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00:00:00I'm Craig Melvin and this is Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
00:00:05I loved her so much.
00:00:07She was everything. She was everything to me.
00:00:10Who could do that to my sister?
00:00:13Who would do this to Kathy?
00:00:15There's been, I think, murder across the street.
00:00:20A man came home, discovered his wife in bed, murdered.
00:00:23The police officer said we believe there was a burglary.
00:00:26Was the thought that this had to be some random person on the loose?
00:00:30I think we all thought that.
00:00:32Their three-and-a-half-year-old daughter was home
00:00:34when Kathy was discovered.
00:00:36She had been in the home all day, unattended.
00:00:38She was drawing a picture of the bed and a stick person.
00:00:43What did she see?
00:00:44She saw a bad man in the house. It was in Mommy's bed.
00:00:47It's just heartbreaking.
00:00:48It is.
00:00:49The poor little angel.
00:00:50It was a case that had grown cold.
00:00:52She was three-and-a-half when the crime happened
00:00:54and no one has been able to interview her since.
00:00:57So, I remember waking up and I remember seeing her.
00:01:00And then, like, sitting in my bedroom,
00:01:02like, telling my dollies it would be okay.
00:01:04Something happened in that home that night.
00:01:07This was a case that we needed to solve.
00:01:09Hello, and welcome to Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
00:01:20Kathy Krausnick was a stay-at-home mom to her toddler, Sarah.
00:01:25They usually started their day together until the morning everything changed
00:01:30when Kathy was bludgeoned to death in her bed.
00:01:33Police thought little Sarah may have seen the killer,
00:01:37but it would take decades to unlock the secret of Kathy's murder.
00:01:41Here's Andrea Canning with The Bad Man.
00:01:49A blanket of snow covered the ground that cold morning, February 19th, 1982.
00:01:55Here on this quiet street called Del Rio Drive,
00:01:58winter temperatures hovered just above freezing.
00:02:01Windows were shut tight.
00:02:03Furnaces turned up.
00:02:05Around 6.30 a.m., James Krausnick, a businessman at Kodak,
00:02:09left his house and headed to work in downtown Rochester, New York.
00:02:13His three-year-old daughter Sarah and his wife Kathy were still in bed.
00:02:17Later that day, a close friend, Gloria Winkowski,
00:02:21planned to drive them to a doctor's appointment.
00:02:23I tried calling her all day, and there was no answer at her house.
00:02:27Did you think that maybe James just ended up taking her to the doctor?
00:02:31By 5 o'clock, I figured, oh, he must have taken her.
00:02:33That's around the time James Krausnick arrived back home,
00:02:37only to make a horrific discovery.
00:02:40He ran to the house across the street, where a neighbor called 911.
00:02:44Brighton police officer Marcus Spaker was on patrol that day.
00:02:46As he rushed to the scene, his radio was malfunctioning,
00:02:50so he couldn't hear all the details.
00:02:52I went lights and siren because it was a cause unknown.
00:02:54And as I neared this location, I heard on the dispatch something across the street.
00:03:00So you pull up here?
00:03:02Pulled up here and pulled into this driveway.
00:03:04And the lady of the house was standing on that sidewalk.
00:03:06I walked up to her, and she immediately said,
00:03:08he thinks his wife's been murdered.
00:03:09Oh, my gosh.
00:03:10Across the street, the Krausnick's front door was wide open.
00:03:16And the sheriff's department had an automobile driver.
00:03:18He actually asked the police officer to tell what she was killed.
00:03:21He never really had to kill me.
00:03:23It was just a big deal.
00:03:27From the police officer Pacer, his radio was malfunctioning,
00:03:29so he couldn't hear all the details.
00:03:31I went lights and siren because it was a cause unknown.
00:03:34And as I neared this location, I heard on the dispatch something about across the street.
00:03:37So you pull up here?
00:03:38front door was wide open. So I ran across yelling, is there anybody else in the house?
00:03:44No one answered. He made his way inside, not knowing what he might find.
00:03:49Off to the right in the dining room, he saw items on the carpet,
00:03:53a silver serving set, a woman's purse. The contents spilled out.
00:03:58At that point, I decided to go up the stairs.
00:04:00Up the stairs and into the main bedroom where he encountered a sight he would never forget.
00:04:08I walked in and looked to the right, and that's when I first saw the victim.
00:04:12She looked like she was sleeping with an ax buried into her head.
00:04:16Have you ever seen something like that in your whole life?
00:04:19Well, other than on 50s science fiction movies, that's about it. I never saw anything like that in reality.
00:04:25It was jolting and shocking, and it almost left me thinking, is this real, or is this a mannequin,
00:04:32and is this an evil trick or a prank that someone's trying to pull here?
00:04:40The officer lifted the blanket by the foot of the bed, and then he knew for sure this was no prank.
00:04:47It's something you can't unsee.
00:04:49Standing right here now, I can see the bed. I can see her, and I can see the ax in her head.
00:04:54The victim was 29-year-old Kathy Krausnick.
00:04:58The officer called for backup.
00:05:01Investigator Richard Corrigan quickly arrived on the scene.
00:05:05Were you surprised that it was this neighborhood?
00:05:07This was a low-profile neighborhood.
00:05:09Probably the biggest crime would be a high-priced bicycle out of a garage.
00:05:13So, yes, this is a quiet, quiet community.
00:05:16What details are being shared with you?
00:05:18A man came home, discovered his wife in bed, murdered.
00:05:23There was a small child that was in the house.
00:05:26A child at the scene of a brutal crime.
00:05:29It was the Krausnick's daughter, 3-year-old Sarah.
00:05:33Luckily, she was unharmed.
00:05:34Her father had found her in the house and scooped her up as he ran for help.
00:05:40The medical examiner soon arrived.
00:05:43What is the medical examiner telling you?
00:05:45It appears she'd been dead for a while.
00:05:47Rigor mortis had started to set in.
00:05:49She had been dead more than probably eight hours.
00:05:52That meant the little girl had been inside the home alone with her deceased mother for hours and hours.
00:05:58No one had been there to make her breakfast that morning, to dress her, to comfort her.
00:06:04We were worried about her physical well-being, as well as her mental well-being.
00:06:08I've had nightmares about it because the thought that the little girl was in the house all day with her mother.
00:06:13I just couldn't get my arms around that.
00:06:18What had she seen?
00:06:20What did she know?
00:06:21Questions that would hang over this family, this entire town, longer than anyone could have imagined.
00:06:28Who could be behind such a horrific killing?
00:06:34Investigators canvass the neighborhood for clues.
00:06:37Coming up.
