Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Gorgeous young mom found in her own bed, AXE embedded in her forehead: SOLVED

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Gorgeous young mom found in her own bed, AXE embedded in her forehead: SOLVED · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. It was the blustery, cold
0:14
Speaker 1: winter night near Rochester when Detective Mark A. Liberatory arrives
0:20
Speaker 1: to a scene. What he sees then he will never forget.
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Speaker 1: A beautiful, young twenty nine year old mom, Kathy Krausneck,
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Speaker 1: dead in her bed, an axe lodged in her head
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Speaker 1: in the last hours, A stunning, stunning turn of events.
0:43
Speaker 1: I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being
0:46
Speaker 1: with us here at Fox Nation. In series XEM one eleven,
0:51
Speaker 1: when the detective arrived at the scene, husband Jim Krassneck
0:56
Speaker 1: tells cops he arrived home from work and found his
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Speaker 1: wife body. His three and a half year old little girl, Sarah,
1:04
Speaker 1: was also home and unarmed. Minutes later, husband wanders over
1:11
Speaker 1: to the neighbor's house, traumatized in shock with the baby girl,
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Speaker 1: Sarah in his arms. The neighbor immediately calls nine point
1:20
Speaker 1: one after Jim says Kathy's dead. That was just the
1:25
Speaker 1: beginning of a scenario that began to unfold that winter
1:30
Speaker 1: night in the last hours. A suspect has been named,
1:36
Speaker 1: but let's go back to the beginning.
1:39
Speaker 2: When officers arrived at the neighbor's house They were ultimately
1:43
Speaker 2: led to the home of James, his wife Kathleen, and
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Speaker 2: their daughter Sarah, who resided at thirty three Dell Reel Drive.
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Speaker 2: Officers arrived at the house to find Kathleen deceased. She
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Speaker 2: died from a single blow to her head from an axe.
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Speaker 3: Gary Printy was an investigator on the case since day one.
2:00
Speaker 3: Printy says he'll never forget arriving to the scene that day.
2:05
Speaker 4: It was not a pleasant scene. It was the first
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Speaker 4: one that I had ever seen this violence, and I
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Speaker 4: hope I never see another one. The police knocked on
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Speaker 4: our door after midnight. Firstly they said there's been a No,
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Speaker 4: they didn't call her murder. They've been there was a
2:23
Speaker 4: homicide and that was Kathy.
2:26
Speaker 1: Wow, you were hearing from our friends at WROC News A.
2:30
Speaker 1: That was reporter Kela Green and others what happened to Kathleen.
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Speaker 1: Kathleen found in her bed with an axe embedded deeply
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Speaker 1: in her forehead. It sounds like the stuff that horror
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Speaker 1: movies are made of. You don't expect that in real life.
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Speaker 1: For this lovely wife and mother to be found with
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Speaker 1: an axe embedded in her four it it reminds you
3:02
Speaker 1: of the horrible histories of nursing rhymes like how does
3:08
Speaker 1: it go, doctor Bethany Marshall? Forty wax, Lizzie, how does
3:12
Speaker 1: it go? Doctor Bethany? That's right?
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Speaker 5: And the Grim's fairy tales where children are shoved in ovens,
3:20
Speaker 5: and all the horrible fairy tales that we heard growing up.
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Speaker 5: I do not remember the forty wax.
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Speaker 1: Okay, you know, doctor Bethany Marshall. As much as I
3:30
Speaker 1: appreciate you and all your many, many many degrees and papers,
3:35
Speaker 1: I had to go to Jackie Howard in the studio.
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Speaker 1: How does it go, Jackie? Lizzie?
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Speaker 6: What Bordon took an astgate?
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Speaker 5: Her mother?
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Speaker 7: Forty?
3:42
Speaker 1: Okay? Thank you? See, I had to go to her
3:44
Speaker 1: institutional memory of horror. I mean, Asie Grace, this is
3:48
Speaker 1: crime stories. Thank you for being with us. My point
3:50
Speaker 1: is it's almost too awful to take can with me
3:55
Speaker 1: an all star paddle, and boy do I mean it
3:58
Speaker 1: joining me. Cloyd Steiger thirty six years, SEATTLEPD, twenty two
4:02
Speaker 1: years homicide, author of Seattle's Forgotten serial killer, Gary jen Grant.
4:07
Speaker 1: You can find him at Cloydsteiger dot com. Kathleen Murphy,
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Speaker 1: she knows her way around to North Carolina courtroom and beyond.
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Speaker 1: Renowned psychoanalyst out of LA doctor Bethany Marshall at doctor
4:19
Speaker 1: Bethany Marshall dot com, South Carolina medical examiner and author
4:25
Speaker 1: of homicide investigation field Guide, And you may not agree
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Speaker 1: with me, but I gotta tell you that is quite
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Speaker 1: the read homicide investigation of field Guide. Doctor Michelle Dupree
4:35
Speaker 1: joining me right now, reporter with The Democrat and Chronicle,
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Speaker 1: former co author of an upcoming book on this very
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Speaker 1: topic at krassneck dot com. Nancy Monahan, Nancy, Before I
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Speaker 1: go to you, I've got to go to doctor Michelle Dupree.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Michelle, an axe embedded in this woman's forehead and
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Speaker 1: she couldn't have been more defenseless. She apparently was asleep
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Speaker 1: in bed, Doctor Michelle. What, Doctor Michelle Dupree does an
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Speaker 1: act actually, at one blow with an axe to the skull,
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Speaker 1: I assume, depending on the velocity, would crack the skull
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Speaker 1: and go directly into the brain.
