# 2 True Crime Mysteries: Su Ya Kim and Merrian Carver

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 21 Sep 2025, 21 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO5498416824.mp3

Join me as we discuss the cases of Su Ya Kim and Merrian Carver. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill True Crime Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dVJtzeHcJgd_Z0bHrJTHQ Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 forensic science cold cases, doe case identification, unidentified remains solved, genetic genealogy cold cases, forensic breakthroughs in mysteries, solving john doe cases, jane doe forensic science, unidentified bodies identified, cold cases solved 2025, forensic genealogy success stories, missing persons solved by DNA, cold case identifications, forensic anthropology cold cases, doe cases forensic breakthroughs, unidentified remains solved by DNA, cold cases closed with forensics, forensic genealogy cold case files, mysteries solved with DNA, unidentified victims identified, forensic technology cold cases, john doe identified by DNA, jane doe identification 2025, solved unidentified persons, forensic DNA cold case investigations, unidentified cold cases solved, genetic genealogy identifications, forensic science mystery solutions, solving missing persons with DNA, forensic case breakthroughs, unidentified victims solved with science

## Transcript

[0:00] Can you think of anything that cost the same today as it did 10
[0:04] years ago? There isn't much.
[0:06] That is, unless you're a Mid American energy customer.
[0:09] Thanks to all the renewable energy we're generating, our
[0:11] customers pay nearly the same rate for electricity today as
[0:15] they did back when we were all singing Call Me Maybe.
[0:18] And with Mid American making even more investments in clean
[0:21] energy, you can count on enjoying those same affordable
[0:24] rates for the next decade. Now that's obsessively,
[0:27] relentlessly at your service. The air in Bedford Stuyvesant,
[0:31] Brooklyn was thick and heavy in the pre dawn hours of June 30th,
[0:36] 1991. It was 3 in the morning, a time
[0:40] when the city that never sleeps takes a moment to grab some shut
[0:44] eye. For Joe Jones, a private
[0:47] security guard, this was the heart of his shift.
[0:51] He had a monotonous patrol around an abandoned building, a
[0:54] landscape of urban decay that was all too common in New York
[0:58] City at the time. The city was in the grip of a
[1:01] crime wave that felt apocalyptic, and neighborhoods
[1:05] like Bed Stuy were on the front lines.
[1:09] But even in a place accustomed to violence, what Jones was
[1:12] about to witness would stand out as particularly chilling.
[1:18] His attention was drawn to a man lingering behind the building,
[1:21] his movement secretive and out of place even for that hour.
[1:25] The man was near a large industrial dumpster, and
[1:28] something about his presence set off every alarm in the veteran
[1:32] guards mind. Jones watched him, the suspicion
[1:37] growing with every passing 2nd. When the man finally noticed he
[1:41] was being observed, he didn't flee immediately.
[1:45] Instead, there was a brief, tense interaction before he got
[1:49] into his car and drove away, melting back into the city's
[1:54] labyrinthine streets. But he left behind a scene that
[1:58] felt deeply wrong, and Jones wasn't about to go investigate
[2:02] alone. Trusting his instincts, Jones
[2:08] recruited a friend who happened to be working in the area as
[2:11] well. Together, they approached the
[2:13] dumpster with a sense of extreme caution.
[2:17] They began to cautiously sift through the layers of debris
[2:20] inside, not fully sure what they were going to find.
[2:24] And then it happened, and their hands immediately stopped when
[2:28] they saw it. It was a woman's hand, pale and
[2:32] lifeless amidst the garbage in the dumpster.
[2:35] The cops were called and the woman would soon be identified
[2:38] as SU Ya Kim, who just hours prior had been full of life.
[2:44] To understand the depth of the tragedy, you have to understand
[2:47] the life that was stolen. SU Ya Kim's story was in many
[2:52] ways, the quintessential American Dream.
[2:55] In 1981, she and her husband, SU Yong Kim, married in their
[3:00] native Seoul, South Korea, and soon after made the monumental
[3:05] decision to move to the United States.
[3:09] They arrived in New York City, a place that has long promised a
[3:13] new start and potential wealth to those willing to work hard
[3:17] for it. The Kims began their journey in
[3:20] the bustling, chaotic world of flea markets, honing their
[3:24] business sense and saving every dollar they could.
[3:28] Their hard work paid off and they eventually achieved their
[3:30] dream of becoming business owners, opening 2 popular
[3:34] clothing stores. As their business grew, so did
[3:39] their family, and SU Ya and SU Young had two sons and the
[3:43] family was the center of their world.
[3:46] They eventually moved into a spacious apartment in Queens, a
[3:50] world away from the rundown flea markets where they had started.
[3:54] Just five days before she was slain, SU Ya and SU Young had
[3:58] celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary, a milestone of a
[4:02] life they thought they would share for decades to come.