00:06:39The police officer said we believed there was a burglary.
00:06:42I saw this man I had never seen before.
00:06:45I just burst out crying because I still didn't want to believe it.
00:06:49Why would they pick that house?
00:06:51Trying to figure out who, what, when, where, how, why.
00:06:53Who could possibly do this?
00:06:56When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:07:09Kathy Krausnick's family back in Michigan was learning the tragic news.
00:07:13Her younger sister Annette was away at college.
00:07:15I remember coming back to my dorm room and my father was calling me.
00:07:21He says, well, something horrible has happened.
00:07:24He says, your sister was bludgeoned to death.
00:07:27I'll never forget that phone call.
00:07:30The details were almost too much to absorb.
00:07:34The medical examiner believed Kathy had been killed with one blow to the head.
00:07:38Once and once only, with great force.
00:07:41All murder is awful.
00:07:43There's something about an axe that just, for some reason,
00:07:48seems to take it to another level of gruesome and just horrifying.
00:07:52Yeah, I would agree with that.
00:07:54It's an ultimate instrument.
00:07:55It's an instrument of force.
00:07:57Back on the street, neighbors were aware of all the commotion.
00:08:02Joanne Bouvier, who lived a few houses away, had just returned from work.
00:08:05As I passed the Krausnick home, I saw the medical examiner vehicle in their driveway.
00:08:14The police officer came in and said, we believe there was a burglary.
00:08:18Investigator Richard Corrigan had been canvassing the neighborhood for most of the night.
00:08:23Did anyone have any clues that would help you with your investigation?
00:08:28Nothing unusual was reported.
00:08:31It was a cold winter day.
00:08:32Joanne remembered seeing a jogger that morning by the Krausnick's house.
00:08:37I saw this man I had never seen before jogging toward me.
00:08:43He was slowly jogging.
00:08:45Did that mean anything?
00:08:47So many questions.
00:08:48What you do is you start trying to put together a biography of these folks or, you know,
00:08:53trying to figure out who, what, when, where, how, why.
00:08:57And who could possibly do this?
00:08:58This could have totally been a random crime.
00:09:02Correct.
00:09:02Or Kathy was targeted.
00:09:04Or someone could have just snapped, if you will.
00:09:09It was hard for Kathy's family to imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.
00:09:14Her little sister Annette had always looked up to her.
00:09:18She was just, she was everything.
00:09:20She was everything to me.
00:09:21By the time I was five years old, she was already telling me, you're going to college.
00:09:25No way.
00:09:26If it wasn't for her, I don't think I would have went to college, actually.
00:09:31But she made it clear that there was no other path in my life but her baby sister was going to go to college.
00:09:37What was her personality like?
00:09:39She was giving.
00:09:41She was nurturing.
00:09:44She was caring.
00:09:45Everyone loved my sister.
00:09:47She was beautiful, too.
00:09:48I mean, when she walked into a room, heads would turn, literally.
00:09:51Candy Stephens grew up around the corner from Kathy's family in Mount Clemens, Michigan.
00:09:58She had the sweetest personality.
00:10:00She was happy-go-lucky, always smiling, always perky.
00:10:06It was back in high school when Kathy met her future husband, James Krausnick.
00:10:11The Krausnick family owned a carpet business.
00:10:14Everybody's carpet in Mount Clemens came from Krausnick's.
00:10:15Did it?
00:10:17Oh, yeah.
00:10:17So they supplied all the...
00:10:19Well, that's just where you went to.
00:10:20That's where my first house, that's where my carpet came from, my parents' house.
00:10:24Everyone knew the Krausnick's, the Krausnick's, the Krausnick's, and they had a nice home on the water.
00:10:31They were just a beautiful couple, and Kathy loved Jim's social status.
00:10:36My mom, she always said, marry up, marry up, marry up, and so that's what Kathy was doing.
00:10:43And my mom was extremely happy that she was marrying Jim Krausnick.
00:10:51So as you're standing there and you're watching these two exchange their vows, Kathy and James, how are you?
00:10:57I'm crying.
00:10:58I remember literally crying because I was just so happy for my sister.
00:11:02I loved her so much.
00:11:04I wanted her just to go and have this beautiful life.
00:11:08They moved out west to Colorado, where James worked toward his Ph.D. in economics.
00:11:13That's where baby Sarah was born.
00:11:15Sarah was just a little ball, just happiness and joy.
00:11:19And my parents' first grandchild, Sarah was...
00:11:22It was a great welcome to our family, great addition.
00:11:26More good news came a couple of years later when James announced he'd completed his doctorate.
00:11:31The whole family was ecstatic.
00:11:34That Jim finally graduated.
00:11:35He was Dr. Krausnick, big-time Dr. Krausnick.
00:11:38James and Kathy and Sarah eventually moved to Rochester in 1981.
00:11:44James gets a new job.
00:11:45Correct.
00:11:46It was a promotion for Jim, more money, and Jim was finally going to be able to use his Ph.D., and they were going to live the life they wanted to live.
00:11:58Back then, Eastman Kodak was the largest employer in Rochester, and it had offered James a great opportunity working as an economist.
00:12:05They bought the quaint home on Del Rio Drive in Upscale Brighton, and that's when Kathy met Gloria Wienkowski.
00:12:12We had just both moved to Rochester, and we kind of just clipped as friends.
00:12:18We'd have playdates at her house and at my house.
00:12:20Was Sarah her world, her whole world?
00:12:23Oh, my God, yes.
00:12:24Sarah was a sweetheart, and she looked just like her mama, and she was just so close to her.
00:12:31Kathy was always hugging her and kissing her, just like I did with mine.
00:12:34It was wonderful.
00:12:35What was Sarah like?
00:12:36She was a little doll.
00:12:38My daughter was a year younger, so she got along with Sarah really well.
00:12:41They play their dolls together.
00:12:44They did everything together.
00:12:46Remember, on the day of the murder, Gloria had been trying to reach Kathy to take her and Sarah to that doctor's appointment.
00:12:52But after not hearing from her all day and into the evening...
00:12:55I was getting very worried.
00:12:58Gloria kept calling.
00:12:59The policeman answered, and I thought it was Jim.
00:13:03So I said, Jim, and he goes, no, this is officer so-and-so, and I go, oh, my God.
00:13:08The officer confirmed harrowing news that her friend was dead.
00:13:13And I just burst out crying, because I still didn't want to believe it.
00:13:17Brighton was a bedroom town, just a beautiful little, you know, hamlet in Rochester, and nothing like that ever happened.
00:13:26Why would they pick that house?
00:13:28That house, with the little girl in it, all day, all alone.
