

Mystery #1: The coroner said that Kurt had been dead for 24-36 hours. This doesn't fit in with the timeline of the party at all.

My explanation: Kurt was very ill and the party goers decided to let him stay there for a day or two. They likely didn't call an ambulance for fear of being implicated due to the drug usage that had occurred.

Mystery #2: Who was the person sleeping in the basement and why did Susan think it was Kurt?

My explanation: I think this mystery is easily explainable; the person was indeed Kurt and Susan wanted to make it sound as if she wasn't aware Kurt had been hanging around after the party so that she could clear herself of any wrong-doing or negligence. So she calls the Sova's and says "OMG, someone is in my basement, come quick, it might be Kurt." Basically, it was an alibi.

Mystery #3: The guy in the record store said that "Kurt will be dead and no one will know what happened to him." Who was this guy and why did he say that?

My explanation: I think this mystery is easily explainable too. The guy was probably at the party and witnessed the state that Kurt was in. He probably knew the people at the apartment were dumbfounded as to what was wrong with him. Everyone feared he might die and that no one would know what had happened. So basically the guy wasn't being menacing, he was merely stating fact: "no one knows what happened to him."

Mystery #4: Who was "Franco" that Kurt was seen getting into the van with?

My explanation: I think either the witness was mistaken or it was Kurt and he had been on a several day drug binge while staying at the apartment. Perhaps he had sobered up before he got into the van and only later got ill after using drugs again. I tend to think the witness was mistaken, though.

Mystery #5: If Kurt died accidentally why was his body put in the ravine and why was his shoe missing, etc?

My explanation: the people at Susan's apartment freaked out and simply put him there. It's possible he even died on the cot in the basement. They didn't call police or an ambulance because they feared being implicated. Perhaps some of them were drug dealers.

My conclusion:

Kurt went to that party, ended up doing some drugs and had an extremely bad reaction. Perhaps the alcohol mixed with the drugs were a bad combination. Perhaps he was doing some pills (like a benzo such as valium, atavan, xanax, etc.) and mixed it with alcohol. This can be a deadly combination. I know a girl who was 22, never done drugs, and who died after doing one hit of ecstasy. This stuff happens. Look at Brittany Murphy and Heath Ledger as examples of how easy it is to die from cocktails of various drugs.

Another possibility (since I'm sure the coroner checked for drugs) is that Kurt simply came down with an unknown illness -- an aneurysm or what have you. Maybe an undiagnosed congenital heart condition. You get the idea.

So after Kurt had his reaction and/or illness, the people at the apartment kept him there and let him sleep on the cot in the basement. After a day or two passed they became worried and were dumbfounded as to what was wrong with him. However, they were nervous about calling the police for obvious reasons. So, after a couple of days, they find him dead and decide it's better to dump the body. Sometime thereafter Susan calls the Sova's and tries to make it sound as if she wasn't even aware Kurt had been staying in her basement (just in case the Police were able to tie Kurt to the party). The fact that a friend said he saw Kurt in a bad state at the party (clinging to a fence) fortifies this theory in my mind.

Bottom line: this was an accidental death and someone freaked and dumped his body. The fact that there was no trauma to the body makes murder extremely unlikely.

[dynoguy88]

I think the majority of the posters here have concluded that it was an accidental death. Even Dorothy Sova concluded that it was an accidental death and that people at the party panicked and eventually dumped his body in the ravine.

I never believed the story about the guy claiming to leave Kurt on the fence after going outside for some air. How long would it take to go back upstairs, grab a jacket and come back outside? 2 minutes? Somehow during those two minutes, Kurt vanished? Yeah, right. If he was so disoriented that he could barely stand under his own power, there's not much chance that he could walk very far in just 2 minutes, never to be seen again. He would be found easily.

I think this guy made up this story to the Sovas to help cover Susan's ass. She didn't want it to be known that Kurt died on her property and that she knew where he was the entire time he was missing. She wanted it to look like he wandered off somewhere else and died.

Of course, that doesn't explain why she called the Sovas and told them Kurt might be in her basement. If you think someone's in your basement, common sense would be to check yourself to see who it is or call the police. That was obviously a smoke screen on Susan's part as well.

[in_cahoots]

I think the majority of the posters here have concluded that it was an accidental death. Even Dorothy Sova concluded that it was an accidental death and that people at the party panicked and eventually dumped his body in the ravine.

I never believed the story about the guy claiming to leave Kurt on the fence after going outside for some air. How long would it take to go back upstairs, grab a jacket and come back outside? 2 minutes? Somehow during those two minutes, Kurt vanished? Yeah, right. If he was so disoriented that he could barely stand under his own power, there's not much chance that he could walk very far in just 2 minutes, never to be seen again. He would be found easily.

I think this guy made up this story to the Sovas to help cover Susan's ass. She didn't want it to be known that Kurt died on her property and that she knew where he was the entire time he was missing. She wanted it to look like he wandered off somewhere else and died.

Of course, that doesn't explain why she called the Sovas and told them Kurt might be in her basement. If you think someone's in your basement, common sense would be to check yourself to see who it is or call the police. That was obviously a smoke screen on Susan's part as well.
And what is the corrolation (if any) between Kurt's death and the death of his friend 3 months later? Very similar circumstances i.e. found in a ravine, no known cause of death, missing his right shoe. very strange?

[Steve W.]

And what is the corrolation (if any) between Kurt's death and the death of his friend 3 months later? Very similar circumstances i.e. found in a ravine, no known cause of death, missing his right shoe. very strange?

I've read or seen some things about Eugene Kvett and it is thought that he had either fallen into the ravine (someone posted a pic before: where Eugene was found was in a MUCH DIFFERENT, MUCH STEEPER part of the ravine, where you could actually fatally fall; the area of the ravine where Kurt was found was a flat plain area) or that he might have been the target of a Cleveland/Newburgh Heights area gang at that time.