[4:08] The day Sue Yakim disappeared, June 29th, 1991, began like any
[4:13] other Saturday. It was an ordinary afternoon,
[4:17] and she left her two young sons in the care of their grandmother
[4:21] and set out on a routine shopping trip.
[4:24] It was the kind of mundane task a busy mother and business owner
[4:27] performs without a second thought.
[4:30] But on this day, it was a trip from which she would never
[4:33] return. At 8:00 PM, SU Yung came home
[4:38] from work, expecting to find his wife and their home filled with
[4:41] the familiar sounds of life going on as normal.
[4:45] Instead, he was met with an unnerving silence, and SU Ya
[4:49] wasn't there. He made calls to friends and
[4:52] family members, but no one had seen her and no one knew where
[4:56] she could be. What followed was the longest
[4:59] night of SU Yung's life, a sleepless vigil filled with
[5:02] escalating dread and unanswered questions.
[5:08] The hope that she would walk through the door at any moment
[5:10] slowly eroded, replaced by a terrifying certainty that
[5:14] something was terribly wrong. The next day, his worst fears
[5:19] were realized when he was summoned to the medical
[5:21] examiner's office. There he was asked to do the
[5:25] unthinkable, identify the body of his wife, the woman he had
[5:30] built a life with. The mother of his children had
[5:34] been found slain, her body discarded, miles from their
[5:38] Queen's home in a part of Brooklyn she had no reason to be
[5:41] in. This geographic disconnect was
[5:44] one of the 1st and most significant hurdles for
[5:46] investigators. With no known destination for
[5:50] her shopping trip and no clear reason for her presence in
[5:53] Bedford Stuyvesant, there was no obvious primary crime scene.
[6:00] When detectives from the New York Police Department arrived
[6:02] at the scene, they were confronted with a crime of
[6:05] vicious personal violence. SU Yakim had the clothing
[6:09] removed from her body, and she had been stabbed 9 times.
[6:14] The medical examiner, however, found no evidence of an indecent
[6:17] assault, a crucial detail that complicated any attempt to
[6:21] profile the perpetrator. The crime appeared to have been
[6:25] an act of unrestrained rage towards a woman who had no known
[6:29] enemies. Joe Jones was deemed to be a
[6:34] credible eyewitness, and he provided a description of the
[6:37] suspect and his vehicle, which led to the creation of a police
[6:41] sketch that was circulated to the public.
[6:44] He was a white male with blonde or light brown hair, standing
[6:48] around 5 feet 6 inches with an average build.
[6:52] And I want you to keep this description in mind because I'm
[6:55] going to be coming back to it when we discuss theories of the
[6:58] case. But regardless of this starting
[7:01] point, the case went cold. And to understand why it's
[7:06] perhaps important to realize the magnitude of crime in NYC in
[7:10] 1991. In 1991, New York City recorded
[7:15] over 2500 slayings and to put that in perspective, in 2024
[7:22] this number was just 377. And just to put this a little
[7:26] further into perspective, this was about 7 crimes of the most
[7:30] severe nature literally each day, every day.
[7:35] To say that detectives were overwhelmed and had little time
[7:39] to dedicated to cases would be a massive understatement.
[7:44] Detectives were assigned an unmanageable number of cases,
[7:48] forensic labs were severely backlogged, and patrol officers
[7:52] were in a constant state of response.
[7:55] The cops turned to the show Unsolved Mysteries to try to
[7:58] resolve her case, but ultimately this led to nothing and the case
[8:03] went cold. Over the years, numerous
[8:07] theories have been proposed on who committed this horrible act
[8:10] to sue ya. One of the most prominent
[8:13] theories points to Joel Rifkin, one of New York's most prolific
[8:17] serial predators. Rifkin was active from 1989 to
[8:22] 1993, a timeline that perfectly overlaps with Suya's attack.
[8:26] In June 1991, he confessed to taking 17 lives, and his reign
[8:32] of terror haunted the city. However, a closer look at his
[8:37] methods reveals significant contradictions with the facts of
[8:41] the Kim case. Rifkin's victimology was
[8:46] chillingly consistent. He exclusively targeted
[8:49] vulnerable women whose disappearances he believed would
[8:53] go unnoticed or unreported. SU Ya Kim, a married mother, a
[8:58] respected entrepreneur, and a woman with deep community ties
[9:02] doesn't fit his victim profile in any way.
[9:06] Furthermore, Rifkin's modus operandi was starkly different,
[9:10] and he took substantial efforts to prevent identification of his
[9:14] victims. Perhaps the most compelling
[9:17] evidence against this theory is Rifkin himself.
[9:20] Upon his capture in 1993, he provided A detailed, exhaustive
[9:25] confession to 17 slayings, even drawing maps to help police
[9:29] locate remains of a large percentage of these victims.