00:13:33That breaks my heart.
00:13:35I can just see Sarah going over and wanting to grab her mom and just hug her.
00:13:39I mean, the poor little angel.
00:13:42What had happened on that cold, brutal morning?
00:13:46Police were about to speak with not just the husband, but that very young witness, Sarah, just three years old.
00:13:53That is a tough witness.
00:13:56A near impossible witness.
00:14:00Coming up.
00:14:01Her clothes were mismatched.
00:14:03It looked like she had maybe dressed herself that day.
00:14:05Just heartbreaking.
00:14:06It is.
00:14:07She saw a bad man in the house, and he was in mommy's bed.
00:14:11When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:14:23With the Krausnicks' home on Del Rio Drive now a crime scene, James Krausnick and his daughter Sarah were down at the Brighton Police Department.
00:14:31Little Sarah sat with neighbors while James spoke with detectives.
00:14:36What was James' demeanor by the time you were able to interview him?
00:14:40He was very quiet.
00:14:41I was, you know, concerned, worried about his daughter and what happened.
00:14:45You know, answering your questions.
00:14:47Basically, he's cooperative.
00:14:49Did he have any idea who would want to harm his wife?
00:14:51He indicated no one to us.
00:14:53Was anything out of the ordinary did he express when he was leaving the house that morning?
00:14:56He said everyone was asleep, and he goes to work.
00:14:59He had some meetings.
00:15:00He had gone with some other coworkers to meetings outside their immediate office area, another part of Kodak.
00:15:06I think he said he ate lunch by himself.
00:15:09And he came back, and then he, at the end of the day, went home.
00:15:15James said he arrived home a little before 5 p.m., saw a windowpane smashed on the door that led from the garage into the house,
00:15:22and immediately knew something was wrong.
00:15:24He said he came home, found a broken door, went in, and discovered his wife in bed with the axe in her head.
00:15:35He said he didn't touch her.
00:15:36Instead, ran to his daughter's bedroom, where he found little Sarah snuggled up in the corner of her bed in a daze.
00:15:43And immediately ran to the neighbor with the child.
00:15:45So he takes her, his daughter, over to the neighbor.
00:15:48He leaves the home with the daughter, yes, and runs to the neighbor.
00:15:51While James talked with the police, neighbor Joanne was keeping Sarah company in another room.
00:15:58She was drawing, and one of the pictures that I recall her drawing was a picture of the bed,
00:16:07and it looked like a stick person kind of drawing.
00:16:14This toddler, this little girl, is...
00:16:17Walking a house with her murdered mother laying in the bed with an axe in her head, yes.
00:16:21It's just heartbreaking.
00:16:22It is.
00:16:22Our youth officer had a chance to talk to her a little bit, but, you know, it's a three-and-a-half-year-old who just said toddler.
00:16:29Could Sarah help the police find out what had happened?
00:16:32I have a hard time getting anything out of my three-and-a-half-year-old son about what happened at school that day.
00:16:37But if it was something horrible, he saw somebody get hit with a baseball bat, let's say.
00:16:43Maybe, yes, maybe he would.
00:16:47Sarah was able to give police some details.
00:16:50She told the officer that when she woke up, her daddy had already left for work, how no one was home to make her breakfast,
00:16:56and it appeared as though no one was there to help her get dressed.
00:17:00She was wearing a red sweater over a pink sweater and two pairs of socks.
00:17:04Her clothes were mismatched.
00:17:05It looked like she had maybe dressed herself that day, and we don't know.
00:17:09We were trying to determine if she was able to get anything to eat or drink during the day.
00:17:14She told police what she saw when she went into her parents' bedroom that morning.
00:17:18She saw a bad man in the house, and he was in mommy's bed.
00:17:22Really hard to hear that, that a, you know, three-and-a-half-year-old is giving this account.
00:17:26She also said that he might have had a hammer.
00:17:28I believe something to that effect, yes.
00:17:30In fact, the officer taking notes wrote down that Sarah later corrected herself, saying it was an axe that she saw.
00:17:39And Sarah seemed to have a description of the bad man.
00:17:43She said he had long blonde hair, had no clothes, no glasses, and stayed a long time in the house.
00:17:49It seemed, at first, anyhow, that the little girl had seen her mother's killer.
00:17:54But as Sarah spoke, it became apparent she wasn't describing the killer.
00:17:58She was describing the crime scene with her mother in the bed.
00:18:03She probably didn't recognize her mother so soon, you know, being with all the massive trauma, that she probably didn't recognize her mother.
00:18:10I mean, I just hope that she didn't see it actually happen.
00:18:13You know, that's...
00:18:14I don't think so.
00:18:15By midnight, James and Sarah were driven back to the neighbor's house.
00:18:19And the police, as a matter of procedure, verified James' whereabouts that day.
00:18:24He'd been at work.
00:18:26Had his alibi checked out by this point?
00:18:29We had some people from Kodak, or one or two, who actually showed up at the police department.
00:18:32He was at work that day.
00:18:36Police requested that the family monitor Sarah's conversations and any new drawings.
00:18:40The next day, James and Sarah went to Michigan to be with family.
00:18:45That's where they laid Kathy to rest.
00:18:49I was devastated.
00:18:51And here I am at my sister's funeral, my best friend, my mentor, my world.
00:18:55This is Kathy.
00:18:56This is the one who made everyone proud.
00:18:59Right.
00:19:00This beautiful, wonderful, loving person.
00:19:03Who could be so cruel to do that to her?
00:19:06And now Sarah was left motherless at just three years old.
00:19:12In the days after the murder, police noted that Sarah talked to her dad about that morning,
00:19:17saying,
00:19:17I couldn't find you.
00:19:19I didn't know how to call you.
00:19:20I didn't know what street to ride my bike on.
00:19:23Was she saying, where's mommy?
00:19:25I do recall her saying that a bad man hurt my mommy.
00:19:29That's what she would say.
00:19:31And police looking for Kathy's killer found out there was a very bad man who lived just a few miles away.
00:19:41Coming up.
00:19:42Was the thought that this had to be some, you know, crazed person on the loose?
00:19:46I think we all thought that.
00:19:48A new lead, a man with a violent past.
00:19:52Ed Larrabee is a name that came up, a known rapist.
00:19:55Yes, that is correct.
00:19:57He was very hostile.
00:19:58Yes, get off his porch, get off his steps.
00:20:00No way I'm going to talk to you.
00:20:02Sounds very angry.
00:20:03Yes.
00:20:04When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:20:14Welcome back to Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
00:20:17I'm Craig Melvin.