A newspaper article linked in this thread about Kurt said that two neighbor people saw two guys carrying someone (presumably Kurt) in the morning or afternoon one day just a few days before Halloween (it had to be sometime on either Tuesday, 10/27/81 or Wednesday, 10/28/81). They thought it was probably someone that had too much to drink (which is actually true) but didn't realize that he was probably already dead (or at least in a coma/unconscious) when the guys were carrying him out there.

A lot of us on here believe that Kurt was at the duplex the whole time he was "missing" and that "Susan" (and/or Debbie and Clayton Sams, two other people that lived there) just lied to his parents and they made sure they didn't find him when they went over there to look for him. It's possible that one of Kurt's shoes fell off somewhere in the duplex and they just hid it or got rid of it, or it might have fell off when the two guys were taking him out to the ravine and they just got rid of it after they finished putting his body out there.

As for Eugene's missing shoe, if the gang theory was true, that could explain away that they got rid of it, but if he accidentally fell, then you would think that the authorities would find it. But you have to remember, if you've read about this case or the newspaper article linked, it's very clear that the Newburgh Heights police department was a department that was full of people that were very crappy at their jobs in this time period, so perhaps they were too inept to find Kvett's shoe, or maybe it washed away in the stream, because where he was found, there was actually a stream of water.

I hope this helps.

[sdb4884]

I always wondered why Eugene Kvet's case was only a tidbit towards the end of Kurt Sova's case.

[in_cahoots]

I've read or seen some things about Eugene Kvett and it is thought that he had either fallen into the ravine (someone posted a pic before: where Eugene was found was in a MUCH DIFFERENT, MUCH STEEPER part of the ravine, where you could actually fatally fall; the area of the ravine where Kurt was found was a flat plain area) or that he might have been the target of a Cleveland/Newburgh Heights area gang at that time.

A newspaper article linked in this thread about Kurt said that two neighbor people saw two guys carrying someone (presumably Kurt) in the morning or afternoon one day just a few days before Halloween (it had to be sometime on either Tuesday, 10/27/81 or Wednesday, 10/28/81). They thought it was probably someone that had too much to drink (which is actually true) but didn't realize that he was probably already dead (or at least in a coma/unconscious) when the guys were carrying him out there.

A lot of us on here believe that Kurt was at the duplex the whole time he was "missing" and that "Susan" (and/or Debbie and Clayton Sams, two other people that lived there) just lied to his parents and they made sure they didn't find him when they went over there to look for him. It's possible that one of Kurt's shoes fell off somewhere in the duplex and they just hid it or got rid of it, or it might have fell off when the two guys were taking him out to the ravine and they just got rid of it after they finished putting his body out there.

As for Eugene's missing shoe, if the gang theory was true, that could explain away that they got rid of it, but if he accidentally fell, then you would think that the authorities would find it. But you have to remember, if you've read about this case or the newspaper article linked, it's very clear that the Newburgh Heights police department was a department that was full of people that were very crappy at their jobs in this time period, so perhaps they were too inept to find Kvett's shoe, or maybe it washed away in the stream, because where he was found, there was actually a stream of water.

I hope this helps.
Thanks very much, that makes things much clearer for me. I live in Ireland but I follow the news in America a lot, especially crime, as it fascinates me. What happened to Kurt is very sad and it bemuses me that the police never charged anyone. I work in law enforcement myself and it doesn't seem like a difficult case to solve. In my opinion the police knew (or know) more than they would care to divulge

[MegtheEgg86]

I never believed the story about the guy claiming to leave Kurt on the fence after going outside for some air. How long would it take to go back upstairs, grab a jacket and come back outside? 2 minutes? Somehow during those two minutes, Kurt vanished? Yeah, right. If he was so disoriented that he could barely stand under his own power, there's not much chance that he could walk very far in just 2 minutes, never to be seen again. He would be found easily.

I think this guy made up this story to the Sovas to help cover Susan's ass. She didn't want it to be known that Kurt died on her property and that she knew where he was the entire time he was missing. She wanted it to look like he wandered off somewhere else and died.

I agree the jacket story is pretty implausible. Alcohol intoxication lends to sluggishness, slowed reaction time, poor coordination, and nausea. You'd hardly go be-bopping away from the fence never to be seen again in two minutes.

Of course, that doesn't explain why she called the Sovas and told them Kurt might be in her basement. If you think someone's in your basement, common sense would be to check yourself to see who it is or call the police. That was obviously a smoke screen on Susan's part as well.

I wish we knew more about the context of that conversation, but that always seemed to me like another ploy to cover herself--maybe an attempt to paint the situation as Kurt intentionally hiding out from his parents. I think Kurt was there the entire time, of course.



I never found the duplex in Newburgh Heights when I was there. Does anyone know how far away it is from the ravine behind the J.L. Goodman warehouse?

[dynoguy88]

I never found the duplex in Newburgh Heights when I was there. Does anyone know how far away it is from the ravine behind the J.L. Goodman warehouse?

The segment said they were just 500 yards apart.

[MegtheEgg86]

The segment said they were just 500 yards apart.

D'oh! Thanks, I'd forgotten that somewhere.

[Steve W.]

There's pictures of the duplex and the ravine (sort of, the old J.L. Goodman building is in one of the pics and it's in front of one of the entrances into the ravine) in the "UM Location Pictures" thread.

I don't know if you ever drove on Harvard Avenue while you were there Meg, but I believe that street/road is supposed to take one through the majority of the Newburgh Heights section of Cleveland. The duplex (if you're facing the front of it) is to the left to the old Goodman building somewhere along Harvard Avenue.

[MissFit29]

Could Kurt have died from something as simple as dehydration?