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Speaker 8: Yes. Absolutely, what a gruesome scene that must have been.
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Speaker 8: The act would have obviously fractured the skull and gone
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Speaker 8: deep into the actual surface of the brain, causing obviously
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Speaker 8: extensive damage and death.
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Speaker 1: How much force would it require to actually crack the skull?
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Speaker 1: For instance, I've seen cases where someone has been bludging
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Speaker 1: dead and the medical examiner would state, for instance, this
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Speaker 1: is the same velocity as you would get from a
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Speaker 1: car crash at sixty mph. What velocity would it take
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Speaker 1: with an act single blow to crack open the skull,
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Speaker 1: Doctor Michelle Dupree.
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Speaker 8: Because the acts is a sharp force instrument, it is
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Speaker 8: going to crack the skull with a little less force
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Speaker 8: than you might expect. However, our skulls are very thick,
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Speaker 8: and it would still require an extensive amount of force
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Speaker 8: to do that.
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Speaker 1: You know, when you say our skulls are very thick,
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Speaker 1: would you explain what you mean by that? Because every
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Speaker 1: time somebody feels a little lump or they have a
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Speaker 1: pimple or assist, they think they have brain cancer or
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Speaker 1: a tumor. But there is a very thick skull between
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Speaker 1: your skin and your brain. So how thick is the skull?
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Speaker 8: What, Nancy? The skull actually varies in thickness depending on
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Speaker 8: where we are talking about. So the location though of
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Speaker 8: this in this case is the forehead, and the forehead
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Speaker 8: is one of the thicker parts. Approximately a quarter of
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Speaker 8: an inch to three quarters of an inch thick in places.
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Speaker 1: And the skull is made of, of course bone. But
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Speaker 1: what do you compare the density of the skull to
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Speaker 1: Is it like a board, is it like cement? What's
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Speaker 1: the density?
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Speaker 8: Well, that's that interesting question. I've never really quite thought
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Speaker 8: about it. It's more than that's.
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Speaker 1: The first time I've thought about it. Doctor.
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Speaker 8: The density is certainly more like a board rather than
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Speaker 8: a concrete. It is not as hard as concrete would be.
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Speaker 8: And again, because the bone is somewhat poorous, it is
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Speaker 8: going to be less dense than that.
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Speaker 1: Guys, we are talking about a beautiful young woman, Kathleen
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Speaker 1: Kraussneck found bludgeon did well, I don't think bludgeon is
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Speaker 1: the right word. She was attacked with an axe, one
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Speaker 1: blow to the head. The weapon interesting found, wiped clean
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Speaker 1: of any fingerprints, and a window broken from the outside. Well,
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Speaker 1: there's another issue. Many times I've been asked, how do
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Speaker 1: you tell if AA's windows screen has been sliced from
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Speaker 1: the outside of the inside. You may not be able
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Speaker 1: to tell with the naked eye, but once you put
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Speaker 1: the screen under a microscope, you can actually see which
8:01
Speaker 1: way the metal in the screen is bent. If it's
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Speaker 1: bent toward the inside of the room, it was slashed
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Speaker 1: from the outside. If it's bent, and you really do
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Speaker 1: have to look under a microscope to see this outward
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Speaker 1: toward the yard or the outside, then you know it
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Speaker 1: was staged and it was cut from the inside. Let's
8:20
Speaker 1: go to our veteran reporter, Nancy Monahan, formerly with a
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Speaker 1: Democrat and Chronicle and co author on a book on
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Speaker 1: her murder. Nancy, thanks so much for being with us.
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Speaker 1: It's a real pleasure to have someone so close to
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Speaker 1: the case to explain a lot of the evidence to us.
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Speaker 1: Tell me about the severity of the attack. What can
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Speaker 1: you tell me about the attack on Kathleen Krassnek just
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Speaker 1: twenty nine years old.
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Speaker 9: It was one X blow to her left temple, and
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Speaker 9: how far that wound went. I think it was pretty significant,
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Speaker 9: and she was asleep, as most X murder victims are.
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Speaker 9: It's hard to chase down somebody with an ax, so
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Speaker 9: you wouldn't pick an axe if you had to chase
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Speaker 9: somebody down the street. I do want to mention that
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Speaker 9: the broken window was downstairs. It was the door from
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Speaker 9: the garage to the kitchen that was broken.
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Speaker 1: Hold on, hold on, let me digest what you just said.
9:20
Speaker 1: So the broken window not in the.
9:24
Speaker 9: Bedroom, It was downstairs. It was the door between the
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Speaker 9: garage into the kitchen.
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Speaker 1: So it's the door from the garage into the kitchen.
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Speaker 1: I wonder if that garage had a one of the
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Speaker 1: doors that you have to have a code to or
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Speaker 1: you have to have an access or it may have
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Speaker 1: even been left open.
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Speaker 9: It was open. There was no Yes, it was easy
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Speaker 9: to get access to the garage. The door to the
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Speaker 9: garage was locked.
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Speaker 1: And let me think, now, from the garage into the kitchen.
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Speaker 1: So do we know which side of the glass was on.
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Speaker 9: Yes, they determined that had been broken from the outside.
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Speaker 1: Do you think the person crawled through the door or
10:00
Speaker 1: they just broke the door in order to get to
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Speaker 1: the door handle.
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Speaker 9: Just broke the window to get to the handle.