00:20:18Kathy Krausnick's murder shook her neighbors and police.
00:20:21They were haunted that her toddler, Sarah, was home alone for hours while Kathy lay dead.
00:20:29As investigators tried to make sense of a senseless scene, they were about to get an intriguing tip about a man whose disturbing past was no secret to police.
00:20:39Back to Andrea Canning with the bad man.
00:20:44The day after hearing about her sister's murder, college student Annette Schlosser says police officers knocked on her dorm room door.
00:20:54What were the police asking you in the dorm?
00:20:57What kind of questions?
00:20:58They would ask me if I knew anybody that would have been able to do this.
00:21:04You know, I don't really recall the exact questions.
00:21:07To be honest, I was still, I was in shock.
00:21:09I was, I, just numb.
00:21:13And desperately afraid.
00:21:16She lived hundreds of miles from Brighton, New York, but Annette said she was terrified of the unknown killer.
00:21:22I would sometimes have friends come over and just stay the night because I was afraid.
00:21:27And I'd be looking out my window a lot.
00:21:31This changed you?
00:21:32Oh, absolutely changed my life.
00:21:34I don't even know who I would have been if this hadn't happened.
00:21:39She says none of it made sense.
00:21:42Her sweet, sunny sister killed in her bed.
00:21:45Little Sarah left all alone.
00:21:47Was the thought amongst the family that this had to be some, you know, crazed, like, random person on the loose?
00:21:54I think that's what we thought.
00:21:56I think we all thought that.
00:21:57Investigators tried to put a face on who that random person might be.
00:22:03They checked in with neighboring police departments about recent burglaries and assaults in the area.
00:22:08A solid tip came in about a sex offender fresh out of prison.
00:22:13Ed Larrabee is a name that came up in this investigation, a known rapist.
00:22:18Yes, that is correct.
00:22:19Who lived very close.
00:22:20Within a mile, if I'm not mistaken, yes.
00:22:22Close enough to cross paths with Kathy, an investigator went to interview Larrabee at his apartment.
00:22:30He was very hostile.
00:22:31He was hostile to my colleague, yes.
00:22:33Told him to F off?
00:22:34Correct.
00:22:34And get off his porch, get off his steps.
00:22:37No way I'm going to talk to you.
00:22:38You have no right.
00:22:40I'll have you arrested.
00:22:41Sounds very angry.
00:22:42Yes.
00:22:43Did anyone check out his alibi?
00:22:45Yes.
00:22:46Where was he?
00:22:47He was at work.
00:22:49But his alibi wasn't exactly airtight.
00:22:52Larrabee's shift started at 7 a.m., and the investigators had no idea where he'd been before that.
00:22:57If he doesn't talk to you, he's not going to tell you what he did before he went to work.
00:23:01Best you can do is try to place him best you can.
00:23:03But if a person doesn't cooperate with you, and you're asking me, can we tell you what he was doing?
00:23:07I don't know.
00:23:08He wouldn't talk to us.
00:23:11Frustrating, but investigators did have other ways to check him out.
00:23:14They learned that Ed Larrabee drove a yellow car, though none of the neighbors mentioned seeing it on the morning of the murder.
00:23:21Larrabee's fingerprints were also on file, but crime scene technicians found no trace of them at the Krausnick house.
00:23:27And even though Larrabee had a lengthy rap sheet, he had never been accused of murder.
00:23:32Larrabee's previous crimes had mostly been sexual offenses.
00:23:35There was no sign Kathy had been raped.
00:23:38His method of crime didn't seem to fit what we had.
00:23:40So the investigator ruled Larrabee out for the time being.
00:23:45He was more interested in what he could learn from the crime scene itself.
00:23:48He had a lot of questions when he studied photos of the inside of the house.
00:23:52What he saw didn't resemble any burglary he'd ever worked before.
00:23:57The bedroom had valuable items around.
00:24:00Nothing was thrown about.
00:24:02Like drawers were emptied, dumped on the ground, or thrown open and gone through.
00:24:06You saw none of that?
00:24:07None of that at all.
00:24:08In the dining room, the contents of Kathy's purse were spilled out, but her wallet and credit cards were there for the taking.
00:24:16There was a pile of sterling silver neatly stacked nearby.
00:24:20One silver tray placed so carefully on the floor that the mail was still standing upright between the salt and pepper shakers.
00:24:27This was not the usual calling card of a burglar.
00:24:29Burglars, they're like Vikings.
00:24:32They pillage, they burn, they grab all they can.
00:24:35So this is, there was no, usually they'll grab a bag and they dump valuable items into it or in their pockets.
00:24:41This was not done.
00:24:42Maybe somebody was trying to take the tea set and they got interrupted or.
00:24:46Yes, but if you're interrupted and you go to the extent of murdering someone, why don't you complete at least what you're there for?
00:24:52Had there been burglaries in the area?
00:24:54Was that a concern?
00:24:55No, we hadn't had any serious problems in the area recently prior to the events.
00:25:01The investigators suspected the burglary was fake.
00:25:05Someone had staged it, starting with that broken windowpane on the door that led from the garage into the house.
00:25:12There was a wooden tool unrelated to the murder weapon sitting by the door.
00:25:17Investigators believed it had been used to smash the glass, part of the staging.
00:25:21So if a burglar was going to reach in, you would have to put your hand through broken glass and possibly risk cutting yourself.
00:25:30We should have had blood on it or someone should have injured themselves possibly.
00:25:33What if they're wearing leather gloves?
00:25:35It's possible, but look more like someone had broken a glass even though the door was already unlocked.
00:25:40If there was no burglary, that meant Kathy had not been killed by a random thief.
00:25:45In fact, the investigator suspected Kathy's killer had staged the burglary to cover up a very deliberate act of murder.
00:25:53Did that say anything to you as far as a profiling, if you will, of that an axe was used to the head?
00:26:00I mean, it's very personal and just gruesome.
00:26:04And final.
00:26:05This is a once angry, forceful, fatal blow.
00:26:11I'm just going to do this once and once only, and I'm very angry.
00:26:15Investigators needed to figure out who could possibly be angry at Kathy Krausnick.
00:26:21And then a new clue landed on their desk.
00:26:26That new clue suggested that Krausnick's marriage was not as happy as it seemed.
00:26:32Was Kathy hiding a secret?
00:26:35Coming up.
00:26:36There was a postcard that got sent in that made it sound like someone was having an affair with Kathy.
00:26:41Hints of an affair and a sudden surprising moment.
00:26:46Jim became very upset, jumped up.
00:26:48I don't want to hear this.
00:26:49I don't want to talk about it.