He was drinking, and if he did get "sick" (I assume they meant he starting vomiting), he would have lost fluids. He could have passed out from the alcohol, and people at the party brought him down to the basement to sleep it off. Maybe he was unconscious for a long enough period of time that he was too weak to even move if he did regain consciousness. I think the human body can only survive 72 hours without water. He is later found deceased in the basement and moved to the ravine. This might explain why there weren't any substances found in the autopsy.

Thoughts?

[MegtheEgg86]

Could Kurt have died from something as simple as dehydration?

He was drinking, and if he did get "sick" (I assume they meant he starting vomiting), he would have lost fluids. He could have passed out from the alcohol, and people at the party brought him down to the basement to sleep it off. Maybe he was unconscious for a long enough period of time that he was too weak to even move if he did regain consciousness. I think the human body can only survive 72 hours without water. He is later found deceased in the basement and moved to the ravine. This might explain why there weren't any substances found in the autopsy.

Thoughts?


EXCELLENT point. It's very plausible, I think. There'd be alcohol present in his system, but it might explain why a dangerously excessive amount didn't exist.

Or perhaps someone even encouraged him to drink far too much water, which can be fatal. I knew a person who nearly lost his life by water intoxication.

[Steve W.]

This case still bothers me the most. I've been having dreams about it in recent months, but they don't really make any sense, especially ones where I'm back in that time period (1981), since I wasn't even conceived when this went down.

This seems to be as much as we still know:

-Kurt had someone buy him a bottle of Everclear; we know he started drinking it at his girlfriend's house (he skipped school that Friday), but we have no idea how much of it he drank there: why was this "girlfriend" never interviewed, either for the UM segment or the Cleveland Plain-Dealer 1991 article?

-we have no idea if Kurt was already drunk when he left his gf's to meet with Samuel Carroll to walk to the party at the duplex; at the least, he still had to be buzzed with how potent Everclear is

-we don't know if he brought the bottle of Everclear with him (presuming he hadn't finished it), or if he just drank whatever was at the party

-we actually don't know for sure if he got sick, either; he could have just went from being really drunk or whatever to passing out, depending on how much he drank or if he was given or took other drugs

-he definitely had to have been at the duplex the whole time; no f-ing way he went to the fence and walked-off, no; when Kurt's Mom came by the first time (Saturday? or Sunday?), he was probably in the basement on the cot; they never got him medical attention and he probably died there

-two guys move his body, probably on Tuesday evening 10/27/81 (probably shortly after Kurt's dad checked that ravine area, lucky for them)

-Kurt's body is found on Wednesday 10/28/81

This case will never fail to frustrate me due to completely inept Newburgh Heights police department. If they had done their job right, they probably could have solved this case and made some arrests within a week or two of his death.

[idol]

I think this may have been pointed out already but an interesting tidbit from the 1991 article.


"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."

[DarkDante]

I think this may have been pointed out already but an interesting tidbit from the 1991 article.


"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."

I think this could be the most crucial piece of information to have come from this case and since I first became aware of it (around two years ago) I have believed that Kurt probably became incapacitated at the party and his body was then moved to the ravine and that is what this witness saw.

[Steve W.]

"I think this could be the most crucial piece of information to have come from this case and since I first became aware of it (around two years ago) I have believed that Kurt probably became incapacitated at the party and his body was then moved to the ravine and that is what this witness saw."

Agreed, so I think everyone can throw out the Kurt and Samuel C. Carroll going out to the fence and Kurt wandering off story, as well as the Kurt being supposedly seen by David Trusnick and yelling for someone named Franco story. I wonder if the creepy guy that stopped at the record store around that time (and told them to take down the missing persons poster of him because he'll be found dead is 2 days) was one of the guys that was carrying him to the ravine.

[Godfather71190]

Newburgh heights are not the greatest police department let me tell that It's pretty much a speed trap there pretty much lazy cops.

[Steve W.]

Newburgh heights are not the greatest police department let me tell that It's pretty much a speed trap there pretty much lazy cops.

Yep, we figured that out, especially in the '80's. The newspaper article in this thread discusses that in greater detail. They did absolutely nothing when it came to investigating and interviewing people regarding Kurt's "disappearance" and death.

[curiousasever]

[QUOTE=soilentgreen]I don't know if this has been posted:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/cleveland/128846-any-new-info-kurt-sova.html

Hey, that was I who posted that message on city-data a couple of years ago, ha. I just added another reply to it to bump it up to the first page, see if anyone new sees it.
i feel sor sorry for you best friend kurt looked like a good kid :(

[Steve W.]

Yep, it's going to be 30 years in a few days since the day/night that something happened to him that subsequently led to his death.

I saw that small thread as well:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/cleveland/128846-any-new-info-kurt-sova.html

They claim that their older brother Dan and a guy named "Miller" used to hang out with Kurt a lot. But then after Dan went into military, maybe Kurt starting hanging out with Samuel Carroll and some of the other people that were at the duplex party?

[Steve W.]

"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

Read more: http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=165453&page=8#ixzz1bLNhh4B9"


This just occurred to me: where did the information come from that Kurt cut school that day, had a man buy him Everclear, and then "drank the day away" at a "girlfriend's" house?

If they got those "facts" from Samuel C. Carroll, for all we all know, he could have been LYING about that, too. We know he's lying when he says he went outside with Kurt during the party, had to go in to get his coat, and that Kurt was gone when he came back out. That's definitely a bull**** story.

Carroll or the Samses (Clayton and Debbie) or the known names we have to work with the people that know the truth of what happened to Kurt. Someone needs to get them to talk.

[curiousasever]

was kurt a nice guy to hang out with? since you knew him?

[curiousasever]

Yep, it's going to be 30 years in a few days since the day/night that something happened to him that subsequently led to his death.

I saw that small thread as well:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/cleveland/128846-any-new-info-kurt-sova.html

They claim that their older brother Dan and a guy named "Miller" used to hang out with Kurt a lot. But then after Dan went into military, maybe Kurt starting hanging out with Samuel Carroll and some of the other people that were at the duplex party?
was kurt a nice guy since you knew him?