10:22
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last hours, a
10:27
Speaker 1: bizarre turn of events in the investigation of the brutal
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Speaker 1: murder of twenty nine year old mom Kathy Krausnick. Dispatch
10:36
Speaker 1: immediately sends first responders to the scene. Brighton Police Lieutenant
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Speaker 1: Bill Flood arrived. He sees Jim Krausnick moaning and crying
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Speaker 1: in shock. Jim Krausnick, a Kodak Company economists, had left
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Speaker 1: for work that morning at the usual time around six
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Speaker 1: thirty am. Stayed gone all day, as he normally did.
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Speaker 1: Kathy had planned to stay home and take care of
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Speaker 1: their little girl. Detective Bill Flood stated at the time
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Speaker 1: he could tell little Sarah had been left alone. It
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Speaker 1: was very obvious to the detective this child had dressed herself,
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Speaker 1: and the little girl was very confused about what had happened.
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Speaker 1: She kept saying she had seen a quote bad man
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Speaker 1: sleeping in mommy and Daddy's bed with an axe in
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Speaker 1: his head. When asked if the assailant was black or white,
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Speaker 1: she said he was quote many colors. But Detective Bill
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Speaker 1: Flood is convinced little three year old Sarah had not
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Speaker 1: seen a man in the bed at all, that it
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Speaker 1: was her own mother in bed covered in blood. The
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Speaker 1: murder in itself was hard to believe, but then you
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Speaker 1: add the overlay that the three year old daughter had
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Speaker 1: been left alone in the house with her murdered mother.
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Speaker 1: Who would do that? Joining me? Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina
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Speaker 1: family attorney Cloyd Stiger, doctor Bethany Marshall doctor Michelle Dupre
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Speaker 1: and Nancy Monahan. I'm very curious Cloyd Stiger how they
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Speaker 1: could tell she was asleep at the time she was attacked.
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Speaker 8: I would guess it was because the way the body
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Speaker 8: was laying in, the lack of any defensive wounds or
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Speaker 8: anything like that.
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Speaker 1: You know what's really interesting to me, so many facts
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Speaker 1: in details, Doctor Bethany Marshall. The axe was wiped clean.
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Speaker 1: Now that is a big red flag to me, because,
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Speaker 1: yes it's anecdotal, it's based on all the cases I've investigated, tried,
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Speaker 1: or covered. But typically random attackers do not take time
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Speaker 1: to stage the saint to clean up the weapon. They
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Speaker 1: leave the weapon in her skull, but they wipe it clean.
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Speaker 1: Or is the weapon still in her skull? Nancy Monahan,
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Speaker 1: Oh yes it was, Yes, it was wow. Okay, So
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Speaker 1: doctor bean A Marshall, who would think to wipe clean
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Speaker 1: the murder weapon?
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Speaker 5: Well, this tells me that this was not a crime
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Speaker 5: of opportunity, right. This is not somebody who's just broke
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Speaker 5: into the house to ransack and find jewelry or cash.
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Speaker 5: This is not somebody who just wanted to commit a
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Speaker 5: rape homicide. She wasn't sexually violated. So whoever did this
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Speaker 5: knew her, and I would want to know who had
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Speaker 5: she been in contact with. Did she have any admirers,
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Speaker 5: Was she having an affair? Was she being stalked? Was
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Speaker 5: there a person in the neighborhood who had taken a
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Speaker 5: special interest in her? The fact that somebody embedded an
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Speaker 5: axe in her forehead and then wiped up the evidence
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Speaker 5: means that this is somebody who had tremendous rage towards her,
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Speaker 5: And to me, that speaks of a crime of passion.
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Speaker 5: Whether it's espouse, a stalker, an ex boyfriend, but somebody
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Speaker 5: who took a very special interest in her and felt
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Speaker 5: that she had maybe jilted them or rejected them in
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Speaker 5: some way.
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Speaker 1: I'm also curious to Nancy Monahan, former reporter, Democrat and
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Speaker 1: Chronicle Nancy, was she sex assaulted or had anything been
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Speaker 1: stolen from the home?
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Speaker 8: No?
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Speaker 9: To both, she was not and nothing had been taken.
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Speaker 1: I can't imagine the shock it would bring on when
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Speaker 1: you come in and find your wife dead with the
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Speaker 1: acts still embedded in her head. Doctor Bethany Marshall, I
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Speaker 1: just keep saying, it doesn't even sound real. It sounds
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Speaker 1: like it's from a horror movie.
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Speaker 8: Right.
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Speaker 5: So you imagine her husband comes home around five pm. Right.
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Speaker 5: I imagine he was an executive. I think he had
14:35
Speaker 5: a doctorate. He comes in, he sees his wife with
14:38
Speaker 5: an axe embedded in her skull. I'm wondering, are there
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Speaker 5: any nine one one calls it? Has anyone spoken to
14:45
Speaker 5: his demeanor when he called the police? Did he seem calm?
14:48
Speaker 5: Did he seem agitated? I mean, I think that type
14:51
Speaker 5: of behavioral evidence would be so important in beginning to
14:55
Speaker 5: try to solve this crime, since in these sorts of crimes,
14:58
Speaker 5: you always look to the spouse first. So I'm wondering,
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Speaker 5: what how did he behave after he found his wife
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Speaker 5: with the axe embedded in her skull? Are there any
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Speaker 5: detectives or policemen who were working working that particular crime
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Speaker 5: who spoke.
15:16
Speaker 1: To that Well, You're absolutely right. In every homicide investigation,
15:20
Speaker 1: the first place cops the detective's look is at the spouse,
15:25
Speaker 1: the boyfriend, the ex the ex spouse, And as you
15:29
Speaker 1: were pointing out, anybody in the neighborhood or at work
15:31
Speaker 1: that had been paying special attention to her. Take a
15:34
Speaker 1: listen to what her sister, Annette's lasser tells Wham thirteen.