[9:33] He has never mentioned SU Yakim, and no direct evidence links him
[9:37] to the case. Notably, while the forensic
[9:42] sketch might appear to look like Joel Rifkin since it depicts a
[9:46] white male with light brown hair and glasses, other factors don't
[9:50] add up. Joel Rifkin stands about 6 feet
[9:53] 2 inches tall and had an imposing physical presence.
[9:58] Joe Jones described a short man of average build, and given that
[10:02] he was a security guard used to observing and reporting, I think
[10:06] we can put more weight on his assessment than normal.
[10:11] Some have also found a resemblance between Rex
[10:14] Heuermann and the forensic sketch, but again, like Rifkin,
[10:17] he exclusively targeted marginalized women.
[10:21] Also, again, the physical profile just doesn't fit with
[10:25] Heuermann since he's even taller and more physically imposing
[10:28] than Rifkin. Personally, I think the most
[10:33] probable explanation is the most chilling one of all.
[10:37] SU Yaqim appears to have been the victim of a random violent
[10:40] crime. She was likely a tragic casualty
[10:43] of being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a city teeming
[10:47] with violence. The perpetrator was likely not
[10:51] an infamous monster with a long list of victims, but an
[10:54] anonymous predator, just one more opportunistic attacker
[10:58] created by the city's chaos. He was a person who, after
[11:03] committing A brutal slaying, was probably able to disappear back
[11:08] into the anonymity of millions. His crime went unsolved because
[11:12] the system designed to catch him was too fractured and
[11:15] overwhelmed to do so. This is, of course, a conclusion
[11:19] that offers no comfort or potential neat resolution.
[11:23] Unfortunately, given the lack of any forensic evidence connected
[11:27] with the attacker, the chances of this cold case being solved
[11:31] anytime soon are slim, barring A confession from the perp
[11:34] himself. Hey everyone, Jimmy here asking
[11:41] you to hit that hype button and hype up this video.
[11:45] I'm not entirely sure what this does, but apparently it
[11:48] increases the visibility of the video to new and returning
[11:52] viewers, so this would be a huge favor.
[11:55] Also, don't forget to check out my other YouTube channels Lazy
[11:59] Chill History and Lazy Chill True Crime for more content.
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[12:38] The routine of a cruise ship is a meticulously choreographed
[12:41] performance of comfort and care. For a cabin steward aboard the
[12:45] Mercury in late August 2004, that routine included a small
[12:50] final touch each evening, placing a fresh chocolate on the
[12:54] pillow of each guest. But for five consecutive days,
[12:59] as the ship carved its way through the cold Alaskan waters,
[13:03] the steward performed this ritual in cabin 6064 with a
[13:07] growing sense of dread. The bed was always pristine, the
[13:12] chocolates from the previous night untouched.
[13:15] He knew his passenger, a 40 year old woman named Marian Carver,
[13:19] was gone. He reported his concerns to his
[13:22] supervisor each day, only to be told to focus on his job and get
[13:27] back to work. No one reported that Marian was
[13:30] gone, at least not immediately, and to this day her case remains
[13:35] A disturbing cruise ship mystery.
[13:40] Marian Carver was a 40 year old mother to a 13 year old daughter
[13:44] living in Cambridge, MA. Described as an independent and
[13:48] sometimes spontaneous woman, she had a background as an
[13:51] investment banker and had attended Harvard.
[13:55] True to her spontaneous spirit, she booked A7 day Alaskan cruise
[13:59] on the Mercury just two days before it was set to sail.
[14:04] On August 27th, 2004. She boarded the vessel in
[14:08] Seattle alone, and crucially, she didn't tell another soul
[14:13] that she would be doing it. The official timeline of her
[14:18] presence on the ship is brutally short.
[14:20] A cabin attendant last saw her on the evening of August 28th,
[14:24] only the second day of the voyage, and after that, Marian
[14:29] Carver vanished. Her bed went unused and she
[14:33] received no room service after the 28th, nor did she use her
[14:37] card for any purchases. The cruise line would later
[14:41] confirm that she never disembarked at any of the
[14:43] scheduled ports of call. For all intents and purposes,
[14:47] after her second night at sea, Marian Carver ceased to exist on
[14:52] the ship. On September 3rd, 2004, the
[14:57] Mercury completed its journey, docking in Vancouver, BC.
[15:02] To the surprise of no one watching this, Marion Carver
[15:06] didn't disembark. A supervisor instructed the
[15:09] cabin steward to box up her personal belongings left in the
[15:13] cabin. In a shocking breach of protocol
[15:16] and basic human decency, her clothes were reportedly donated
[15:20] to charity, while other personal effects were placed in a storage
[15:24] locker. No missing persons report was
[15:27] filed with the Vancouver police or any other authority.