[Steve W.]

"was kurt a nice guy since you knew him?"

It wasn't me that stated he knew him. I wasn't even born yet when he died.

The poster with the handle "hostedbyrobertstack" is the one that stated they posted in that City Data thread. But they aren't the person that knew him, either. The person in that thread that stated they knew him posted under the handle, "bfgoodbitch".

[justins5256]

I remember reading a lot of speculation on this forum over the years about why the police seemingly didn't follow up leads and expose what were obvious lies. After reading that article, it now seems very clear to me that the lead investigator was grossly incompetent and that this case was severely mishandled from the start. If there is a better example of a case that could have and should have been solved early on but wasn't due to incompetence, I can't think of one. This is a true miscarriage of justice. I feel terrible for the Sova family.

[curiousasever]

"was kurt a nice guy since you knew him?"

It wasn't me that stated he knew him. I wasn't even born yet when he died.

The poster with the handle "hostedbyrobertstack" is the one that stated they posted in that City Data thread. But aren't the person that knew him, either. The person in that thread that stated they knew him posted under the handle, "bfgoodbitch".
oh sorry my mistake then ;)

[Steve W.]

I think his body might have been laid out in a Jesus pose because he died for their sins, which would go along with the using-him-to-try-out-a-drug scenario. That pi**es me off if that was the case.

Did you notice how the article didn't provide a source for the details of what Kurt was doing that day before going to the duplex party? That part could have been straight from his "friend's" mouth, which means it could have been made up. It doesn't make sense for him to drink a bottle of Everclear and THEN go to a party. He would have been too out of it to want to walk somewhere.

[TheCars1986]

IMO, I think it's pretty obvious what happened to Kurt. He had some weird reaction to the booze and/or drugs that were at that party, blacked out, his friends and the partygoers panicked, and attempted to nurse him back to health. I think he stayed in that building for the days he was "missing", which would explain why his father didn't see him in the ravine the days before he was actually discovered. I think the owner of the house where the party was held started to feel guilty/remorseful and called Kurt's parents and said Kurt was sleeping in her basement. I think Kurt died soon after or possibly even before this phone call was made and the others involved on the coverup yet again panicked, and moved him to the ravine shortly after the phonecall and when Kurt's parents arrived at the house, Debbie changed her tune. Kurt's body was then placed in the ravine.

[TracyLynnS]

This whole thing is sad. Kurt was only 17.
Kids that age make immature and stupid decisions when they
go through that wild phase. His family seemed so nice. He would
have probably grown out of that risk taking kind of behavior and
would have had a good life.

[Steve W.]

What I still want to know though is if he took drugs (alcohol included) all by his own choice that night (and earlier in the day possibly as well, according to the 1991 article) that led to his death or if he was forced to take them/some at the party.

Why else would the two guys that carried his body to the ravine put him in a crucified Jesus Christ pose (translation: he died for their sins)?

[justins5256]

What I still want to know though is if he took drugs (alcohol included) all by his own choice that night (and earlier in the day possibly as well, according to the 1991 article) that led to his death or if he was forced to take them/some at the party.

While it is impossible to know, I think Kurt had a hand in his own demise. I say this for two reasons. First, there was testimony that he was drinking heavily and intoxicated at the party. Second, his body was in relatively good condition without any signs of obvious external trauma. It didn't appear he had been in a fight or struggle, for example.

I have always believed that the Sovas were either in denial, or, at a minimum, in the dark about some of Kurt's activities. The articles indicate that Kurt drank alcohol and smoked marijuana regularly. He also purportedly bought Everclear the night of the party. Everclear is some pretty heavy duty stuff, or so I have been told.

That being said, I don't mean to imply anything negative about Kurt. He was 17 years old. A lot of kids his age and even younger begin experimenting with alcohol and recreational drugs, and typically do not inform their parents. It's a stage many adolescents go through and hopefully find their way out of before long. However, some kids form life long addictions. Others die young of medical conditions related to these activities, or in some cases, due to undiagnosed medical conditions exacerbated by the alcohol and drug use.

Why else would the two guys that carried his body to the ravine put him in a crucified Jesus Christ pose (translation: he died for their sins)?

I think it is coincidental. Have you ever helped an intoxicated person walk? One way to do it is to take their arm and prop it on your shoulders so when you move together, you are providing support as well as carrying some of their body weight. I can envision two men carrying Kurt's body in this fashion, with a man on each arm, and laying him down in the ravine - his arms would naturally be outstretched in such a pose. This is corroborated by testimony from a witness who said she saw two men carrying a third person out to the ravine, but she assumed the men were drunken teenagers trying to sober up.

[TheCars1986]

I too think the parents were in denial about Kurt's involvement with alcohol and drugs. I'm surprised, if this were in fact an accidental overdose/death, someone has not came forward by now. There would have to have been several people at that party that would have known what had happened with Kurt and if he indeed have some weird reaction to the alcohol/drugs.

[justins5256]

I too think the parents were in denial about Kurt's involvement with alcohol and drugs. I'm surprised, if this were in fact an accidental overdose/death, someone has not came forward by now. There would have to have been several people at that party that would have known what had happened with Kurt and if he indeed have some weird reaction to the alcohol/drugs.

I think it depends who was around when he died or was found dead. I wouldn't be surprised if someone (perhaps "Susan") took Kurt down to the cot in the basement to "sleep it off", he dies, and is discovered after the fact by Susan or someone else. There was testimony that Kurt was drinking at the party. There was also testimony that he didn't know most of the people at this party and that many of the party-goers were older than Kurt. These people could all be potential witnesses to Kurt's last moments, but as they didn't know who he was and were probably drunk or stoned themselves, didn't attach any significance to his presence and actions that night.