15:39
Speaker 10: James Krausnick told police he'd come home from his Kodak
15:42
Speaker 10: job to find his twenty nine year old wife dead
15:44
Speaker 10: with an axe embedded in her skull. The couple's three
15:47
Speaker 10: and a half year old daughter had spent the day
15:49
Speaker 10: alone in the home with her mother's corpse.
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Speaker 11: I've ever dropping to my knees in my dorm room.
15:54
Speaker 11: I just couldn't believe it. She was my favorite sister
15:57
Speaker 11: and my best friend.
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Speaker 1: To Nancy Monahan and former reporter Democrat and Chronicle and
16:02
Speaker 1: who has also co authored a book on this murder.
16:06
Speaker 1: Nancy question. The sister gets the call about the murderer,
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Speaker 1: and the three year old little girl was in her
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Speaker 1: crib all day with her mother dead.
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Speaker 9: She was not in her crib. She was in the
16:21
Speaker 9: house all day long, wandering around. She had been in
16:25
Speaker 9: the bedroom, saw her mother actually had a little blood
16:28
Speaker 9: on her clothing, but didn't recognize that her as her mother,
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Speaker 9: And she was wandering around the house all day. By
16:35
Speaker 9: the time her husband, Kathy's husband, came home, little Sarah
16:41
Speaker 9: was back in her bedroom and she had tried to
16:44
Speaker 9: dress herself. She had on two sweaters backwards.
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Speaker 1: You know what just that detail is so heartbreaking to
16:51
Speaker 1: Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina family lawyer. To leave the three
16:56
Speaker 1: year old little girl wandering around the house all day long,
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Speaker 1: she goes and finds her mom's body. Nancy Monthganue clarified
17:03
Speaker 1: that because she actually had blood I think, she said,
17:06
Speaker 1: on some of the little girl's clothing, so she had
17:08
Speaker 1: made it to her mom and had come to try
17:10
Speaker 1: to dress herself, putting on her sweaters backwards. I mean,
17:13
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing a child never forgets. Kathleen Murphy, that.
17:17
Speaker 7: Child will never forget that experience. And Nancy with that
17:21
Speaker 7: child wandering around the house for the entire day, I
17:26
Speaker 7: just wonder what.
17:27
Speaker 9: Did she see?
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Speaker 7: And at three and a half years old, what has
17:31
Speaker 7: she vocalized at that point to the police officers, Because
17:35
Speaker 7: at that age she's old enough to tell somebody what
17:41
Speaker 7: she saw and what she interviewed.
17:43
Speaker 1: You know, I have a question to doctor Bethany Marshall,
17:46
Speaker 1: what can you tell me about the brutality behind twenty
17:49
Speaker 1: nine year old Kathleen's axe murder and what does that
17:52
Speaker 1: tell you about her killer?
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Speaker 5: It tells me that the killer had a relationship with her,
17:58
Speaker 5: And what I mean by that that was maybe in
18:01
Speaker 5: love with her, had a preoccupation with her, was fascinated
18:05
Speaker 5: by her, felt rejected by her. But whoever put this
18:10
Speaker 5: axe in her skull was obsessed with his victim. You
18:15
Speaker 5: don't kill somebody in that kind of an overkill, brutal
18:19
Speaker 5: kind of way unless you have feelings, right, feelings of rejection,
18:24
Speaker 5: rage and the hostility, feeling jilted in some way, and
18:29
Speaker 5: unless those feelings have been brewing for some time. So
18:33
Speaker 5: whoever did this knew her over months or even years, Nancy,
18:37
Speaker 5: Because these feelings don't just crop up in five minutes.
18:41
Speaker 5: You don't just break into a house start looking for
18:43
Speaker 5: cash and jewelry. See a woman and oh I am
18:46
Speaker 5: so enraged, I'm just going to put an axe in
18:48
Speaker 5: her forehead. No, you are going to have a relationship
18:51
Speaker 5: with that person. That's what the brutality tells me.
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Speaker 1: Nancy Monahan, for her reporter with Democrat and Chronicle, who
18:58
Speaker 1: has sivily researched the murder, tell me about the brutality
19:05
Speaker 1: of Kathleen's murder.
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Speaker 9: I've done a lot of research on axe murders and
19:10
Speaker 9: and they are they are very personal. Uh, they are
19:14
Speaker 9: always filled with rage and I mean it is a
19:18
Speaker 9: statement well beyond any other weapon that someone someone can
19:23
Speaker 9: use and all it takes, and then all it took
19:26
Speaker 9: in this case was that one major blow that cracked
19:30
Speaker 9: her skull open. Interestingly, there was no blood on the wall,
19:35
Speaker 9: you know, it didn't spatter. There was certainly after the
19:38
Speaker 9: you know, after the acts went in, the blood did
19:41
Speaker 9: run down and there was a lot of blood on
19:43
Speaker 9: her and the bed and that's that's what the young girl, Sarah,
19:48
Speaker 9: the daughter saw.
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Speaker 1: Well we also know this there was premeditation because unless
19:53
Speaker 1: they sleep with an axe by their bed, somebody, as
19:56
Speaker 1: Jackie's pointing out, had to bring that axe upstairs. Not
20:00
Speaker 1: only that the killer thought to wipe the ex clim
20:17
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace liberatorian partner Steve Hunt of
20:23
Speaker 1: Brighton PD, they say the first investigators that the scene
20:26
Speaker 1: found no real significant forensic clues like fingerprints or fibers.
