Should charges be dropped in 1982 Brighton ax murder? Judge to decide

(Update: The decision originally scheduled to be released Nov. 30 is now scheduled to be released later. No specific date has been given.)

Should James Krauseneck Jr. go to trial for the ax blow homicide of his wife in 1982, the prosecution case will rest on a basic theory: Who else could it have been?

In recent court papers prosecutors concede that their case against Krauseneck is completely circumstantial.

But, they say, extensive efforts to see whether anyone else could have killed Cathleen Krauseneck has unearthed no reliable proof of another suspect. Recent DNA and other forensics tests resulted in no other possible killers, they say.

"While there is no doubt that the new (forensics) testing did not reveal (Krauseneck's) profile, it equally did not bring forth any evidence that a third party was in any way involved in the instant crime," Assistant District Attorney Derek Harnsberger wrote in recent court papers. "In a circumstantial case such as this, the absence of any evidence demonstrating the involvement of a third party perpetrator is compelling evidence against defendant’s claims of innocence."

Krauseneck's defense sees it differently, maintaining that the investigation over the past four decades has been intermittent, lax, and indifferent — so much so that a viable suspect was missed and so much so that the murder charge against Krauseneck should be dismissed.

"In essence, unlike any other reported case that the defense has found in our research, Mr. Krauseneck's defense has been significantly and specifically prejudiced with the passage of time, and that alone would serve as a basis to dismiss this case," Krauseneck's attorneys, William Easton and Michael Wolford, wrote in court papers.

These were the legal battle grounds over days of pretrial hearings earlier this year, and on Tuesday state Supreme Court Justice Charles Schiano Jr. is expected to release his decision on the defense request for dismissal.

More: Father determined to see justice done for his daughter decades later

Also, on Tuesday, another pretrial hearing is scheduled to begin. The fact that the hearing is even scheduled could be a harbinger of Schiano's decision — after all, a hearing would not be necessary if the murder charge is dismissed — or he could simply want the parties in court for the release of the decision.

Three days have been set aside for this week's hearing, if it goes forward. The hearings will focus on statements Krauseneck has made to police through the years, beginning at his home in 1982 after the death of his wife. The statements don't seem to provide ammunition for prosecutors, but Krauseneck's lawyers are seeking to have them suppressed.

Krauseneck has said he found his wife, with an ax embedded in her head, when he returned from the end of a workday on Feb. 19, 1982 at Eastman Kodak Co. Prosecutors and police allege he killed her before leaving for work in the early morning, and tried to make the home appear as if it had been burglarized.

More: Brighton ax murder, subject of novel, to be adapted as Netflix film

The couple's daughter, Sara, spent the day in the family's Brighton home on Del Rio Drive with her mother's corpse; Sara was then 3½ years old.

Sara has stayed supportive of her father, maintaining that he is innocent.

Prosecutors and Brighton police say they have diligently pursued leads since the homicide, leading to a decision more than five years ago to submit the homicide to an FBI cold case squad. The FBI digitized the voluminous case files, and also ran extensive forensics testing on crime-scene evidence.

"In the years that followed (after the homicide), investigators followed up on any leads that were presented to them, even if those claims were facially frivolous, like tips from self-proclaimed psychics and individuals who were being involuntarily committed for insanity," Harnsberger wrote in prosecution court papers. "Given that investigators were so dedicated to the following up on any lead that they pursued even the most absurd tips, it can hardly be said that investigators did nothing while the matter was a cold case.

"Based on the information available to them, investigators in the 1980s had absolutely no reason to believe that deferring the prosecution and keeping the case open as a cold case would not result in the discovery of new evidence," he wrote.

Krauseneck's defense portrays the investigation as a glaring example of law enforcement indifference — one that happened only days after the homicide. Brighton police learned that a sadistic sex offender, Ed Laraby, lived near the Krauseneck's home, and records show police approached him once.

Unable to interview him then, it appears police made no more attempts to question Laraby, who would go on to commit a series of violent sexual assaults and a murder.

Laraby died in prison after claiming that he killed Cathleen Krauseneck. The supposed admission — Laraby made claims he was the killer in several homicides (including the one he surely committed) —  is rife with inconsistencies about the Krauseneck homicide, prosecutors say.

Krauseneck's defense has also highlighted a 1986 memo from then-District Attorney Howard Relin, when he apparently wanted his office to see whether the time of Cathleen Krauseneck's death could be narrowed beyond what medical examiners had determined. That initial determination included possible times before and after James Krauseneck left for his Kodak job.

There has been no evidence that anyone acted on Relin's request.

"It is evident that 'time of death' was the critical issue in the case, and yet there was little effort by law enforcement or the District Attorney's Office to address it," the defense lawyers wrote.

The current prosecution has utilized a re-examination of the time of death from longtime medical examiner, Dr. Michael Baden. Baden's analysis made the estimated time of the homicide more in line with early morning hours, before Krauseneck left for work, but defense attorneys say the examination was based on faulty science and incorrect information provided to Baden.

If the murder charge against Krauseneck is not dismissed, there may be one more pretrial hearing next year before a trial is scheduled.

Contact Gary Craig at gcraig@gannett.com or at 585-258-2479. Follow him on Twitter at gcraig1. 

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Brighton ax murder: Should James Krauseneck continue to face charges?