I think it's also possible that people who were in attendance wouldn't necessarily want to come forward either because they were using illicit substances themselves, witnessed the use of illicit substances, or even worse, are fearful of being accused of having a hand in Sova's death.

It would be easy to write this whole thing off as an accidental overdose or reaction to alcohol or a drug save one troubling fact - the "Crazy from Detroit". Perhaps he was just a "crazy" but the fact that he predicted not only the discovery of Sova's body, but also predicted that the instrument death would be undectable - which an autopsy confirmed it was. You've got to wonder about that.

[TheCars1986]

I think it depends who was around when he died or was found dead. I wouldn't be surprised if someone (perhaps "Susan") took Kurt down to the cot in the basement to "sleep it off", he dies, and is discovered after the fact by Susan or someone else. There was testimony that Kurt was drinking at the party. There was also testimony that he didn't know most of the people at this party and that many of the party-goers were older than Kurt. These people could all be potential witnesses to Kurt's last moments, but as they didn't know who he was and were probably drunk or stoned themselves, didn't attach any significance to his presence and actions that night.

I can see how that's plausible that the majority of the party goers were drunk and or stoned, so probably didn't pay much attention to what was going on with Kurt.

I think it's also possible that people who were in attendance wouldn't necessarily want to come forward either because they were using illicit substances themselves, witnessed the use of illicit substances, or even worse, are fearful of being accused of having a hand in Sova's death.

But after all of these years, why would someone be fearful to come forward just becaused they either partaked in or witnessed people using drugs? I mean all someone would have to do was come forward and say they saw Kurt passed out on a cot in the basement, or they saw some people "helping" Kurt into the basement, etc. and IMO the case is blown open and hopefully solved after some requestioning. "Susan" needs to be requestioned because it's obvious she knew something. No one innocently would call Kurt's father and say that "maybe your son is in my basement" only to recant it when his father did in fact show up.

It would be easy to write this whole thing off as an accidental overdose or reaction to alcohol or a drug save one troubling fact - the "Crazy from Detroit". Perhaps he was just a "crazy" but the fact that he predicted not only the discovery of Sova's body, but also predicted that the instrument death would be undectable - which an autopsy confirmed it was. You've got to wonder about that.

I believe police questioned this guy, wasn't he a former mential patient or something? And didn't they attribute the fact that he "predicted" when his body would be found as a remarkable coincidence? I know it's hard to believe, but it's still possible. And I guess it's possible that after Kurt's body was discovered, the lady who worked at the store, who was had the odd encounter with the "Crazy", got her details wrong?

[justins5256]

But after all of these years, why would someone be fearful to come forward just becaused they either partaked in or witnessed people using drugs? I mean all someone would have to do was come forward and say they saw Kurt passed out on a cot in the basement, or they saw some people "helping" Kurt into the basement, etc. and IMO the case is blown open and hopefully solved after some requestioning.

Back in '81 I could understand people not wanting to come forward for the reasons I highlighted.

Today, there is probably little to no risk of prosecution. However, there is also little incentive for someone to come forward now. As I've said before in regard to cases where there could be potential witnesses: it's easier to do nothing than it is to do something.

If someone does have info or saw something unusual that night, maybe they incorrectly assume it's of little importance. Maybe they assume the cops already know/have the same info. Maybe they think that since the Sovas are dead no one cares anymore. Who knows?

To extrapolate from that, I doubt Susan could be prosecuted for much today, but she presumably hasn't cracked. The two men who placed Kurt's body in the ravine haven't turned up either. I think these are people who have since moved on with their lives, put the past behind them and probably care little about Kurt Sova, the pain his family endured and ultimately the outcome of the case. They were cowardly enough to withhold the truth 30 years ago when we all agree they should have stepped up to the plate and taken responsibility for their actions. They obviously haven't attempted to rectify this situation in the years since, and frankly, I don't expect them to at this juncture.

"Susan" needs to be requestioned because it's obvious she knew something. No one innocently would call Kurt's father and say that "maybe your son is in my basement" only to recant it when his father did in fact show up.

No doubt.

I believe police questioned this guy, wasn't he a former mential patient or something? And didn't they attribute the fact that he "predicted" when his body would be found as a remarkable coincidence? I know it's hard to believe, but it's still possible. And I guess it's possible that after Kurt's body was discovered, the lady who worked at the store, who was had the odd encounter with the "Crazy", got her details wrong?

Yeah. I'm not great at conveying the feeling in words, but it's one of those odd little tidbits UM would occasionally throw in to a story that would make the hairs on your neck stand at attention as it dawns on you that perhaps something really, really bizarre is going on.

I suppose it's possible, as you suggested, she was mistaken about what "the Crazy' said and his prediction was a mere coincidence or lucky guess.

While I've always believed that Kurt Sova died accidentally, probably as a result of alcohol or drug abuse, I've never known just what to do with that little tidbit about the "Crazy from Detroit", to be honest.

[TheCars1986]

Yeah. I'm not great at conveying the feeling in words, but it's one of those odd little tidbits UM would occasionally throw in to a story that would make the hairs on your neck stand at attention as it dawns on you that perhaps something really, really bizarre is going on.

I suppose it's possible, as you suggested, she was mistaken about what "the Crazy' said and his prediction was a mere coincidence or lucky guess.

While I've always believed that Kurt Sova died accidentally, probably as a result of alcohol or drug abuse, I've never known just what to do with that little tidbit about the "Crazy from Detroit", to be honest.

For all we know the "crazy" could have said, "They're going to find his body in a couple of days...", and when he was in fact found two days later the woman suddenly "remembered" him predicting it to the exact date. Was the "crazy" ever connected to the party and/or "Susan"? If so, that may explain why he would be able to predict when Kurt would have been found.