[15:31] The cruise line made no attempt to contact Marian's family to
[15:34] inquire about her whereabouts or inform them she had not left the
[15:38] ship. The alarm was finally raised
[15:42] weeks later, not from the high seas, but from a phone call on
[15:46] land. Marian's 13 year old daughter
[15:49] became worried when she couldn't reach her mother for an extended
[15:52] period. She called her grandfather,
[15:55] Kendall Carver, sharing her concern.
[15:58] That call set in motion a search that would consume the rest of
[16:02] Kendall Carver's life. He contacted the Cambridge
[16:06] Police Department in Massachusetts, who opened a
[16:09] missing persons investigation. It took police three painstaking
[16:13] weeks to piece together Marian's last known movements, eventually
[16:18] tracing her credit card records to find out where she had went.
[16:22] And just to reiterate, she had never told anyone, not even her
[16:26] daughter, that she was going on this spontaneous cruise.
[16:32] When Kendall Carter finally contacted the cruise line, it
[16:36] was October and he was met with what he claimed was a wall of
[16:39] indifference. It took the company 3 full days
[16:43] just to confirm that Marian had been a passenger on the Mercury.
[16:47] By that, .26 days had passed since her disappearance.
[16:52] When a manager finally spoke with him, the explanation was
[16:55] allegedly dismissive. The representative suggested it
[16:59] was normal for passengers to leave belongings behind and that
[17:03] she may have just walked off the ship undocumented.
[17:05] In Vancouver. There was no mention of the
[17:09] cabin stewards. 5 days of reports.
[17:14] This response revealed a critical flaw in how incidents
[17:17] at sea were handled. Occurring outside the immediate
[17:20] jurisdiction of any single police force, a disappearance at
[17:24] sea created a legal and informational void.
[17:28] The cruise line became the sole gatekeeper of all evidence and
[17:32] information, including witnesses, internal reports, and
[17:37] the surveillance footage. A significant legal battle ended
[17:41] up taking place between Kendall Carver and the cruise line, and
[17:45] Carver would emerge victorious from this ordeal.
[17:49] Notably, through the discovery process, he was able to obtain
[17:53] all the internal evidence the cruise ship line wouldn't turn
[17:56] over. Despite this victory, he was
[17:59] unable to get any meaningful answers as to what happened to
[18:02] his daughter, which was ultimately what he wanted from
[18:05] the case. In February 2013, there was a
[18:11] startling development in the case.
[18:13] Remains were discovered on Merry Island, a small island in the
[18:17] Strait of Georgia in British Columbia, a province in Canada
[18:21] right next to Washington state. The location was geographically
[18:25] plausible, lying in the general region.
[18:27] The mercury would have passed on its way to or from Alaska.
[18:31] Canadian authorities suspected the remains could be those of
[18:35] Marion Carver. Police contacted Kendall Carver
[18:38] in Arizona, raising the possibility that DNA testing
[18:42] could finally provide a definitive answer to what
[18:45] happened to his daughter. Notably, it's unclear if these
[18:49] remains were hers, since while the initial finding was
[18:52] reported, nothing subsequent was, and Marion is still
[18:56] officially listed as missing. With no solid evidence of what
[19:02] happened to Marion, a number of theories have taken hold.
[19:06] One theory argues that a predator may have relied upon
[19:09] the transient population and the complex jurisdictional issues of
[19:14] a cruise ship to target Carver. According to some, cruise ships
[19:18] are targeted by these predators who see it as the place to
[19:22] commit the perfect crime, where legal complexities will simply
[19:26] shield them from consequences. Notably, some have suggested
[19:32] that Marian may have done it herself, given that she took the
[19:35] trip without informing anyone. However, her family denies this
[19:39] and confirmed that she would routinely travel at the absolute
[19:42] last minute without informing others.
[19:46] Personally, this seems odd to me, but people are allowed to
[19:49] have unusual character traits and we can't all be the same.
[19:54] Notably, she never expressed any ideas like that and there was no
[19:58] note left behind. Or anything to indicate this
[20:01] could potentially be the case. Another common theory is that
[20:07] she accidentally fell overboard. People often become seasick on
[20:11] cruise ships, and this combination of being dizzy and
[20:14] throwing up over the deck can cause accidents to occur.
[20:18] Notably, I wasn't able to find the specific railing height for
[20:21] the Mercury, but it looks like the minimum railing on passenger
[20:25] vessels around that time was about 40 inches.
[20:29] I'm no expert on ocean going vessels, so I can't really say
[20:32] if this is enough to ensure an adult can't accidentally go
[20:36] overboard, but I suspect it isn't.
[20:39] This is doubly true if someone is seasick and is leaning over
[20:42] the edge. Marian's case continues to
[20:47] remain unsolved and heavily discussed, especially given the
[20:50] bizarre circumstances surrounding her case and the
[20:53] fact that it happened on a cruise ship.

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