Wife of police officer who was found dead is considered ‘armed and dangerous,’ chief says
By Elise Hammond, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata, CNN
(CNN) — Police issued an arrest warrant for a Massachusetts woman in connection with the death of her police officer husband earlier this week.
Authorities are searching for Karen Solomon, the co-founder of a group that advocates for the mental health of police officers, after Worcester police officer Kurt Solomon was found dead at the home they owned together on Tuesday.
Worcester Police Chief Paul Saucier said at a news conference on Friday that the arrest warrant charges Karen Solomon with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon with serious bodily injury. She is considered armed and dangerous, the chief said, though Kurt Solomon’s service weapon was not missing from the home.
“Right now, we’re continuing our search,” Saucier said. “We will not stop until we find her either way, here or somewhere else.”
Saucier said Solomon’s injury involved a sharp object but declined to provide further details, citing the ongoing investigation into the officer’s death.
Dispatch recordings reveal unanswered calls and a missing SUV
Worcester dispatch recordings obtained by CNN offer details about the response to the Wildwood Avenue home where Kurt Solomon was found dead Tuesday, including reports of blood inside the house, attempts to reach a female 911 caller and a missing SUV.
Around 5:30 a.m. ET, first responders were dispatched to the home for a report of a man lying in the backyard.
An officer responding to the scene reported seeing “visible blood inside the building, inside the bathroom, in the back,” according to the recordings.
The dispatcher said the person who reported the incident was a female resident of the home. When dispatchers called back, the voicemail identified the number as belonging to Karen Solomon. Police have not publicly confirmed that Solomon placed the 911 call.
The audio then captures dispatchers saying they repeatedly called the number, but no one answered.
A dispatcher asked, “Is the caller a male or female?”
“It was a female. Her voicemail on her phone is Karen Solomon,” a second dispatcher said.
According to the dispatch audio, a gray 2023 Toyota Highlander registered to the homeowners was reported missing shortly afterward, prompting a be-on-the-lookout alert around 6:19 a.m. ET. The recordings do not say who is believed to be driving the vehicle.
The timing of the police dispatch recordings aligns with the Worcester Police Department’s public account of the initial response.
Saucier said Tuesday that officers responded to Wildwood Avenue at approximately 5:28 a.m. ET for a report of a “medical person down.”
Karen and Kurt Solomon shared a home and had been married, court records indicated, but authorities declined to discuss their current relationship, citing domestic violence privacy rules, according to The Associated Press.
Authorities have also not disclosed the contents of the 911 call or a potential motive.
“Kurt was a hell of a guy,” the chief remembered him at Friday’s news conference.
“He was an awesome police officer and an awesome person and he’s going to be truly missed,” Saucier said. “The Worcester Police Department is hurting right now and we’re hoping we can bring closure to the family.”
A father who loved fishing, golfing and tending to his vegetable garden
A father of two sons and “a dedicated gardener who took pride in his vegetable garden,” Kurt Solomon, 57, was also an Army veteran who served more than three decades in the Worcester Police Department, according to his obituary.
“He will be remembered for his many years of service to his country and his community, his witty sense of humor, and the pleasures he found on the street he lived on his whole life,” the obituary said.
The New England Benevolent Association, a law enforcement labor organization, said Kurt Solomon was “known as an incredibly dependable officer, colleague and friend.”
The officer, who often donated his extra vegetable crops to the food bank, enjoyed fishing, golfing and “simply sitting on his deck with a cup of coffee.”
Worcester Mayor Joe Petty said he would miss the officer’s “caring personality and the warm smile with which he always greeted me at City Council meetings.”
“Those small interactions spoke to the kind of person he was and will be greatly missed,” Petty wrote in a tribute on Instagram.
A wake will be held on Tuesday and Solomon’s funeral will be on Wednesday, the police chief said at the news conference.
The officer’s family is “going through a lot right now,” Saucier said, adding that it is a “very difficult situation.”
Ongoing search in recreation area
Worcester has closed several nearby recreational areas and beaches for the weekend while the search for Karen Solomon continues, the city said, and people are asked to avoid Coes Pond Parks and Stearns Tavern “until further notice.” Stearns Tavern is a historical building near Coes Park.
Authorities are using divers, dogs, sonar and other types of technologies to scour the area for Karen Solomon, Saucier said.
The search continued at Coes Reservoir on Friday with marine units, helicopters, sonar and dogs, according to CNN affiliate WCVB.
The recreational area, which WCVB says is near the Solomon home, is a main focus of the search, Saucier said.
“We’re still pursuing this until the evidence leads us elsewhere,” he said.
Police previously released doorbell camera footage of Karen Solomon walking down a street in a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops early Tuesday morning, just minutes after officers responded to a call from the home. Tips and calls are coming in and investigators are combing through other video, Saucier said.
“No one’s going to stop until we find Karen Solomon,” Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said.
An organization advocating for first responders
Karen Solomon is a co-founder of an organization dedicated to supporting first responders’ mental health and honoring those who have died by suicide called First H.E.L.P., the organization said in a statement Tuesday night.
“Our first concern is for the officer who lost his life, his family, his colleagues, and the Worcester law-enforcement community,” the group said in its statement. “We extend our deepest condolences to all those affected by this tragedy.”
The organization said it remains “dedicated to reducing the stigma surrounding mental health in law enforcement and the first-responder community” and will continue to carry out its work.
An author bio on Amazon describes Karen Solomon as married to a police officer and the author of two books “giving a voice to the thousands of officers in the field who can’t or won’t speak out.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
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CNN’s Amanda Jackson contributed to this report.
