Hopewell Twp. man pleads to double homicide, sentenced to minimum of 42 years
At about 7 p.m. on Aug. 22, 2022, Keith Wayne Kretzer was in the basement of his girlfriend’s split-level home on Firebox Court in Stewartstown Station, a suburban development carved out of farmland in southern York County, when he felt, as he would tell police later, a “force take control of him.”
Kretzer, according to the criminal complaint, then grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed his girlfriend, Christine Fousek, a 34-year-old manager of a fast-food restaurant, and her 5-year-old daughter, Rylee Ann, multiple times in the head, neck and torso.
He then assaulted Christine’s then-63-year-old mother, Jacqueline, and brother, Joseph, then 28, stabbing them several times.
Jacqueline and Joseph survived their wounds. Christine and Raylee did not.
Kretzer was arrested a short time later and charged with first-degree murder and aggravated assault.
Now, nearly two years after the crime, Kretzer, now 33, originally from Middle River, a Chesapeake Bay community east of Baltimore, has pleaded guilty but mentally ill in the murders of his girlfriend and her daughter.
More: about the murder: 'It's devastating': Stabbing murders of mother, daughter stun this quiet community
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The guilty but mentally ill charge has been effect in Pennsylvania since 1982, in response to the difficulty of finding a person suffering from mental illness culpable for his or her crimes because of the high standard set for an insanity defense, that a person had to be so incapacitated that he or she did not know what they were doing or that their mental infirmary rendered them unable to tell the difference between right and wrong.
Kretzer was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison on May 30, according to court records. He was also sentenced to one to two years in each of the aggravated assault charges related to the attacks of Fousek’s mother and brother. York County Judge Gregory Snyder ordered that the sentences be served consecutively, which means Kretzer’s minimum sentence is 42 years with a maximum of 84 years.
The homicides were the first in the 30-year history of the development, essentially an exurb of Baltimore in southern York County. At the time, residents expressed shock about the violence that had erupted in their idyllic community.
Columnist/reporter Mike Argento has been a York Daily Record staffer since 1982. Reach him at mike@ydr.com.
This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Man who killed girlfriend & daughter sentenced to minimum of 42 years
