Father determined to see justice done for his daughter 38 years later
Robert Schlosser will be 93 years old in June, when he plans to travel from his cozy 900-square-foot home in rural Michigan to Rochester to see the trial of the man accused of burying an ax in the head of his daughter.
The trial will likely go at least two weeks, and Schlosser does not intend to miss a day. He has to be there, he said.
"I"m going to go, hell or high water," Schlosser said. "I want to see him with the cuffs on."
There was a time when Robert Schlosser and James Krauseneck Jr. identified as kin — not necessarily close, but always friendly. That was when "Jim" Krauseneck and Schlosser's daughter, Cathy, seemed to be a loving young couple; the proud and doting parents of a cherubic daughter, Sara. They were a family that, seemingly stress-free, traveled from Michigan to Colorado to Virginia and then to Brighton for Jim Krauseneck's career.
That was when all seemed comfortable within the Krauseneck home. That was before someone took an ax and, with a single strike to the head, killed Cathy Krauseneck as she slept on the morning of Feb. 19, 1982, with 3½-year-old Sara in the home. For years, the police suspected Krauseneck of the killing of his wife.
And now, more than 37 years later, the 68-year-old Krauseneck is accused of the horrific killing that stood as one of the region's most notorious unsolved homicides — the "Brighton ax murder" as it came to be called. He maintains his innocence and has pleaded not guilty.
Cathy Krauseneck's family long questioned whether there would ever be resolution to her death. They did not suspect her husband at first, but eventually came to do so as he took steps, including leaving Rochester the day after her body was discovered, that they considered obstructionist to the investigation.
Hope for the family
When the Brighton police in 2015 renewed the investigation, assisted by the FBI, the family found new hope for answers.
"It's just been in the last four years that it came back alive," Schlosser said in an interview earlier this month at his home, a once-dilapidated and crumbling structure that he previously used as a hunting camp and rebuilt himself.
Life is quiet on Robert Schlosser's 118-acre property. The closest community is the village of Pellston, with a population of fewer than 1,000.
Schlosser's land is ideal for both hunting and snowmobiling. Schlosser still does not miss a hunting season himself. This year, he felled a buck that, after being field dressed, weighed 180 pounds.
Schlosser lost his wife, Theresa, in 2017. The couple had earlier met with the Brighton police, learning of possible new evidence against Jim Krauseneck. She, too, would have traveled for the trial.
Now, the trial of James Krauseneck is scheduled to begin in June, and Robert Schlosser feels he must be there — for his slain daughter and for his late wife. Perhaps it will provide answers.
Perhaps.
"It was just impossible to figure out that he would do that," Schlosser said.
Growing up in Michigan
Cathy Schlosser was the second oldest child of six — a Detroit-region family of four girls and two boys. Their father was a truck driver, first working for a company that transported concrete and later with his own gravel business, Schlosser Trucking.
Cathy was effervescent, energetic and fully engaged, whether at play or at school. Her father recalls buying new bicycles for her and her older brother when she was about 7 years old. Within seconds, she was off and pedaling furiously; her brother was much slower to climb upon the bike and take off.
A half-acre Schlosser family home was such a gathering place for neighborhood kids, who sometimes played soccer there, that Robert Schlosser began to wonder why he even closed the basement window.
"They were breaking it all the time," he said.
Read more From 2016: Brighton cops tackle unsolved ax homicide
Both Cathy and Jim Krauseneck lived in the Mount Clemens area, about 30 miles northeast of Detroit, but did not know each other well then.They attended Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Krauseneck would sometimes drive her to and from the campus on breaks. They started dating while in college.
At one of Krauseneck's first visits to the Schlosser home, "I threw him out," Robert Schlosser said. "He came barefooted and I told him to go home and get a pair of shoes on."
Krauseneck learned his lesson, and always struck Schlosser as a fine young man, clean-cut and quiet, and, most importantly, kind toward Cathy.
The two married in 1974. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, for Krauseneck to attend graduate school at Colorado State University. While there, Cathy worked as an orthopedic therapist.
Sara was born in Fort Collins. The family of three moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1979 for Krauseneck to teach economics at Lynchburg College.
In 1981 the family decided to leave the world of academia after Krauseneck secured a job and a significantly better salary as an economist with Eastman Kodak Co.
Doubts over doctorate
Early in 1982, Kodak officials apparently learned that Krauseneck had not completed his doctorate work at Colorado State as he had indicated. His doctoral dissertation had not received approval. It's also possible that Lynchburg College believed he had his doctorate.
Investigators have not said publicly whether his job was at risk, but there has been evidence that Cathy learned of the apparent falsehood. However, a Democrat and Chronicle story from 1982 states that Kodak officials expected Krauseneck to keep his job when he returned from Michigan after his wife's death. He never did return to Rochester.
Robert Schlosser thinks that somehow the issue of the doctorate escalated into a family dispute, and the catalyst for homicide.
"He lied all the time," Robert Schlosser said. "He lied at every job he had."
The homicide
The move to the Rochester area was tough on Cathy Krauseneck, according to news articles.
"She longed for friends and family and spoke of moving back to Michigan," former Rochester Times-Union reporter Laurie Bennett, who is working on a book about the case with former Democrat and Chronicle reporter Nancy Monaghan, wrote in a 1991 article revisiting the case.