As for the "investigation" into this case, did the cops ever even question "Susan"? Seems to me like this case held little importance in their minds and they simply chalked it up to just another teenager doing something stupid and dying because of it. And I can't recall whether or not the autopsy actually was able to determine a cause of death, was there one ever found? And what do you think of the possible connection to Eugene Kvet? Coincidence? I wish I knew more about the Eugene Kvet case to make a judgement but I can't seem to find anything.

[MegtheEgg86]

Perhaps this is a little unusual connection to make, but the relatively recent death of Amy Winehouse got me thinking about Kurt Sova.

Many initially believed that Winehouse died of a drug or alcohol overdose, but later the toxicology reports from her autopsy indicated no illegal substances whatsoever were found in her system. Alcohol was found, but whether it played a role in her death is yet undetermined.

And so the same with Kurt Sova--no illegal substances, and a certain amount of alcohol in his system. It is rather macabre to say, but I wonder if further revelations about the cause of Amy Winehouse's death might provide any insight into what might have happened to Kurt.

[Steve W.]

The only 3 known names at the party (Samuel C. Carroll, Debbie Sams, and Clayton Sams) are who we need to get to talk and unload the truth to get this solved, assuming they are all still alive.

[justins5256]

For all we know the "crazy" could have said, "They're going to find his body in a couple of days...", and when he was in fact found two days later the woman suddenly "remembered" him predicting it to the exact date. Was the "crazy" ever connected to the party and/or "Susan"? If so, that may explain why he would be able to predict when Kurt would have been found.

As for the "investigation" into this case, did the cops ever even question "Susan"? Seems to me like this case held little importance in their minds and they simply chalked it up to just another teenager doing something stupid and dying because of it. And I can't recall whether or not the autopsy actually was able to determine a cause of death, was there one ever found? And what do you think of the possible connection to Eugene Kvet? Coincidence? I wish I knew more about the Eugene Kvet case to make a judgement but I can't seem to find anything.

I have some things to say, but let me watch the segment again so I can back up my opinions with verifiable facts.

[dynoguy88]

Thanks to TracyLynnS for introducing me to Bing Maps. There's a feature on it that lets you see a bird's eye view of any location you want. So this was the perfect thing to use to see all the areas of interest for the Kurt Sova case in one picture. I had to angle the picture looking at everything from the back in order to fit it all in one shot.

In the upper right hand corner, I labeled and circled the duplex.

J.L. Goodman Furniture and the ravine where Kurt's body was found are also labeled. Finally, to the far left of the picture, you'll see a street called Washington Park Blvd. That is where Angeline Reddicks looked out the window of her house and saw 2 males carrying an unconscious teenage boy into the ravine the day before Kurt's body was found. That's certainly a strange and long route to take to dump the body in the ravine. And it's in plain sight of so many homes.

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad64/andy80_bucket/KurtSova.jpg

[Steve W.]

awesome, thanks for the view from above

maybe the Reddicks' house is one of those houses that's directly in front of the ravine (ie the ravine is basically their extended backyard)

as far as the guys carrying his body, I'm guessing they weren't/aren't the brightest bulbs around (except for the part where they and no else has confessed to authorities as to what happened to him UP TO THIS VERY DAY) and maybe they couldn't immediately decide where they wanted to put him

[RobinW]

Perhaps this is a little unusual connection to make, but the relatively recent death of Amy Winehouse got me thinking about Kurt Sova.

Many initially believed that Winehouse died of a drug or alcohol overdose, but later the toxicology reports from her autopsy indicated no illegal substances whatsoever were found in her system. Alcohol was found, but whether it played a role in her death is yet undetermined.

And so the same with Kurt Sova--no illegal substances, and a certain amount of alcohol in his system. It is rather macabre to say, but I wonder if further revelations about the cause of Amy Winehouse's death might provide any insight into what might have happened to Kurt.

And not too long after you type this, the official coroner's inquest comes out that says Amy Winehouse died from consuming too much alcohol, over five times the legal drunk-driving limit.

Obviously, Winehouse's body was more conditioned to handle large amounts of alcohol, but a 17-year old kid like Kurt Sova probably wasn't used to a strong substance like Everclear and could have easily died after consuming much more than he could handle.

[RedBasket]

This is a case I would love to see from beginning to end on the original UM show. There are so many theories out there and I am from the school of "teen drank too much and other teens got scared and panicked" as what really happened to him but I would need the whole episode again to be sure.

His mom was so hearbroken.

[Todd Mueller]

Perhaps this is a little unusual connection to make, but the relatively recent death of Amy Winehouse got me thinking about Kurt Sova.

Many initially believed that Winehouse died of a drug or alcohol overdose, but later the toxicology reports from her autopsy indicated no illegal substances whatsoever were found in her system. Alcohol was found, but whether it played a role in her death is yet undetermined.


Since you brought it up. . . ;)



Coroner: Amy Winehouse died after drinking too much alcohol
The Associated Press

LONDON – Amy Winehouse died as the unintended consequence of drinking too much alcohol, a British coroner ruled Wednesday.

Coroner Suzanne Greenaway gave a verdict of "death by misadventure," saying the singer died of accidental alcohol poisoning. "The unintended consequence of such potentially fatal levels (of alcohol) was her sudden and unexpected death," Greenaway said.

The singer, who had fought drug and alcohol problems for years, was found dead in bed at her London home on July 23 at age 27. An initial autopsy proved inconclusive, although it found no traces of illegal drugs in her system.

Pathologist Suhail Baithun told the inquest into the singer's death that Winehouse had consumed a "very large quantity of alcohol" — the level in her blood put her more than five times over the legal drunk-driving limit.

Police Detective Inspector Les Newman, who was called after a security guard found Winehouse, said empty vodka bottles were scattered around her bedroom.

Winehouse's doctor, Dr. Christina Romete, said the singer had resumed drinking in the days before her death after a period of abstinence.

Romete, who saw Winehouse the night before she died, said the singer was "tipsy but calm." She said Winehouse had not spoken of suicide, and talked about her upcoming birthday.

