By Tiffany Williams –
WORCESTER, Mass. — For days, the search for Karen Solomon has centered heavily on Coes Pond and the area surrounding the Westside Animal Clinic.
But what happens if investigators find nothing?
No body.
No personal belongings.
No physical evidence confirming Karen Solomon ever entered the water.
An extensive search of Coes Pond that produces no evidence of the 58-year-old woman would not prove she is alive. It would not even definitively prove she never entered the pond.
But it could fundamentally change the direction of the investigation.
The question would begin shifting away from where Karen Solomon might be inside Coes Pond.
Investigators would increasingly have to confront another possibility: What happened after the surveillance footage ends?
Solomon is wanted on an arrest warrant charging her with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury in connection with the death of her husband, Worcester Police Officer Kurt Solomon.
Authorities have described her as armed and dangerous.
Worcester Police Chief Paul Saucier said Friday that investigators were continuing to pursue the Coes Pond search “until the evidence leads us elsewhere.”
That statement could become increasingly significant.
If specialized teams repeatedly search the area investigators consider the most probable entry point, expand into broader portions of the pond and examine the surrounding shoreline without locating Solomon or evidence associated with her, investigators would have to weigh the negative evidence against other possibilities.
It would not establish that Solomon survived.
She could be deceased somewhere investigators have not located.
She could have entered the water and not yet been recovered.
Or she could have left the area alive after the surveillance footage.
Those possibilities create dramatically different investigations.
And eliminating one possibility with reasonable confidence would place considerably more investigative pressure on the others.
The Westside Animal Clinic footage would become even more important.
Instead of primarily helping investigators establish where Solomon may have entered the Coes Pond area, the video could become the starting point for reconstructing where she went next.
Detectives would need to build outward.
Additional businesses.
Residential cameras.
Parking lots.
Intersections.
Side streets.
Walking trails.
Nearby properties.
Every plausible route leading away from the area could potentially matter.
Investigators would essentially be searching for the next image of Karen Solomon.
Did she continue walking?
Did she enter a wooded area?
Did she emerge onto another street?
Did she approach a house?
Did she enter a parking lot?
Did she get into a vehicle?
Did someone meet her?
Those are questions surveillance evidence could potentially help answer.
And if investigators discovered evidence that Solomon entered a vehicle, the geography of the search could change almost instantly.
A woman believed to be traveling on foot presents one kind of search problem.
A wanted person with access to a vehicle presents another.
The investigation could move beyond Worcester very quickly.
The search would no longer be defined primarily by walking distance from Coes Pond.
It would be defined by evidence.
That could mean surrounding Worcester County communities.
It could mean another part of Massachusetts.
And if investigators developed evidence that Solomon crossed state lines, the search could extend far beyond New England.
The U.S. Marshals Service is already involved in the operation.
Its involvement could become particularly significant if investigators increasingly treat Solomon as a fugitive whose whereabouts are unknown rather than someone presumed to be somewhere within the immediate Coes Pond search area.
The investigative strategy would change with it.
Authorities would need to reconstruct what could effectively become Solomon’s post-disappearance footprint.
Surveillance would be one piece.
Digital evidence could become another.
With appropriate legal authority, investigators could seek relevant cellphone location information, communications and account or device data capable of helping reconstruct movements and activity.
Calls could matter.
Messages could matter.
Location information could matter.
Cloud-stored information could matter.
And the absence of activity could matter — although it would have to be interpreted cautiously.
A phone suddenly going dark does not establish that its owner is dead.
It could mean the device was turned off.
Discarded.
Destroyed.
Left somewhere intentionally.
Or separated from its owner for another reason.
That creates another critical investigative question.
When did Karen Solomon and her cellphone separate, if they separated at all?
Determining the final confirmed activity of the device and comparing it against confirmed surveillance sightings could help investigators establish a timeline.