20:32
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty two, at the time of the murder,
20:36
Speaker 1: DNA was not an investigative tool. But there was something
20:41
Speaker 1: about that scene that really struck them. It looked as
20:45
Speaker 1: if someone had been in the midst of a burglary
20:49
Speaker 1: and stopped. There was a door leading into the house
20:51
Speaker 1: that had a pane of glass broken. Outside, there was
20:55
Speaker 1: a heavy axe called a mall m aul. It was
21:01
Speaker 1: on the ground, leaning up against the wall, right beside
21:04
Speaker 1: the window. The axe was at the door and the
21:08
Speaker 1: one found lodged in Kathy's head both belonged to the
21:12
Speaker 1: krows Necks. And in the dining room there were very
21:16
Speaker 1: valuable items scattered everywhere, just strown. There was a tea
21:21
Speaker 1: set on the floor, but oddly everything was standing straight up.
21:26
Speaker 1: Did the perp plan to put it in a bag?
21:29
Speaker 1: Because there was a black garbage bag next to the
21:31
Speaker 1: silver tea set. A faint shoe print was there, as
21:35
Speaker 1: if someone had stepped in it to hold the bag open.
21:39
Speaker 1: But the single most important aspect of a burglary was missing.
21:44
Speaker 1: Nothing had been taken. Did Kathy Krausneck come upon a burglar? Well,
21:51
Speaker 1: in the last hours a suspect has been identified.
21:56
Speaker 4: Oh, we found out for sure that he didn't never
21:59
Speaker 4: pass his He got his doctors. Well, then I knew
22:02
Speaker 4: them because he'd lied to hear that he had.
22:06
Speaker 1: All the time you are hearing Robert Schlosser, Kathleen's father,
22:10
Speaker 1: he's talking to the Rochester Democrat and chronicle to Nancy Monahan.
22:16
Speaker 1: You know it may have been considered irrelevant at the time,
22:19
Speaker 1: but I find it very relevant when you find out,
22:22
Speaker 1: for all the time you have courted and been married,
22:25
Speaker 1: your husband has been lying to you about earning his
22:29
Speaker 1: pH d. What can you tell me, Nancy Monahan joining
22:32
Speaker 1: me who has co authored a book on Kathleen Crossneck's murder. Nancy,
22:38
Speaker 1: what did he claim he had his pH d in.
22:42
Speaker 9: Economy? He was a PhD, said he was a PhD economist.
22:46
Speaker 9: He had not, in fact earned his PhD, which was
22:49
Speaker 9: one of the really striking issues in this whole affair.
22:54
Speaker 9: He did, and he had finished his dissertation. He had
22:57
Speaker 9: done all the coursework. All he had to do was
23:00
Speaker 9: make a few changes in his dissertation, which he never did.
23:04
Speaker 9: He lied to his co workers at Lynchburg. He got
23:09
Speaker 9: the job at Kodak based on the fact that he
23:12
Speaker 9: had the PhD or said he had the PhD, and
23:17
Speaker 9: he never did. And even when Kodak was pressing him
23:22
Speaker 9: to show proof that he had the PhD after he
23:24
Speaker 9: had started working. This was a major issue in the
23:28
Speaker 9: household and at Kodak because he was under pressure to
23:32
Speaker 9: produce it. He kept saying that that it had been
23:35
Speaker 9: there was some paperwork mix up at Colorado State where
23:39
Speaker 9: he had attended and done all his work, and to
23:42
Speaker 9: the end he claimed that he had the PhD. But
23:47
Speaker 9: he didn't.
23:48
Speaker 1: Very interested in his line about who he really is.
23:54
Speaker 1: I'm really curious about what he claimed he wrote his
23:57
Speaker 1: dissertation about, because I remember how hard my sister, who
24:03
Speaker 1: went to the Wharton School and actually became a professor there,
24:07
Speaker 1: how hard she worked getting her PhD. I mean it
24:11
Speaker 1: is hard. I mean, technically speaking, Kathleen Murphy, we're juris
24:18
Speaker 1: doctorates because he went through three years of law school.
24:22
Speaker 1: But I don't think many lawyers had to write a dissertation.
24:27
Speaker 1: It's very, very hard to do, Kathleen Murphy.
24:31
Speaker 7: I couldn't imagine it except to say, Nancy that do
24:35
Speaker 7: you remember studying for the bar and taking the bar
24:39
Speaker 7: exam and knowing that if you didn't pass, you weren't
24:42
Speaker 7: going to be that practicing lawyer. It's intense and it
24:46
Speaker 7: is a.
24:46
Speaker 1: Professional Kathleen Murphy. I can't. Maybe a block got it out,
24:50
Speaker 1: but the bar either. I said, two or three days
24:53
Speaker 1: you'd have to go back. You didn't finish it in
24:56
Speaker 1: one day and it would take eight hours. And I
24:59
Speaker 1: remember going in and I would not even get up
25:03
Speaker 1: while we were taking the test to even go to
25:04
Speaker 1: the bathroom because I did not literally want to miss
25:08
Speaker 1: one minute that could risk not completing it or not
25:13
Speaker 1: being able to go back over and check my answers.
25:16
Speaker 1: And it was almost like I lost track of time
25:20
Speaker 1: and space during the bar, I sat down and all
25:24
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the day the eight hours were over,
25:27
Speaker 1: and when I finished the bar Kathleen, it was being
25:31
Speaker 1: held in Atlanta, and had to drive back to my
25:33
Speaker 1: apartment in make And, which was about a two hour drive.