00:26:51And, you know, became very, very emotional.
00:26:54When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:26:57The broken windowpane.
00:27:07The family's silver neatly piled up next to a garbage bag.
00:27:11It didn't look like any burglary investigator Corrigan had ever seen.
00:27:15He suspected Kathy's killer had staged the burglary to throw investigators off the trail.
00:27:20Which meant Kathy's murder wasn't random at all.
00:27:24You had a lot to figure out.
00:27:26We had a lot of unanswered questions.
00:27:30Then, a few days after the murder, a tantalizing lead showed up at the police station.
00:27:36There was a letter that got sent in that made it sound like someone was having an affair with Kathy.
00:27:41Really?
00:27:41And that was pretty much the gist of it.
00:27:44Brighton Police Detectives Stephen Hunt and Mark Liberatore, who worked the case years later, studied the letter carefully.
00:27:51It appeared to have been mailed locally and there was no signature.
00:27:54It was an individual who said that he had gone to the door that morning of the incident.
00:27:59The letter began.
00:28:01I am a friend of Kathleen.
00:28:02I waited for her husband to leave yesterday and I went to her house and she did not answer the door.
00:28:07And perhaps most chilling of all, the writer said three-year-old Sarah had come to the door.
00:28:14The child couldn't get the door open.
00:28:16Whether he could see the child or not, it didn't say.
00:28:19And whoever wrote the letter said that, I'm a married man so I can't get involved.
00:28:23Was that alluding to that he had been with Kathy?
00:28:26We don't know.
00:28:27That's kind of a mystery.
00:28:28So maybe, maybe that's what he was trying to say.
00:28:30I'm a married man, I was having an affair.
00:28:32Maybe.
00:28:32It's possible.
00:28:33Also possible that someone could have sent it to throw the police off.
00:28:37And send him down another path.
00:28:39Who knows.
00:28:39So, you know, who knows.
00:28:41What a cryptic clue.
00:28:44So what exactly was the state of the Krausnicks marriage?
00:28:48Investigator Corrigan headed to the place where it all began.
00:28:52You'd get on a plane?
00:28:53Yes.
00:28:53And you'd go to Michigan?
00:28:54Yes.
00:28:55You know, family would possibly know better if they were arguing about something.
00:28:58You know, money.
00:28:59Anything?
00:29:00Addiction.
00:29:00Nothing was coming.
00:29:01Nothing?
00:29:02Nothing.
00:29:02Kathy's family told the investigator the couple were inseparable.
00:29:07Two peas in a pod who only had eyes for each other.
00:29:11But they said the recent move to Brighton had been a little rocky, especially for Kathy.
00:29:16The washing machine was broke and they didn't have money to fix it.
00:29:21And they only had one car.
00:29:22And Jim would take that to work every day.
00:29:24And just being alone in that house with no car and a toddler, that could get really overwhelming
00:29:31and lonely.
00:29:32Absolutely.
00:29:33In a new town.
00:29:34Exactly.
00:29:36Exactly.
00:29:37I think that would be a lot for any mom.
00:29:41Yeah, I could almost feel her overwhelm this.
00:29:44Now, you know, I'm talking about it out loud.
00:29:46I can't even imagine what she was feeling.
00:29:49James agreed to meet the investigator, too.
00:29:51He brought his brother-in-law and dad for support.
00:29:54Did James express that they were happy, that this was a normal family?
00:29:57Yes.
00:29:57He indicated, you know, they were very much in love.
00:30:00No indication of a third party or affairs or a secret side.
00:30:06And no trace of any financial motive, either.
00:30:09Did James have a big life insurance policy on Kathy?
00:30:12Not that we found.
00:30:14The investigator noticed how quiet James seemed during the 90-minute interview.
00:30:18Until.
00:30:19His brother-in-law asked, so where's it going with the burglary or something like that?
00:30:24And at that, Jim became very upset, jumped up.
00:30:28I'm not, I don't want to hear this.
00:30:29I don't want to talk about it.
00:30:31And, you know, became very, very emotional.
00:30:34And we had to calm him down.
00:30:37James said he was tired and ended the interview.
00:30:40That didn't surprise Annette.
00:30:41She said James hadn't been acting like himself in those early days.
00:30:45He'd barely spoken to the family, even pulling little Sarah away from her at the funeral.
00:30:50And I'm thinking, that's kind of odd.
00:30:53I know I'm upset and everything, but you wouldn't even let me talk to Sarah.
00:30:58After ending his interview so abruptly, James did talk to investigators several more times.
00:31:04And according to one police report, he begged them, please don't give up working on my case.
00:31:09I need to know who did this.
00:31:11But the investigator wondered how seriously to take him when he found out James had gotten his own attorney.
00:31:17The fact that he lawyered up put strong suspicion on him.
00:31:19I feel like the whole lawyer thing is so tricky because defense attorneys are going to tell you to get a lawyer, you know, just to protect yourself.
00:31:27And then police or, you know, people can see it as, you know, a sign of guilt.
00:31:32It's like you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.
00:31:34Well, if you come home and you find your spouse murdered, why do you feel the need to get an attorney?
00:31:40Not everyone trusts the police.
00:31:41Well, but this is not a person who has had a lot of negative police contact throughout his life.
00:31:47It didn't fit the mold.
00:31:48As the weeks passed, the investigators' other leads started to fizzle.
00:31:53You ended up interviewing some 300 people in this case.
00:31:57Or more, yes.
00:31:58That's a lot of people.
00:31:59We've tried to turn over every stone, make sure you don't overlook anything.
00:32:03But you never, with all these interviews, you never come across the smoking gun or the smoking axe in this case.
00:32:09No.
00:32:11The case went cold.
00:32:13It seemed like any hope of finding Kathy's killer was melting away with the snow.
00:32:21Coming up.
00:32:21My mom would just cry every day.
00:32:24It just broke my heart.
00:32:25Nothing was being done.
00:32:27And we just couldn't let that happen.
00:32:29Another killing.
00:32:30Another town.
00:32:32And a suspect who was very familiar.
00:32:35He was a serial rapist.
00:32:36Who was living right near Stephanie.
00:32:38That's right.
00:32:38When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:32:41After the murder of his wife, James Krasnick decided to leave Brighton behind for good.
00:32:56He and Sarah moved in with his parents in Michigan.
00:32:58He took a job at the family carpet store.
00:33:01Annette saw Sarah when James brought her by to visit.
00:33:03Could you see if she had been traumatized?
00:33:06Or, I mean, she's so little.
00:33:07How do you know what is going on in that little head of hers?
00:33:12Yeah, we didn't know.