If a cellphone appeared in one location while video placed Solomon somewhere else, investigators would have to determine how and when that separation occurred.
That could provide an entirely new investigative path.
The human network surrounding Solomon could also become increasingly important.
Investigators could revisit relatives, friends, coworkers and professional associates.
They could examine who communicated with her before she disappeared and who she might reasonably contact afterward for transportation, shelter, money or assistance.
That does not make those people suspects.
Most could simply be witnesses or potential sources of information.
But investigators would want to know whether available evidence corroborates what they are told.
The same could apply to financial activity.
Where legally available, investigators could examine whether there was evidence of continued activity after Solomon disappeared.
Travel.
Lodging.
Purchases.
Account activity.
Transportation.
Anything creating a traceable footprint could potentially matter.
But investigators would also have to recognize the limitations.
A person deliberately attempting to avoid law enforcement could use cash, avoid personal electronic devices or receive assistance from another person.
No financial activity would therefore not establish that Solomon was dead.
It would simply leave another part of the timeline unresolved.
That is why the outcome of the Coes Pond operation could become so consequential.
Right now, the pond represents a major investigative hypothesis.
But hypotheses survive only as long as the evidence continues supporting them.
An unsuccessful search does not automatically eliminate a location.
Water searches can be difficult. Visibility, vegetation, underwater structures, depth, environmental conditions and other obstacles can complicate recovery operations.
Investigators could decide portions of the pond need to be searched again.
They could bring teams back.
They could examine previously searched areas under different conditions.
They could expand beyond the original search zone.
But there eventually comes a point when repeated negative searches become investigative information themselves.
Not proof.
Information.
And if authorities become reasonably confident Karen Solomon is not in Coes Pond and is not deceased somewhere within the surrounding search area, the case takes on an entirely different character.
Karen Solomon would remain a wanted person.
There is an active arrest warrant.
Authorities have described her as armed and dangerous.
And unless investigators establish that she is dead, law enforcement would have to continue considering the possibility that she is alive.
At that stage, the operation could increasingly resemble a fugitive investigation.
It would probably remain heavily local and regional at first.
Worcester Police would still possess the intimate knowledge of the investigation.
State authorities could continue supporting the effort.
Federal agencies could provide resources and intelligence capabilities.
But the investigation would not necessarily stop at Massachusetts’ borders.
If evidence pointed elsewhere, investigators would follow it.
And eventually, the search could become national in scope.
That would not mean every police officer across the country would suddenly be assigned to searching for Karen Solomon.
It would mean the warrant and identifying information could remain available through law-enforcement systems while investigators and fugitive specialists pursue specific leads wherever those leads take them.
A credible sighting in another state could be investigated there.
Evidence of travel could move investigators farther away from Worcester.
A vehicle could become a major lead.
A communication could produce another.
A financial transaction could produce another.
A person providing assistance could potentially open an entirely different investigative avenue.
The investigation would become less about searching a defined geographic area and more about finding a trail.
And that trail would begin at the last point investigators can confidently establish Karen Solomon’s presence.
That is what makes the surveillance footage so critical.
If Coes Pond produces nothing, investigators are left with a gap.
Karen Solomon is seen near the Westside Animal Clinic.
Then she disappears.
Everything after that becomes the mystery investigators have to reconstruct.
The absence of a recovery from Coes Pond would not answer whether she is alive.
It would not establish that she escaped.
And it would not prove she had assistance.
Those conclusions would require evidence.
But repeated searches producing nothing could force investigators to give increasingly serious consideration to the possibility that the answer is somewhere beyond the pond.
Then the central question changes.
It is no longer primarily: Where is Karen Solomon in Coes Pond?
It becomes: Where did Karen Solomon go after the surveillance footage ends?
And if investigators ultimately determine she may have left that area alive, an already massive search could become something much larger — a regional, and potentially national, effort to locate an armed-and-dangerous wanted person whose trail began in Worcester and whose destination remains unknown.