25:36
Speaker 1: I got in the car and I had to get
25:38
Speaker 1: out from behind the wheel. Somebody else had to drive,
25:42
Speaker 1: and I had to lay down in the back seat
25:43
Speaker 1: because it felt like the moment I had finished the
25:47
Speaker 1: bar after whatever two or three days and sat down
25:49
Speaker 1: in the car, it felt like somebody hit me in
25:51
Speaker 1: the head with a cement brick. And I mean, I
25:54
Speaker 1: had never felt anything like it in my life. I
25:56
Speaker 1: could hardly even see that's when it kicked in. But
26:00
Speaker 1: I remember Kathleen going to get my ll M at NYU.
26:05
Speaker 1: We had paper after paper after paper. But I guess
26:09
Speaker 1: you could compare it to that to doctor Bethany Marshall,
26:13
Speaker 1: psychoanalyst out of Beverly Hills. Doctor Bethany, why do people
26:17
Speaker 1: lie about their credentials? I mean, he had a college degree.
26:21
Speaker 1: He could have gone back and finished the dissertation, made
26:24
Speaker 1: the change. He heard what Nancy Mona had said, but
26:26
Speaker 1: he didn't. He chose to lie about it instead.
26:30
Speaker 5: This guy falls into a very special category, and he's
26:32
Speaker 5: not alone. He's what we call ABD abd is all
26:37
Speaker 5: the dissertation. There's a subject.
26:39
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait wait, wait wait wait wait white wait,
26:43
Speaker 1: I've never heard that before and a b D. I'm
26:47
Speaker 1: writing it down. Oh but the dissertation, Okay, go ahead.
26:53
Speaker 5: I actually treated a couple a number of years ago
26:55
Speaker 5: where the husband claimed that he got his dissertation and
26:57
Speaker 5: the wife found out and I.
26:59
Speaker 7: Learned all of about this.
27:00
Speaker 5: It's a group of people who go through all of
27:02
Speaker 5: their training and for some reason, they do not want
27:06
Speaker 5: to defend their dissertation. And by defend, defending a dissertation
27:11
Speaker 5: means that you've already written, met, you already have your
27:13
Speaker 5: committee of three people. Defending doesn't mean that you talk
27:17
Speaker 5: about your dissertation. You have to sit down and listen
27:20
Speaker 5: to your committee criticize and tear apart your dissertation, so
27:24
Speaker 5: you have to hear what they have to say about
27:26
Speaker 5: your body of work. But think about this, Nancy. So
27:29
Speaker 5: if I think of my education, I have three years
27:31
Speaker 5: of college, four years of graduate school, and in sixteen
27:34
Speaker 5: years of postgraduate in order to become a psychoanalyst. Imagine
27:38
Speaker 5: going through all of that and not being able to
27:40
Speaker 5: sit down and hear what other people have to say
27:42
Speaker 5: about your body of work. I mean, what I've seen
27:45
Speaker 5: with people who are ABD is that they are very
27:47
Speaker 5: avoidant individuals, and usually they are avoidant in every part
27:51
Speaker 5: of their life. They do not want to be criticized,
27:54
Speaker 5: They do not want people to look down on them.
27:56
Speaker 5: Sometimes they have social anxiety. So if Crowdsneck falls into
28:00
Speaker 5: this category, this is not the only thing he's lying
28:02
Speaker 5: about in his life. There are probably many things that
28:05
Speaker 5: he has not faced or been responsible about. And this
28:09
Speaker 5: is not a man who can tolerate criticism. Because he
28:12
Speaker 5: did not want to present his dissertation to his committee.
28:15
Speaker 1: To Nancy Monahan, who has actually written a book about
28:19
Speaker 1: this murder. Nancy, what was his undergrad degree? And I'm
28:23
Speaker 1: sure his wife, Kathleen Krassneck would have loved him if
28:26
Speaker 1: he had said I'm working on my PhD. I don't
28:28
Speaker 1: think that would have changed his family. Kodak would probably
28:32
Speaker 1: have hired him anyway, knowing that he was working on
28:35
Speaker 1: his dissertation. What was his undergrad degree in? If you know, Nancy, it.
28:39
Speaker 9: Was some sort of a business degree. But you remember
28:44
Speaker 9: Kathleen did not know this in the beginning. He went
28:48
Speaker 9: right from Colorado State and his dissertation to his teaching
28:53
Speaker 9: job at Lynchburg and was saying that he was working
28:57
Speaker 9: on it. His colleagues they knew that he didn't have it,
29:02
Speaker 9: and that he was supposedly working on it, just filing
29:05
Speaker 9: the corrections. So it was a good while. In fact,
29:08
Speaker 9: I believe it was after they moved to Rochester before
29:12
Speaker 9: Kathleen found out that there was no degree, and it
29:15
Speaker 9: was only a few months before her death.
29:17
Speaker 1: You know, just very I wouldn't say obsessed, but I'm
29:21
Speaker 1: fascinated with a desire to lie. And sometimes Doctor Bethany,
29:27
Speaker 1: my children will come home and say so and so
29:30
Speaker 1: Johnny said that his dad works for special ops and
29:35
Speaker 1: this and that, and he has, you know, a treasure
29:38
Speaker 1: chest of gold coins, hid and blah blah, And I say, children,
29:41
Speaker 1: by wa wait, be nice to Johnny because not his
29:46
Speaker 1: real name. Because I believe people boast and lie to
29:50
Speaker 1: make themselves feel better about themselves, because they obviously have
29:54
Speaker 1: some kind of insecurity. They can't just be who they are.