00:33:13We didn't know what that poor little girl was thinking.
00:33:15As Sarah got bigger, her mother's case was going nowhere.
00:33:19Five years went by.
00:33:20And then ten.
00:33:22You end up retiring?
00:33:23Yes.
00:33:24And this is not solved?
00:33:26Correct.
00:33:27Kathy's friends and family tried to keep the case alive.
00:33:30It was important to find who did it and bring them to justice.
00:33:37Gloria bugged any police officer who visited the local pharmacy she owned.
00:33:41And I always brought it up.
00:33:43Any policeman that came in, I would sit there and say, you know, what about the Krosnack case?
00:33:48You ever going to do something about it?
00:33:49We had a lot of time that passed and nothing was being done.
00:33:53And we just couldn't let that happen.
00:33:56Annette wasn't that frightened college kid anymore.
00:33:59She was older and wiser and her sister's biggest champion.
00:34:03Is this getting contentious at all, the fact that there's been no movement that you're aware of?
00:34:10No, contentious is a very good word.
00:34:13Every time a new police chief would come on, I would try to make contact, or they would contact me,
00:34:19and they would say, you know, the file's sitting here on my desk.
00:34:22It was there, but what was really happening?
00:34:24Right.
00:34:25We used to sit around my parents' dining room table a lot.
00:34:29And I remember my mom would just cry every day.
00:34:32It just broke my heart.
00:34:33She would just break down and cry.
00:34:35What Annette didn't know was that in a nearby town, less than 20 miles from the house where her sister was murdered,
00:34:41another woman had been murdered, and her family was grieving and waiting for answers, too.
00:34:47Ten years after Kathy's murder, a bubbly music teacher named Stephanie Kupchinski vanished from her apartment in the middle of the night.
00:34:54And just like Kathy, she was new to town.
00:34:57This was her fresh start here.
00:34:59Yes, it was.
00:35:00It was.
00:35:01And she was cut down in the middle of it.
00:35:03Rachel Rear is Stephanie's stepsister.
00:35:06Her mother married Stephanie's dad several years after Stephanie disappeared.
00:35:10About six months after the wedding, two little boys discovered Stephanie's skull and remains in a creek in Holly, New York.
00:35:20Oh, my gosh.
00:35:21So it officially became a homicide.
00:35:24And the prime suspect was someone you might recognize.
00:35:28He was a serial rapist.
00:35:30Who was living right near Stephanie.
00:35:31That's right.
00:35:33Ed Larrabee was the sex offender investigators had interviewed years before about Kathy's murder.
00:35:39He'd been a maintenance worker at Stephanie's apartment complex.
00:35:42After Stephanie's disappearance, police found out several residents had complained about him.
00:35:47A couple women thought maybe he illegally entered their apartments.
00:35:51One woman thought he had been watching her sleep.
00:35:55By the time Stephanie's skull was discovered, Larrabee was back in prison, convicted of another sexual assault.
00:36:01He was gray-haired and sick when Detective Sergeant Stan Chizik, the lead investigator on Stephanie's case, went to pay him a visit behind bars.
00:36:09And he met with you.
00:36:10And he met with you.
00:36:11He did.
00:36:11But he wasn't going to talk to us.
00:36:14He basically told us, and he wasn't going to talk to us.
00:36:19Just like he told investigators in Kathy's case nearly 30 years earlier.
00:36:24But the detective investigating Stephanie's murder was determined to get Larrabee talking.
00:36:29He and a colleague started writing letters to him in jail.
00:36:32Surprisingly, Larrabee wrote back.
00:36:34We built a relationship with him, and in order for us to build a relationship, you know, he had to trust us.
00:36:42So, I mean, he would ask for candy, little stuff, and we would send him.
00:36:47He'd ask for something, and then you'd give a little?
00:36:49Yes.
00:36:50You're slowly reeling him in.
00:36:51Yes.
00:36:53Eventually, Larrabee cracked.
00:36:55He confessed that he was Stephanie's killer.
00:36:57Did he have any remorse when he confessed to Stephanie's murder?
00:37:03Not at all.
00:37:04Not at all.
00:37:06He talked about it just very matter-of-factly.
00:37:23Larrabee said he surprised Stephanie in her apartment.
00:37:26First, he raped her.
00:37:28After some thought, I decided that the thing to do was eliminate the witness.
00:37:37So you decided at that point you were going to kill her?
00:37:40Yeah.
00:37:41Not long after he confessed, Ed Larrabee was charged with two counts of second-degree murder.
00:37:47And with that, the rapist became an alleged killer.
00:37:50Back in the day, detectives investigating Kathy Krausnick's murder had discounted Larrabee
00:37:56in part because he'd never been accused of murder.
00:37:58But here he was, confessing to just that.
00:38:01And there was something else that possibly tied him to Kathy's killing.
00:38:05Ed Larrabee had committed at least one rape wearing a ski mask.
00:38:09Yeah, a ski mask.
00:38:11He also, I think, wore hockey masks and other rapes.
00:38:15Yeah, it was pretty creepy and scary.
00:38:18Remember, Kathy's neighbor said she saw a jogger running near the Krausnick's house on the morning of the murder.
00:38:24She says there was one other thing she noticed about the jogger.
00:38:27He was wearing a royal blue ski mask.
00:38:31Could the neighbor have seen Ed Larrabee that morning running from the scene?
00:38:37Mark Henderson became Brighton's police chief nearly 30 years after Kathy's murder.
00:38:42The investigation had been in limbo for decades.
00:38:46Until one day in 2014, he got word of a possible break in the case.
00:38:51There was an individual in prison, and he wanted to confess to the axe murder.
00:38:55It was Ed Larrabee.
00:38:58This is the biggest news your department has had in a really long time.
00:39:02Relative to the axe murder, yes.
00:39:04Back in 1982, Larrabee had rudely told investigators he didn't want to talk.
00:39:09What would he say now?
00:39:11What happens?
00:39:12So the investigator who was assigned the case worked with the state police
00:39:15and reported back that the information that was being reported by Ed Larrabee
00:39:21did not match what was in the investigatory file.
00:39:27Larrabee's physical description of Kathy could not have been more wrong,
00:39:31telling investigators she had short, dark hair and glasses.
00:39:34He didn't even use her name.
00:39:36Investigators decided he was making the whole thing up.
00:39:39But instead of giving up, the new chief kept Kathy's case on the front burner.
00:39:43He asked the FBI for help and teamed up with Sandra Dorley, the Monroe County District Attorney.
00:39:50We were in a conference room for a couple hours and just went through every single piece of evidence that there was.
