Carolyn Karp

UNSOLVED: Amarillo Bar Owner Found Shot Inside Burning Home in 1992

In the early morning hours of July 11, 1992, Amarillo firefighters responded to a mobile-home fire beside the Sneak Joint Lounge at 10321 E. Amarillo Boulevard.

After extinguishing the blaze, authorities discovered the badly burned body of 56-year-old Carolyn Karp, who owned the bar and lived in the neighboring trailer.^[1]

An autopsy determined that Karp had not died in the fire. She had been shot before the trailer was set ablaze, leading investigators to classify her death as a homicide.

Authorities believe the killer deliberately started the fire to conceal the murder and destroy evidence.^[2]

Investigators have considered robbery as a possible motive, although no definitive motive has been publicly established. The severity of the fire, combined with the water used to extinguish it, destroyed or damaged much of the potential physical evidence inside Karp’s home. Police also received relatively few tips in the years following the killing.^[3]

Karp’s case is one of several unsolved Amarillo homicides from the early 1990s in which a fire was apparently used to conceal a violent crime.

No official evidence, however, has publicly connected her murder to those other cases.^[4]

More than three decades later, no one has been arrested or charged with killing Carolyn Karp. Anyone with information can contact Amarillo Crime Stoppers at 806-374-4400.