The Most Gruesome Crime Scene In the Texas Backyard _ The New Detectives

A utility pole repairman looks down an embankment and sees a blue trash barrel. Inside, a body wrapped in garbage bags, tied with a knot only a military paratrooper would know. The victim had been missing for nearly three years. The killer lived just a few miles away.On March 25, 2002, the body of Tammy Karen was discovered in a trash barrel dumped over a steep embankment in Wurtsboro, New York [citation:1]. Her husband Hal Karen, a former Special Forces paratrooper, had claimed she walked out on him and their young son in June 1999 [citation:1]. He collected her life insurance and moved on with his life. But the crime scene held a clue that would send him to prison: a green military parachute cord tied in a distinctive cinch knot. The cord was used only in two places where Hal Karen had been stationed during his years in the Special Forces [citation:1]. Sullivan County District Attorney Steve Lungen, interviewed for the episode, said: "The minute you see a scene like this, you know it's a homicide" [citation:1]. The episode aired on The New Detectives, the groundbreaking Discovery Channel series that ran from 1996 to 2004 and inspired CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the knot that tied the bag was the knot that tied him to murder.