Romete said Winehouse had been prescribed drugs including the sedative Librium to help her cope with the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, but the coroner said these had played no role in her death.

Winehouse family spokesman Chris Goodman said it was a relief to the family "to finally find out what happened to Amy."

"The court heard that Amy was battling hard to conquer her problems with alcohol and it is a source of great pain to us that she could not win in time," he said.

[dynoguy88]

awesome, thanks for the view from above

maybe the Reddicks' house is one of those houses that's directly in front of the ravine (ie the ravine is basically their extended backyard)

as far as the guys carrying his body, I'm guessing they weren't/aren't the brightest bulbs around (except for the part where they and no else has confessed to authorities as to what happened to him UP TO THIS VERY DAY) and maybe they couldn't immediately decide where they wanted to put him

I have no doubt they weren't the brightest bulbs around. And honestly, nobody is going to be thinking straight if they are disposing a body. But they had a couple days to decide what to do. So they must have known where they were going to dump the body when they left the duplex.

Here's the part of the article where Reddicks sighting comes in to play...

Newburgh Heights police never talked with Angeline Reddicks, either. She says she saw two males dragging what appeared to be an unconscious teenage 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 teenagers 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."

What truly floors me about that part of the article is that Reddicks' sighting of the two boys dragging Kurt's body to the ravine happened in the afternoon. You would think after all the lying and covering up these people did, they would have at least taken Kurt's body to the ravine after midnight when it's far less likely they would have been seen. But they chose to do it in the middle of the day, walking past a block of homes even.

Maybe if Reddicks had been shown a picture of Samuel Carroll in 1981, she would have recognized him as one of the two males carrying Kurt's body to the ravine. I still don't believe his story of leaving a drunk Kurt on the fence, only to have him magically vanish during the 1 to 2 minutes he was inside getting Kurt's jacket.

[Steve W.]

"What truly floors me about that part of the article is that Reddicks' sighting of the two boys dragging Kurt's body to the ravine happened in the afternoon. You would think after all the lying and covering up these people did, they would have at least taken Kurt's body to the ravine after midnight when it's far less likely they would have been seen. But they chose to do it in the middle of the day, walking past a block of homes even.

Maybe if Reddicks had been shown a picture of Samuel Carroll in 1981, she would have recognized him as one of the two males carrying Kurt's body to the ravine. I still don't believe his story of leaving a drunk Kurt on the fence, only to have him magically vanish during the 1 to 2 minutes he was inside getting Kurt's jacket."

agreed

Man, this is one of those cases where after learning more and more details, it seems like such a, "oh come on! interrogate those guys and the girl at the duplex and you'll eventually find out what happened to him" but:

a different time period, where even though it was before my time, I can tell it was a generally more naive time period where people didn't usually think the worst of others or of certain situations + crappy little police department (Newburgh Heights) refusing to give the case to Cleveland Police Department for quite some time, has their own problems with drugs, corruption, and violence and lacking anyone with real professionalism in their job at that time = never getting the answers we want up to this point, 30 years later.

[TheCars1986]

I cannot fathom why the investigating PD would not question ONE SINGLE PERSON from the place Kurt was last seen alive. Especially the heir of mystery surrounding his death. It was listed as "probable accidental", but that does not mean he wasn't murdered. This case could have been solved with even the most rudimentary of police work, IMHO. A search of "Susan's" house, questioning Kurt's friend more extensively, questioning the other people at the party, finding the "crazy from Detroit" after Kurt's body was found, etc. All of this should have been done and I think the case would have been solved. Not saying that his death wasn't accidental, but like Kurt's mother said, she still wanted to know what happened and who put his body there.

I do find it odd that the "crazy from Detroit" claimed to have stolen the shoes off of corpses before. If this is true, it's possible that he simply stumbled upon Kurt's corpse and for his own crazy purpose decided to take his shoe. This would explain how he knew Kurt was already dead. We only have the word of Kurt's father to go on in terms of whether or not his body was in the ravine in the days before it was found. He may have missed him, maybe not. I also find it odd that the autopsy lists no alcohol in his system other than a BAC of .011 when the newspaper article clearly says he was drinking all day long. I do find it interesting that the UM segment mentioned Kurt's size and how he wouldn't be able to handle his alcohol. If he were drinking all day, especially Everclear, I think he may have drank himself into a "coma" and he died days later. But the only way we'll know for sure is if someone gets "Susan" to open up.

I do think that Kurt's friend, the one who propped him up against a fence, is telling the truth. The article gave more insight into what happened when he and Kurt went outside. He says they were out there for nearly 30 minutes, and then when he went to retrieve the coat and came back 2 minutes later Kurt was gone. UM makes no mention that his friend searched down the street and in the nearby furniture store parking lot. After not finding Kurt he assumed he went home, which is a reasonable enough assumption IMO. I've been to several BBQ's/parties were people were drinking where they simply "vanished", when it turned out they got too tired (and too drunk to drive) so they walked home. And if his friend was under the impression that he went home, he would have no reason to suspect that he was missing or anything was wrong. Which goes back to my point about his father missing him in the ravine. Let's say Kurt attempted to walk home after his friend went to retrieve the jackets and he made it as far to the ravine before passing out/blacking out. He eventually died there from something unknown (possibly involving the alcohol, possible exposure, anything is possible) and his body was just missed for the 5 days he was "missing". I don't really think Kurt's friend who claims to have seen him hitching a ride with "Franco" actually saw Kurt. I think it was a mistake. By his friend's account, he saw Kurt on a Monday, three days after he was last seen. He obviously didn't run away since he was still a mile or two away from his home, so why wouldn't he check in with his parents to let them know he was ok if he were truely alive at that point? Very bizarre case.