29:58
Speaker 1: Why do people puff themselves up, for instance, on their resume,
30:03
Speaker 1: not just to get a job, but in lives? Why
30:05
Speaker 1: do you lie about it?
30:06
Speaker 5: Why do people lie? For three different reasons. First, there's
30:09
Speaker 5: the pathological liar. The pathological liar says whatever comes to
30:13
Speaker 5: their mind to actually manipulate the people around them. They're
30:17
Speaker 5: more callous, manipulative, and they kind of fall into this
30:21
Speaker 5: category of puffery and they don't think they'll be caught
30:25
Speaker 5: for their lives. The second category of lying is what
30:27
Speaker 5: we call compulsive lying. Compulsive lying is when you when
30:31
Speaker 5: you quickly say whatever comes to your mind in order
30:34
Speaker 5: to please another person, Like if I had I saw
30:38
Speaker 5: this couple where the wife would say that the husband
30:41
Speaker 5: did you get the milk at the grocery store And
30:42
Speaker 5: she's saying, hey, yeah, I got it, and she look
30:44
Speaker 5: in the refrigerator there was no milk, and he wanted
30:47
Speaker 5: to please her in that moment, not thinking that she
30:49
Speaker 5: would catch him. We go back to the first category.
30:52
Speaker 5: I think this guy was probably pretty sociopathic in different
30:56
Speaker 5: areas of his life, and probably lied extensively and had
31:00
Speaker 5: this whole kind of an alter ego or personality that
31:03
Speaker 5: he presented to the people around him, And a part
31:06
Speaker 5: of it was a cover for the avoidance of not,
31:09
Speaker 5: you know, finishing the dissertation. But I wouldn't be surprised
31:11
Speaker 5: if he told other stories about himself too, more in
31:15
Speaker 5: that manipulative kind of way. Just it's puffery, but it's
31:19
Speaker 5: also manipulation. He's manipulating how people see him for his
31:22
Speaker 5: own gratification.
31:23
Speaker 1: The way that the murder of Kathy Krausnik unfolded her
31:28
Speaker 1: body there in the home and acts literally in her head.
31:32
Speaker 1: Her little girl, three year old Sarah, wandering around the
31:35
Speaker 1: house in mismatched clothes alone with mommy's body sounds like
31:40
Speaker 1: one of the most horrific TV made for movie crime
31:46
Speaker 1: shows I've ever heard, But it's real. I find it
31:51
Speaker 1: interesting and probative. It proves something that she was attacked
31:55
Speaker 1: in her face, in her forehead. Of course, she had
31:59
Speaker 1: to be a shrink to figure out what that means.
32:01
Speaker 1: But I know this. Although her husband, James Krausnick, had
32:05
Speaker 1: the higher paying job that he wanted, trouble was brewing.
32:11
Speaker 1: His bosses at Kodak were asking him about his PhD.
32:15
Speaker 1: He kept promising to give them evidence that he had
32:17
Speaker 1: in fact gotten the degree. Pressure was mounting at work,
32:20
Speaker 1: he became distant at home. Wife Kathy actually told her
32:24
Speaker 1: friends he would come home from work angry. Police later
32:29
Speaker 1: said it appeared he had been sleeping in the den.
32:32
Speaker 1: The marriage strained, Kathy had started talking about leaving and
32:37
Speaker 1: taking Sarah home to Michigan. So many factors swirling around
32:44
Speaker 1: the murder of Kathleen Krausnick, just twenty nine years old
32:49
Speaker 1: at the time of her death, and then a twist
32:53
Speaker 1: in the case.
32:53
Speaker 10: Brighton Police renewed their efforts on the case four years
32:56
Speaker 10: ago and listing help from the FBI. What led to
32:59
Speaker 10: the arrest today has no been revealed, but Kathleen's sister
33:01
Speaker 10: believes she knows the motive.
33:04
Speaker 11: I believe, knowing my sister, she was all about education
33:12
Speaker 11: that Jim did not actually pass his verbal dessertation, so
33:19
Speaker 11: he did not earn his PhD, and he lied about it,
33:23
Speaker 11: and he was calling himself doctor Krausnik. When she found out,
33:27
Speaker 11: I am certain she confronted him on it, he snapped,
33:34
Speaker 11: and I believe that's when he killed her.
33:36
Speaker 1: You're hearing Kathleen's sister murder over a pH D. That's
33:41
Speaker 1: a little far fast, you know. When people go that
33:43
Speaker 1: far to almost get their PhD, to go through all
33:46
Speaker 1: that education, you'd think they were well reasoned and wouldn't
33:50
Speaker 1: commit a murder. But take a listen to this.
33:53
Speaker 3: The trial of the husband accused in the Brighton axe
33:57
Speaker 3: murder could hinge on what a nationally known doctor has
33:59
Speaker 3: to say about one small but key detail. Doctor Michael
34:04
Speaker 3: Baden is known as the celebrity pathologist.
34:07
Speaker 1: The expert has.
34:07
Speaker 3: Conducted over twenty thousand autopsies and investigated the assassinations of
34:12
Speaker 3: President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Junior. Now
34:16
Speaker 3: Brighton police say the timeline is crucial. Thirteen WRAM reports
34:20
Speaker 3: that James Krausneck told authorities his wife and daughter were
34:24
Speaker 3: sleeping when he left for work at six thirty am.