00:39:56I kept thinking there's got to be something that we could test for DNA.
00:39:59A lot of items had been bagged at the crime scene.
00:40:02A sock, a screwdriver, shards of glass from the broken door.
00:40:06You know, the axe had never been examined.
00:40:08I mean, obviously there was blood on it.
00:40:13So obviously that was, you know, something that we wanted tested.
00:40:16They packed it all up and sent it to the FBI.
00:40:19The hope was, and the FBI agreed, that they could process that evidence to those standards that were not around in 1982.
00:40:29And the police chief assigned investigators Stephen Hunt and Mark Liberatore to take a fresh look at the case file.
00:40:35It's several thousand pages of paper.
00:40:38One of the things you wanted to do in your new investigation was come to the house to see for yourself at the, not the scene of the crime, but as close as you can get to it decades later.
00:40:50Yeah, because pictures don't put it into perspective, not when you're there and you can see distances and just feel it and just see it.
00:40:57The detectives thought it was obvious right away that the burglary was staged.
00:41:01Like the original investigators, they said the broken window on the door leading into the house was a giveaway.
00:41:06The perpetrator wanted us to think that they broke a window here in the door and then unlocked it.
00:41:13But if you really think about it, you look at the pictures from back in 1982, there's pieces of glass that are still in that pane.
00:41:19And if you put your hand in there and you button hook around trying to unlock it, you'd most likely get caught on one of the two pieces.
00:41:25There's a really, really large piece.
00:41:27Probably pulling the glass out.
00:41:28Right, yeah, pulling the glass out, cutting your arm.
00:41:31And there might have been some fibers left behind on that, but there was nothing.
00:41:34So you think this was part of the script to just smash the window to make it look like this is where the intruder came in?
00:41:40Exactly, right. Didn't make sense.
00:41:42Same with that silver tray set down so carefully on the dining room floor next to the garbage bag.
00:41:47And there was something new that struck Detective Hunt when he looked more closely at that bag.
00:41:53On the inside of this bag, there was a shoe print.
00:41:56And back in 1982, they looked into it, but they couldn't figure it out.
00:41:59They didn't have anything to compare it to.
00:42:01And they just chalked it up as like a moccasin-style tread.
00:42:05But now that old clue was about to walk them toward a new lead.
00:42:10Coming up.
00:42:10Tracking down the killer's shoes, turns out it's a brand police had seen before, inside Kathy's house.
00:42:20You're thinking maybe these shoes could be a match to the tread on the garbage bag?
00:42:26Right.
00:42:27When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:42:36Welcome back to Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
00:42:39I'm Craig Melvin.
00:42:4032 years after Kathy Krausnick's murder, convicted sex offender Ed Larrabee confessed to the crime.
00:42:47But when the details he shared didn't add up, police concluded he was lying.
00:42:53The truth of who killed Kathy remained a frustrating secret until an old clue resurfaced,
00:43:01pointing investigators to someone else they'd met before.
00:43:05Back to Andrea Canning with The Bad Man.
00:43:10Kathy Krausnick's murder investigation had been cold for decades.
00:43:16But police chief Mark Henderson insisted she was never forgotten.
00:43:19In time, the intensity of the crime faded, but the fact that there was a homicide and it had gone unresolved, you know, it was still thought about.
00:43:32And investigators weren't just thinking about the case, they were investigating.
00:43:37With fresh eyes, Detective Stephen Hunt discovered something, a connection to that shoe print on a garbage bag.
00:43:43I need to look into it. It was a good clue.
00:43:47The detective scoured the internet and tracked down the brand of shoe that he believed matched the shoe print.
00:43:52It looked like it came from a pair of docksides.
00:43:55If there was an intruder and it was a burglary, would you expect them to be wearing docksides?
00:43:59I mean, not that...
00:43:59In February when it's 30 degrees with nine inches of snow on the ground, no.
00:44:03Not that intruders have a uniform, but it didn't really...
00:44:06You're not wearing docksides.
00:44:07Didn't really make sense.
00:44:07You can't run from the police quickly.
00:44:09Detective Hunt thought he might have an explanation.
00:44:12He remembered something he'd spotted in another one of the crime scene photos.
00:44:17A pair of boat shoes in the room where Kathy was killed.
00:44:20They look like docksides and they belong to James.
00:44:23It seems like kind of a long shot, but you're thinking maybe these shoes could be a match to the tread on the garbage bag?
00:44:31Right, because I dug deeper and these are the shoes that he wore all the time.
00:44:35I talked with Kathy's sister, Annette, and she said if he wasn't wearing boat shoes, he wasn't wearing anything at all.
00:44:42Was this evidence that James was the one who staged the burglary?
00:44:46It was a profiler back in 82, FBI profiler, that wrote up a little synopsis of the killer.
00:44:52Oh, I'm so curious. What did they say?
00:44:54My favorite quote is that the person who did this is an intelligent person, but not criminally intelligent.
00:45:02That could fit PhD economist James Krausnick.
00:45:06The district attorney noticed something else in the case file that seems suspicious about Kathy's husband.
00:45:12What we found interesting was within 24 hours, he packs up and leaves Rochester.
00:45:19I have to say, if my spouse was murdered in our bed with an ax, I would be out of there.
00:45:25I would take my kids and leave because I'd be so terrified.
00:45:28But would you call the police and ask them, how are you doing on the investigation?
00:45:33Do you have any leads? What can I do to help you?
00:45:37James had not.
00:45:38After talking to detectives in those early days, he had never reached out to check in with them.
00:45:43Not once in 30 years.
00:45:45Investigators wanted to know what he'd been up to all that time.
00:45:49By 2016, he was living near Seattle.
00:45:52What was James doing in Washington?
00:45:53He was the vice president of sales for a lumber company out there.
00:45:57Sounds like he had a good job.
00:45:59Yes, I would say.
00:46:00Nice home as a fairway in his backyard.
00:46:04And he was remarried to wife number four.
00:46:06Oh, so he's been married three times?
00:46:10Correct.
00:46:10Since Kathy's death?
00:46:12Yes.
00:46:13I mean, that's a whole other can of worms to unpack right there.
00:46:18It is.
00:46:19Detective Liberatore interviewed James' ex-wives.
00:46:23His first wife after Kathy's death said the marriage had lasted less than a year.
00:46:27I remember her telling me that, you know, James just abruptly ended it.
00:46:31And, you know.
00:46:32Like, real abruptly, though.
00:46:33Yes.
00:46:34She came upstairs with some coffee.
00:46:36He's like, this isn't working.
00:46:38And she's like, what, the coffee?
00:46:39And he's like, no loss.