[RobinW]

Which goes back to my point about his father missing him in the ravine. Let's say Kurt attempted to walk home after his friend went to retrieve the jackets and he made it as far to the ravine before passing out/blacking out. He eventually died there from something unknown (possibly involving the alcohol, possible exposure, anything is possible) and his body was just missed for the 5 days he was "missing".

I always pondered that possibility until I saw that satellite photo from earlier in the thread that shows how heavily populated the area was that surrounded the ravine. It's hard to imagine it would have been five full days before someone noticed the body. Even the area wasn't as heavily populated back in 1981, the ravine doesn't look that big to begin with so I doubt Kurt's father could have searched through it the first time without coming across the body.

[WishfulDreamer]

I don't believe that the father could have missed the body. Even if he didn't do a thorough search, that yellow shirt would have been nearly impossible to miss. Also, there was nothing obstructing his view of the ravine and it wasn't a very large one at that.

[Steve W.]

"I think it is coincidental. Have you ever helped an intoxicated person walk? One way to do it is to take their arm and prop it on your shoulders so when you move together, you are providing support as well as carrying some of their body weight. I can envision two men carrying Kurt's body in this fashion, with a man on each arm, and laying him down in the ravine - his arms would naturally be outstretched in such a pose. This is corroborated by testimony from a witness who said she saw two men carrying a third person out to the ravine, but she assumed the men were drunken teenagers trying to sober up."

I don't think so. What are the chances of two people laying a dead body down on the ground and it falling right into a cruciform pose? I'd say little to none. They had to have positioned him that way.

[TheCars1986]

I always pondered that possibility until I saw that satellite photo from earlier in the thread that shows how heavily populated the area was that surrounded the ravine. It's hard to imagine it would have been five full days before someone noticed the body. Even the area wasn't as heavily populated back in 1981, the ravine doesn't look that big to begin with so I doubt Kurt's father could have searched through it the first time without coming across the body.

I too think it would be very hard to miss a body in that populated area for five days, but I don't think it's impossible. Remember how many "thorough" searches that have been profiled on UM that yield nothing but then years later they find a body or remains in the area that was searched? Maybe this "crazy" guy from Detroit was the one who found the body, stole the shoe, and positioned Kurt's body. And in the UM segment Kurt's father says he checked the ravine the day before his body was found, a full four days after he was missing at that point. His body may have been concealed by some brush, or his father could have simply missed him. Stranger things have happened.

I also find it interesting in that newspaper article it says that the Sova's began "harassing" the people at the Duplex in the days following Kurt's disappearance. Wouldn't any sane person do the same? They were only doing what the police should have been doing. "Susan's" actions are extremely suspect. First she denies Kurt was ever even there, then she admits it, and then calls Kurt's mother at 3 in the morning to say Kurt "may" be sleeping on a cot in her basement. WTF! Why wasn't she questioned by police!? She may not have had a hand in Kurt's death, but it sure seems like she would know if anyone did or not.

On a different point, what reason would Kurt's friend (who propped him up on the fence) Samuel Carroll have in lying about what transpired that night? He was the one who informed Kurt's mother about the party in the first place. If he was involved in covering up his death, why would he tell Kurt's mom about the party which may have led to a discovery of what really happened? If he blacked out at the party and they took him to the basement to recuperate and everyone at the party had a pact to remain silent about it, it doesn't seem like a bright idea for Carroll to talk to Kurt's mother about anything. It's not like he ever denied anything. Which makes me think he was telling the truth about what he saw that night. And IMHO that lends more credence to the theory that he stumbled away from the Duplex and died elsewhere. The only major flaw with that theory is "Susan's" actions involving the 3 a.m. phone call to the Sova's. I can't get my mind over that one.

[justins5256]

I don't think so. What are the chances of two people laying a dead body down on the ground and it falling right into a cruciform pose? I'd say little to none. They had to have positioned him that way.

The human mind loves to look for and identify patterns and connections in just about everything it encounters. I think it's natural to want to see some symbolism behind an act like that. However, considering the nature of the death, the parties involved and other factors, I think it's unlikely there was any significance behind it.

Assuming this was an accidental death and the perps were burnouts in their late teens or early twenties scrambling to dispose of a body, I just don't see them stopping to say "hey, why don't we set it up to look like Christ on the cross". It just doesn't make sense.

[Steve W.]

Kurt's story creates so many questions and so few answers. It's very frustrating.

I think Kurt's father might have searched the ravine the day before his body was found (which would be 30 years ago on this very date!), didn't see him, left (went back home or whatever) and then maybe in the next hour or two the two guys started carrying him there from the duplex.

[Steve W.]

30 years today

Someone that was hanging out with Kurt at the duplex party needs to come forward and tell the truth.

[DarkDante]

A moment of silence for Kurt Sova

.

[Necco]

"I think it is coincidental. Have you ever helped an intoxicated person walk? One way to do it is to take their arm and prop it on your shoulders so when you move together, you are providing support as well as carrying some of their body weight. I can envision two men carrying Kurt's body in this fashion, with a man on each arm, and laying him down in the ravine - his arms would naturally be outstretched in such a pose. This is corroborated by testimony from a witness who said she saw two men carrying a third person out to the ravine, but she assumed the men were drunken teenagers trying to sober up."

I don't think so. What are the chances of two people laying a dead body down on the ground and it falling right into a cruciform pose? I'd say little to none. They had to have positioned him that way.

The most logical way he'd end up that way coincidentally, imho, is that someone had his feet and someone was carrying him under the armpits.

[Steve W.]

The most logical way he'd end up that way coincidentally, imho, is that someone had his feet and someone was carrying him under the armpits.

True, but that doesn't explain why one foot (and leg) would be on top of the other.

Another blown chance to solve this case: the Reddicks could have stopped and asked those guys if he was okay and got a good look at Kurt when they stopped them. Based off of that, they could have gone back in their house and called the cops. It would have at least forced the cops to be more engaged with the case at that point.

[baloony]

Aren't both of Kurt's parents deceased now?