34:27
Speaker 3: His wife died of a single blow to her head
34:30
Speaker 3: with an axe. After an autopsy, the medical examiner ruled
34:34
Speaker 3: the time of death was actually between two thirty and
34:37
Speaker 3: nine thirty. Am plenty of time for her husband to
34:40
Speaker 3: have completed the crime before he left for work. And
34:43
Speaker 3: that's why Brighton police are bringing on doctor Baden to
34:46
Speaker 3: confirm the timeline.
34:47
Speaker 1: Wow, our friend's at w E N Why that was,
34:51
Speaker 1: Olivia Jadquith to Nancy Monahan, former reporter, Democrat and Chronicle. Nancy,
34:57
Speaker 1: after all these years, why to police now bullied Kathleen's husband,
35:01
Speaker 1: James is the killer? And what can you tell me
35:04
Speaker 1: about the evidence supporting their client?
35:05
Speaker 9: Well, the time of death is clearly one of the
35:08
Speaker 9: big issues that they are pursuing. And whoever was speaking there,
35:14
Speaker 9: it was correct that they've originally said it was between
35:18
Speaker 9: two thirty and nine thirty. He left the house at
35:21
Speaker 9: six thirty. And if they can narrow that time of
35:25
Speaker 9: death to anything that's close to being before six thirty,
35:30
Speaker 9: their case obviously is a whole lot stronger. That time
35:34
Speaker 9: of death has always been one of the key factors
35:37
Speaker 9: in this case. And the other thing is there was
35:40
Speaker 9: no DNA in nineteen eighty two when this happened. I
35:44
Speaker 9: know that they have had said, sent several pieces of
35:47
Speaker 9: evidence and did some DNA testing. However, it's really difficult
35:52
Speaker 9: to understand what exactly they would if they found anything
35:57
Speaker 9: on the DNA that would be useful now against mister Krausnak.
36:02
Speaker 9: He lived there, his DNA was all over the house,
36:05
Speaker 9: so that's uncertain. They're keeping the evidence quite close to
36:09
Speaker 9: the best, but time of death is clearly a key one.
36:13
Speaker 1: The case remained unsolved for decades, but the FBI's Cold
36:16
Speaker 1: Case Working Group took it back up in twenty sixteen
36:20
Speaker 1: and carried out new forensic tests. Based on those forensic tests,
36:25
Speaker 1: detectives now point the finger at the husband who lied
36:28
Speaker 1: about his PhD. No one else's DNA turned up in
36:33
Speaker 1: the home. No rape, no theft, the axed wipe claim
36:39
Speaker 1: that means the scene was stage. The grand jury and
36:43
Speaker 1: silt in indictment against the husband, charging him with secondary
36:47
Speaker 1: murder in the first of his four wives, Nancy Monahan,
36:52
Speaker 1: who were these other women?
36:54
Speaker 9: He married his second wife in Michigan. After this happened,
36:58
Speaker 9: he took Sarah and went back to Michigan, and that
37:02
Speaker 9: was in nineteen eighty two, and he married his second
37:05
Speaker 9: wife in nineteen eighty six. They were only married a
37:09
Speaker 9: very short time and a difficult situation and then he
37:14
Speaker 9: married his third wife around late eighties or maybe nineteen ninety.
37:21
Speaker 9: I don't have the date in front of me, but
37:22
Speaker 9: we do know that they were married about five years.
37:25
Speaker 9: And now he's married to his fourth wife. They've been married, oh,
37:28
Speaker 9: at least ten years or so, probably a little longer.
37:32
Speaker 1: I can tell you this. The fact that the killer
37:35
Speaker 1: managed to walk free for all these years, in my mind,
37:38
Speaker 1: makes the case even worse. I don't understand the fact
37:43
Speaker 1: that there was no one else's DNA there. The scene
37:46
Speaker 1: was stage. He leaves immediately after the murderer and refuses
37:50
Speaker 1: to speak to police, then moves again. Did he ever,
37:54
Speaker 1: Nancy Monahan, submit to a polygraph or did he ever
37:57
Speaker 1: sit down and talk to police? And where was the funeral?
38:00
Speaker 9: Talked to police that evening that night, right after the discovery,
38:05
Speaker 9: but his parents drove from Michigan overnight and he had
38:09
Speaker 9: promised to come back to the police station the next morning.
38:11
Speaker 9: He did not. He and Sarah went with the parents
38:14
Speaker 9: and went up back to Michigan. He never had a polygraph,
38:18
Speaker 9: He was never interviewed by the police. He did hire
38:22
Speaker 9: a lawyer, who, as defense lawyers do, do not allow
38:27
Speaker 9: the police to talk to him without conditions. So no,
38:32
Speaker 9: he never spoke to police until in twenty sixteen, an
38:38
Speaker 9: investigator from the Brighton Police Department did go to Gig
38:41
Speaker 9: Harbor in Washington where he was living then with an
38:45
Speaker 9: FBI agent and they did speak to him then.
38:47
Speaker 1: At that time, we also know that there were marital problems.
38:51
Speaker 1: He was sleeping on the sofa. We also know that
38:54
Speaker 1: he claimed he would let the daughter talk to police
38:56
Speaker 1: and have an interview, but that never opened. While he
39:01
Speaker 1: seemingly appeared to be cooperative, he never followed through and
39:07
Speaker 1: left town. As it stands right now, the husband of
39:11
Speaker 1: Kathy Krausneck murdered with an axe, convicted forty years after
39:18
Speaker 1: her death Nancy.
39:20
Speaker 6: Not long after, James Krassneck was convicted of killing his wife.
39:24
Speaker 6: The convicted killer has died in prison. Krausneck died from
39:28
Speaker 6: esophageal cancer while appealing his conviction.
39:32
Speaker 1: Goodbye friend,