Man pleads not guilty in unsolved murder of young mother found stabbed 15 times in Boston home – Boston 25 News

BOSTON – A man pleaded not guilty Friday after being arrested in connection with the unsolved murder of a young mother who was found stabbed to death in her Boston home more than 30 years ago, police officials said.

James Holloman, 65, of Dorchester, was charged with first-degree murder in Suffolk Superior Court after being indicted Thursday for the 1988 stabbing death of 25-year-old Karen Taylor in Roxbury, the Suffolk District Attorney's Office said.

Holloman went into hiding while listening to the charges against him.

On the afternoon of May 27, 1988, Taylor's mother called to talk to her daughter, but Taylor's 3-year-old daughter answered the phone and told her grandmother that her mother was sleeping and she could not wake her, prosecutors said.

When the mother later went to Taylor's apartment at 37 Williams Street, she was unable to enter the building, so she went around the back, crawled through a first-floor window and found her daughter lying facedown in a pool of blood, investigators said.

According to prosecutors, Taylor was stabbed 15 times in the chest, head and neck.

Forensic examinations of fingernail scrapings from Taylor's right hand produced a complete profile that matched a sample taken from Holloman in 2023, Boston police investigators said.

Prosecutors said his DNA was found on the sleeve of the sweatshirt and on a cigarette.

Prosecutors also said he recently told police he actually saw Taylor the day before her death, even though he had told investigators decades ago that he had not seen her in the weeks before.

Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden praised the work of investigators in solving this case.

“This is an example of the excellent investigative work of detectives and prosecutors using modern forensic science, but most importantly, it is an opportunity for Karen Taylor's family to see someone answer for her death after so many years of unanswered questions,” Hayden said.

Further details are expected to be announced in court on Friday.

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