Test Results Awaited In 1976 Disappearance

Police said that a birth certificate shows that a Karen Beth Kamsch was born Jan. 19, 1962, in Baltimore and that records show she attended Brooklyn Park Senior School in 1976. Police said they were told that Karen moved in with her grandmother, Olga Kamsch, "after having problems with her family."

Police said Olga Kamsch was contacted by school officials in the winter of 1976 and told that Karen had been absent from classes. The grandmother, police said, found that Kamsch was not home and that "personal belongings, along with her winter coat, were still in her room."

Police said that Karen's grandmother has since died but that her parents are living, her father in Glen Burnie and her mother on the Eastern Shore. The Wishing Rock home is occupied by relatives of Karen's, police said.

Waltemeyer said Karen was once "a straight-A student" and had skipped sixth grade but that she had been "going through some difficult times," fell in with a different set of friends and "started getting into trouble."

Waltemeyer also said "Karen was suffering abuse at the time" of her disappearance, but he declined to elaborate.

Waltemeyer said investigators were drawn to the well by a cadaver search dog from Baltimore County and a tip from one of the people they had interviewed. The dried-up well had been capped. He said police found "certain things" that were not to be expected "at the bottom of a well after 30 years."

Police made a request that people contact them with any information they might have about the case or Karen's whereabouts.

"Let them know," her brother said, "so we know my sister's all right."