Search continues in KCK for evidence in cold case disappearance of Star Boomer
Investigators in Kansas City, Kansas, have spent the past two days excavating an empty lot, sifting through dirt, sand and debris, in hopes of finding any sign of Star Boomer, who disappeared 20 years ago.
“We’re not going to leave any stone unturned,” said Tiffany Burgtorf, a detective with the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department.
Boomer was 39 when she vanished Feb. 23, 1999, and the case has long been cold.
But, it also has “a lot of solvability factors,” said detective Shane Carpenter.
Several witnesses are still alive. And earlier this year one of them gave police a tip about the empty lot in the 1700 block of South 49th Street.
Boomer had lived off-and-on with a boyfriend at a house that once sat on the lot. The house was torn down in 2011.
On the night she was last seen, Boomer and a friend had visited a nearby bar where Boomer was allegedly knocked to the ground in an altercation with a man who had a history of violent behavior, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
In October 1999, two Kansas City, Kansas, men were charged with second-degree murder. The case was dismissed after witnesses refused to testify, according to The Star’s archives.
Detectives reopened the case in 2017.
After police got the tip last spring, they brought in ground-penetrating radar with the help of a geological team from the University of Kansas.
The radar found “anomalies,” said Officer T.J. Tomasic, a spokesman for the department.
“There’s just something in the ground that they told us that was odd for what should be there,” he said.
Cadaver dogs were also brought to the scene.
“They gave us a positive indication in an area,” Carpenter said, “which doesn’t 100% necessarily mean that there’s a body there, but it’s more likely than not there is something that the dog was interested in that could be the same or a similar scent to bones or something of that nature.”
The family was notified of the excavation last Saturday at the memorial service of Cynthia Hurtie, Boomer’s sister, who died in October, according to an obituary.
Hurtie had long searched for answers. In a Star story from February 2006, she said her sister’s disappearance was “devastating” for her family and Boomer’s son.
Burgtorf said the family wants to be able to bring Boomer home and have some closure.
This week investigators began the excavation by plotting out a 6 by 12 grid where anomalies were identified and marking specific spots with different colored string. Using heavy equipment and digging by hand, they have scoured the lot, finding debris from when the house was demolished and an unusual amount of sand. They have shuffled back-and-forth between the site and their office to analyze what they were seeing.
But as of Tuesday the search had not turned up any conclusive evidence.
Police plan to bring the cadaver dogs out again and will continue searching the lot Wednesday and possibly into Thursday.
The stretch of 49th Street between Barber and Douglas will be closed from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily as police investigate.
This story was originally published December 3, 2019 at 11:45 AM.