"Friends say the family most loved doing things together," the article said. "The couple took long walks, bicycled with Sara, played tennis and racquetball."
The Krausenecks had only lived in their two-story Brighton Colonial home on Del Rio Drive for six months when Cathy was killed.
James told police that he had left her asleep in the morning, then returned from work to find her dead, the ax 3 inches deep into her head. Sara had not left the house, and had dressed herself with two sweaters.
Hours later in rural Michigan, Robert Schlosser would learn about the homicide.
"The police knocked on our door after midnight," he said. "The first thing they said, there's been — they didn't call it a murder — a homicide."
The news landed like an anvil. One of Cathy's sister was pregnant, and the child would never know her aunt. Robert Schlosser attributes a heart attack his wife later had to the news.
The Krauseneck family owned a popular and successful carpet store in Mount Clemens, and the family took care of bringing Cathy's remains back, and even her burial. She is buried on the Krauseneck family plot in Saint Clair, Michigan, immediately in front of a monument and burial locations for the parents of Krauseneck, whose mother died in 2009.
Krauseneck left Rochester within a day of the killing, taking Sara with him to Michigan so they could be near family. He went to work at the family store, not returning.
He eventually declined to allow police interviews of Sara, who may have seen the killer, and stopped talking to investigators himself. His attorney at the time, Michael Wolford, is now representing him along with defense lawyer William Easton and said that Krauseneck was willing to be cooperative but that police would not agree with the terms that he, as Krauseneck's attorney, wanted for interviews.
"Jim has cooperated in the investigation of his wife's murder, repeatedly giving statements to the police, consenting to the search of his home and his car," the attorneys said in a statement after the arrest.
Monroe County Assistant District Attorney William Gargan, who is now prosecuting Krauseneck, said at a news conference last month that Krauseneck had not been willing to assist the investigation.
2632241001
View Live Edit image
- Image
- SHAWN DOWD/ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE
- Rochester Democrat And Chronicle
- Not set
- 12/09/19 1:47:11 PM
- Not embargoed
- Currently unavailable
- Currently unavailable
image:
Cathy Behe looks over high school yearbooks, stopping at a photo of her friend Cathleen Schlosser, during an interview in her home in Mount Clemons, Michigan, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2019. Cathleen was murdered in Feb. 1982 in Brighton. (Photo: SHAWN DOWD/ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE)
SEO Warning
Layout Priority
Best friends
Cathy Behe remembers vividly when she learned of the death of Cathy Krauseneck. Her sister rang her the day after the homicide and said, "You better sit down. I've got some really bad news to tell you."
Behe, who still lives in Mount Clemens, and Cathy had been best of friends as kids and into high school. When teenagers, the two would telephone to see what the other planned to wear to school, then dress in something comparable.
"We were almost inseparable," Cathy Behe said in an interview at her home earlier this month.
Behe remembers the times playing at the typically rambunctious home of the Schlossers, and the special Polish foods and treats that Cathy Schlosser's mother would bake.
Behe herself knows tragedy. Her 10-year-old sister was killed by a drunken driver in 1969 and her father, shortly thereafter, suffered a massive stroke that left his left side paralyzed.
When returning from college, Cathy Schlosser would often come to her friend's home to visit Behe's father, to talk to him, to lift his spirits. She seemed to have a special humanity that was always alert to the needs of everyone, Cathy Behe said.
"She was everybody's friend," she said.
Behe's daughter, Amy, and Sara Krauseneck were born within about a month of each other, and the two families kept in touch via Christmas cards. Cathy Behe knew James Krauseneck, but not well. To this day, Cathy Behe said, she can't grasp the killing.
"That's such a violent act," she said. "... It's haunting."
A family reunion at trial
Cathy Behe intends to keep tabs on the trial of Jim Krauseneck as best she can. She recalls seeing the family returning to Michigan in the fall of 1981 at a neighborhood playground.
"That was the last time I saw her," Behe said.
They talked about their children and parenting. All these years later, Behe still wonders how the tragedy impacted Sara.
Robert Schlosser also thinks about Sara. She came to his and his wife's 50th wedding anniversary, but the family has not had much communication in recent years — especially after it became public in 2016 that the Brighton police were again actively investigating the case and appeared to consider Jim Krauseneck the lead suspect.
Standing by her father
Police and prosecutors say that they have narrowed the time of Cathy's death, apparently challenging Krauseneck's alibi, and that the absence of DNA from anyone else in the home makes it unlikely that an intruder was responsible.
The crime scene in 1982 looked like a failed burglary — a window was smashed, and a silver tea set and two candelabras left on the dining room floor — but nothing appeared stolen and investigators questioned why a burglar would go to the second floor, where Cathy slept, and kill her.
Sara is standing by her father, believing in his innocence, his lawyers say. She and her father's current wife, Sharon Krauseneck, traveled with him to Rochester for his arraignment last month. Jim and Sharon Krauseneck now live in Arizona and he is free on bail.
Robert Schlosser hopes that he and Sara can again make connections during the trial, even though he will be hoping to see her father convicted.
Whatever the truth of what happened on Feb. 19, 1982, Robert Schlosser said, Sara has been a victim also.
"It's tough on Sara," he said. "She's going through hell."
GCRAIG@Gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Brighton ax murder: Robert Schlosser wants to justice for daughter
