The Sadistic Sexual Assault and Murder of Carol Ryan
See UPDATE at https://kimparr.medium.com/update-the-sadistic-sexual-assault-and-murder-of-carol-ryan-6f74936aea66
Just before sunrise on September 1, 1996, a man driving to his favorite fishing spot in Central New York spotted a person lying by the side of the road. The man or woman — in the steely gray dawn, it was impossible to tell — was naked and face-down in a municipal driveway.
Drunken college kids and skinny-dippers were not unheard of at the Jamesville Reservoir this time of year. The man assumed this was just another passed-out reveler and kept going, but something prodded him to pull over and turn around. Perhaps the person needed help. It couldn’t hurt to check.
As he pulled into the driveway off Route 91, he was shocked to see a middle-aged woman with a gaping wound on her buttocks. Her hair was matted with dried grass, as if she’d been dragged. Bruises covered her face and both eyes were swollen shut. He assumed she was dead, then was startled to see her move. She began moaning incoherently.
The man ran to a nearby security office for help. He told the 911 dispatcher the woman appeared to have been shot.
The truth was much worse. Emergency room physicians at University Hospital in Syracuse determined that an explosive device with the strength of a quarter-stick of dynamite had been inserted into her vagina and detonated. Surgeons tried to save her, but she died on the operating table five hours later.
The woman never regained consciousness. She was never able to tell anyone what had happened to her.
A four-hour window
Investigators from the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office quickly identified the victim as 42-year-old Carol Ryan of Syracuse. She had spent the evening at the East Room, a bar in Syracuse’s Eastwood neighborhood, and stayed until closing time. On her way out at 2:00 a.m., Ryan offered to buy breakfast for anyone in the bar. No one took her up on the offer, and she was last seen hitchhiking alone in the middle of James Street toward downtown Syracuse.
Four hours later, her broken body was spotted by the fisherman in Jamesville six miles away. Investigators said her killer had beaten her savagely, dumped her in the driveway, inserted the device, and detonated it before fleeing.
Ryan lived alone at Grant Village Apartments just a few blocks from the East Room. She had a 25-year-old son whom she had raised mostly alone. She sometimes worked factory jobs, struggled with alcohol dependency, and had a history of drunken driving arrests. According to family members, Ryan was looking forward to a cookout at her son’s home in Fulton, scheduled to take place on the day she died.
Detectives interviewed more than 400 people and followed up on hundreds of tips. There were few clues. Witnesses had been drinking. The crime scene was compromised by emergency workers trying to save Ryan’s life. Two of her rings were recovered at the scene but the black jeans, black boots, silver shirt, silver necklace, and fringed, black suede leather jacket she had been wearing were never found.
Ryan’s son says investigators have told him that DNA was recovered, but it is unclear if a suspect profile was ever compiled.
Despite several promising leads and a $10,000 reward from an anonymous donor, no one has ever been charged in connection with the death of Carol Ryan. Her gruesome murder 26 years ago remains one of the most shocking unsolved crimes of Central New York.
Can this ice-cold case be cracked?
The savagery of the assault continues to fuel speculation the killer was a personal acquaintance of Ryan’s, perhaps an ex-boyfriend. I don’t believe so. The crime was too calculating, too sinister to be the work of angry ex. Nor do I think a gang of hoodlums was responsible, or someone would have snitched long ago.
I believe Carol Ryan’s assailant was a complete stranger, a lone psychopath with a deep-seated hatred of women who was waiting for the right opportunity to come along. Ryan was almost certainly too street smart to get into a car with just anyone, but the combination of fatigue, hunger, inebriation, and longing for company that night may have led her to override her instincts and take a chance on the kindness of strangers. It was an understandable but fatal miscalculation.
Carol Ryan’s loved ones continue to hold out hope that her killer will be identified and brought to justice. If you have any information about the death of Carol Ryan, contact the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office at (315) 435–3051, or text an anonymous tip to 847411 along with the word TIPONON. Anonymous tips can also be submitted online at https://sheriff.ongov.net/tip411/.
Sources:
Lori Duffy. “Woman’s Slaying Leaves Son Reeling.” Syracuse Herald-Journal, September 3, 1996.
Laurel Champion. “Unsolved Killing Stumps Police.” Syracuse Herald-Journal, January 10, 1997.
John O’Brien. “In Search of a Killer Seen as Uniquely Sinister.” Syracuse Herald-Journal, August 31, 1997.
LeDatta Grimes. “’Do you know who murdered my sister?’” Syracuse Herald-Journal, August 31, 1998.
Samantha House. “After 20 years, CNY woman’s brutal murder remains unsolved.” Syracuse.com, August 30, 2016, https://www.syracuse.com/crime/2016/08/do_you_know_who_killed_carol_ryan_brutal_jamesville_murder_unsolved_after_20_yea.html
“$10k reward offered for tips in cold case murder of Carol Ryan.” CNYCentral.com, August 31, 2016, https://cnycentral.com/news/local/authorities-to-discuss-1996-cold-case-murder-of-carol-ryan
Katrina Tulloch. “Carol Ryan’s Cold Case: Horrific Syracuse Murder Remains Unsolved 26 Years Later.” Syracuse.com, September 1, 2022, https://www.syracuse.com/crime/2022/09/carol-ryans-cold-case-horrific-syracuse-murder-remains-unsolved-26-years-later.html
