Test Results Awaited In 1976 Disappearance

Arundel Police Have 'Person of Interest'

Three months after a man called Anne Arundel County police looking for answers about the mysterious disappearance of his 14-year-old sister in 1976, homicide investigators say they have zeroed in on a "person of interest" in the case and await test results to determine whether the girl's remains were found last week in a well outside her former home.

Anne Arundel police Lt. David Waltemeyer said yesterday that forensic archeologists would examine evidence recovered Aug. 29 in a 20-foot-deep well at 51 Wishing Rock Rd., Pasadena, the address from which Karen Beth Kamsch reportedly disappeared 31 years ago. Waltemeyer said he could not "say we have found something or haven't found something" without the expert analysis.

"After 30 years of being in water in a deep well, we would not expect to find intact human remains," Waltemeyer said.

Waltemeyer said that although he could not "name a suspect" in the case, which is being investigated as a possible homicide, "I can tell you we have a person of interest." Waltemeyer described the person as a "close associate or family member" of the missing girl.

"It's someone close to her, and that's all I can say," Waltemeyer said.

Waltemeyer characterized the investigation as "very active."

Anne Arundel police didn't even have the case on record until May 15, the day after Karen's only sibling, Tate Kamsch, 44, of Ridgely, Md., contacted authorities concerning his sister's disappearance.

"I just really wanted to know what happened to my sister," Kamsch said at a news conference yesterday while standing near an enlarged school photo of his sister.

Kamsch, who was 12 when his sister disappeared, contacted police after a relative told him about searching the Internet in vain for any mention of Karen's case. Until then, Kamsch said, he "just believed what my family told me." Karen had moved out of her parents' home because she was having problems with her family, authorities say, and was living with a grandmother at the Pasadena address.

Karen had run away before, Kamsch said, and he hoped that she had done so again, that "she just wanted to get away from the whole situation and live a life."

As the years passed, the disappearance became a piece of family history, stored in "the back of the mind," he said. "But nobody mentions it."

When Kamsch contacted police, Karen's name did not come up in computer databases searched by authorities, police said. Since the filing of a missing person report May 15, police said, homicide detectives have interviewed Karen's friends and relatives.