Cathy Krauseneck Bio – Cathy Krauseneck Wiki
Cathy Krauseneck was dead on a frigid February night in upstate New York four decades ago; James Krauseneck came home from work and found his wife, Cathy Krauseneck, in bed with an axe blade embedded deep in her forehead.
AGE:
Cathy Krauseneck was 29 years old.
DETAIL OF INCIDENCE:
Grabbing the couple’s 3-year-old daughter, James ran to get help from a neighbour, who told police he “had a look of terror on his face” and seemed unable to speak. At the time, James was a 30-year-old economist at Eastman Kodak in nearby Rochester.
For years, police in Brighton searched for whoever killed the 29-year-old mom as she slept with her young daughter nearby. Decades passed, and the case went cold.
Now, 40 years after Cathy’s brutal murder, her family has answers — and justice.
On Monday, a jury in Monroe County found her husband, now 70, guilty of second-degree murder, Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley announced.
“We did it,” Cathy’s sister, Annet Schlosser, exclaimed immediately after the verdict, WROC reports. “We did it! Justice for Cathy.”
Cathy’s 95-year-old father, Robert Schlosser, was also grateful that justice had been served for his daughter.
“I wanted to live long enough to (see) it,” Schlosser said after the verdict, the Democrat & Chronicle reports. “My wife passed away four years ago. She didn’t make it.”
Upon hearing this, Annet immediately added, “My mom and Cathy are here.”
On February 19, 1982, the day Cathy was murdered, Brighton Police officers arrived at a well-kept, two-story home on Del Rio Drive after James’ neighbour, Eileen Marron-Keating, dialled 911 pleading with police to “please come to Del Rio Drive! There’s been, I think, a murder,'” WHEC reports.
“Upon entering the house, investigators located the body of Cathleen Krauseneck, who was found deceased in her bed,” the district attorney said. “Reports show that an axe strike in the head killed Cathleen while she slept.”
Since 2015, Doorley and investigators from the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office have worked with the Brighton Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Monroe County Crime Lab, and renowned forensic pathologist Dr Michael Baden to further review the case.
“Upon a thorough and detailed investigation,” Doorley said in the statement, in November 2019, a grand jury indicted James on a second-degree murder charge.
He pleaded not guilty and was free on bail.
“I am proud to be a part of the team who found justice for Cathleen Krauseneck 40 years after James Krauseneck took an axe from his garage and used it to strike her head while she was asleep,” Assistant District Attorney Patrick Gallagher said in a statement.
“It has been one of the great pleasures of my career to get to know Cathy’s family and to be able to help in securing justice for their loved one,” he said.
“Today’s conviction proves that the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office and our law enforcement partners will never give up on securing justice for crime victims,” Doorley said in the statement.
“Cathleen Krauseneck deserved her day in court,” she said.
“After February 19, 1982, James Krauseneck moved away and went on with his life for 40 years. Cathleen did not have that privilege. I am grateful that we were able to provide this closure for Cathleen and her family.”
His lawyers have said that prosecutors only had circumstantial evidence tying James to the murder and have grounds for an appeal, the Democrat & Chronicle reports.
“We think the law’s on our side and we’re confident we’re going to have a reversal,” defence attorney Michael Wolford said.
“It’s emotional and it’s gruesome, but you strip it down … that’s why they didn’t proceed for 40 years. It wasn’t because of lack of trying.”
James’ lawyers said they believed Cathy was likely killed by Edward Laraby, a convicted sex offender. The latter confessed before his 2014 death to killing Cathy and to murdering music teacher Stephanie Kupchynsky in 1991. However, authorities don’t believe that he killed Cathy, convinced he was lying about his involvement.
“We feel confident he was not the killer,” William Gargan, Chief of the Domestic Violence Bureau in the Monroe County District Attorney’s office, said at the time.
Assistant District Attorney Gallagher agreed, saying, “there was no one else that could’ve done this crime,” Gallagher said, WROC reports.