00:46:41Oh, my gosh.
00:46:41And that was it.
00:46:42Had she expressed if he had gotten violent or if he was an angry person?
00:46:46None of that.
00:46:47Her expression to me was that, you know, she never experienced any of that.
00:46:51Neither had James' other ex-wife.
00:46:54You'd think, though, if someone's capable of killing their wife with an axe,
00:46:58that he might have a temper that would come through.
00:47:01Mm-hmm.
00:47:01Mild-mannered, reserved.
00:47:04That's how Kathy's family thought of James, too.
00:47:07You're thinking that there's no way James would ever kill Kathy.
00:47:10Absolutely.
00:47:11That's what I was thinking.
00:47:12No way.
00:47:13Why?
00:47:14Because I didn't think that he had that in him.
00:47:20He was, he didn't seem like that personality to me.
00:47:25Investigators wanted to decide for themselves, so they made a plan.
00:47:30They were going to show up at James Krausnick's door, unannounced, tape recorder rolling, like ghosts from the past.
00:47:38Coming up, a conversation becomes a confrontation.
00:47:46Were you having troubles with your marriage?
00:47:47No.
00:47:48Okay.
00:47:48We had an absolutely wonderful marriage.
00:47:50We're getting information to the contrary.
00:47:52When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:47:55It's painful for her to remember the carefree afternoons, Annette says she spent playing with Kathy and baby Sarah before the murder.
00:48:11We would just all sit in the playroom and just play together, and we'd maybe order a pizza, and we would just hang out.
00:48:18I mean, we were just, it was the most awesome time of my life.
00:48:22But after the murder, as the years passed, even though Sarah was living back in Michigan, Annette says her family saw less and less of her.
00:48:31Sarah was in grade school when James moved across the country to Washington State.
00:48:35His parents went, too.
00:48:36They all just get up and move to Washington, and that was it.
00:48:42And we're thinking, why are they taking Sarah away?
00:48:47Annette says this was the moment the family dared to imagine Kathy's husband might be hiding something.
00:48:53I think my mom was the first one to say it.
00:48:55She says, I think Jim did it.
00:48:58What's the reaction from everybody?
00:49:00I know it made me think.
00:49:01If my mom believed it, it made me start thinking.
00:49:06Annette was thrilled when the new detectives told her they were reinvestigating the case,
00:49:11and James was on their radar.
00:49:13It had been more than 30 years since James last talked to the police.
00:49:17You ring the doorbell, and does James answer?
00:49:21Rang the doorbell, nobody answered for a bit, and we kind of did what the police always do.
00:49:25I started looking through doors and windows.
00:49:27He stayed at the door, but I started looking through the garage.
00:49:29And the front door opens, and he comes walking out.
00:49:33Mark Louvertor.
00:49:35Hi, how are you?
00:49:37Probably a little bit surprised why we're here.
00:49:39Hopefully you have some good news.
00:49:41It was the beginning of a 90-minute interview during which detectives did most of the talking,
00:49:46and the soft-spoken James gave brief, sometimes halting answers.
00:49:51Tell me, to the best of your recollection, of what happened 34 years ago when you got home from work from Kodak.
00:49:59So I think about this a lot.
00:50:00I'm never sure if I really remember.
00:50:05It seems as if the drive store was open.
00:50:08Do you remember which one was open, Mr. Grosnick?
00:50:09I would say that one.
00:50:13The detective had brought along a diagram of the house to help jog his memory.
00:50:17I remember the back door of the house was open.
00:50:22And then, Mr. Grosnick, where'd you go after that?
00:50:26Just, I think, this way, you know, the stairs.
00:50:31Okay, and...
00:50:32I think when I was in the, in our room, I think Sarah came in.
00:50:37You think Sarah came in?
00:50:38I think.
00:50:39That was new.
00:50:41He originally told police he'd found Sarah in her room.
00:50:44She had a sweater on backwards.
00:50:47Oh, she did?
00:50:48A little sweater on backwards?
00:50:49Yeah.
00:50:50Okay.
00:50:51Um, and then what'd you see?
00:50:53I know this is hard.
00:50:59James started to cry, but investigators pressed on.
00:51:02Did you touch her body?
00:51:07I don't know.
00:51:08Did you move any blankets to see?
00:51:11I just saw.
00:51:13Do you remember if you, like, checked for any signs of life, breathing, heart-breathing,
00:51:16any of that?
00:51:17I don't know.
00:51:18I think that's when Sarah came in.
00:51:22I just grabbed Sarah.
00:51:24James said that's when he ran to the neighbor across the street for help.
00:51:27What I feel bad about sometimes is I think I was scared.
00:51:32I would be, too.
00:51:33Yeah.
00:51:34Because, like, I don't know why I just didn't stay in the house if I left Kathy.
00:51:39The investigators asked him to tell them about his relationship with Kathy.
00:51:44You guys having any issues financially?
00:51:47No?
00:51:48No?
00:51:48Everything was good?
00:51:49You guys weren't having any kind of issues in your marriage?
00:51:52No.
00:51:54The detectives started to question James about details of the crime, their suspicions about
00:51:59the burglary.
00:51:59If I'm going to burglarize a place and I'm going to go upstairs and put an axe in someone's
00:52:03head, I'm going to take the stuff, too.
00:52:05How about even going further if I'm a homicidal maniac?
00:52:08That way I'd be taking care of Sarah, too.
00:52:10Why leave anybody?
00:52:11Well, I would, you're, I just, I don't understand who would want it.
00:52:17Exactly.
00:52:17And that's what we said.
00:52:18And that's when the investigators started to get more confrontational, challenging James'
00:52:23version of events.
00:52:24Do you remember if you slept in that bed that night or somewhere else in the house?
00:52:28Yes.
00:52:28You did.
00:52:29And yet, police found a pull-out couch in the den with pillows and blankets piled up
00:52:34on a chair nearby.
00:52:35And an alarm clock set for the time James woke up to go to work.
00:52:39Were you having troubles with your marriage?
00:52:41You know, you can ask me a thousand times.
00:52:44I know.
00:52:44And you're the only, and Mr. Crosswick, you're the only one we can ask.
00:52:47You gotta understand that.
00:52:48Okay.
00:52:50No.
00:52:51Okay.
00:52:51We had an absolutely wonderful marriage.
00:52:53Okay.
00:52:55We're getting information to the contrary, both from reports back then.
00:52:58And you know what?
00:52:59I don't, it just doesn't make any, you can say anything you want to say.
00:53:02All right.
00:53:03But they're, that's baloney.
00:53:04Then out of nowhere, James said this.
00:53:07I didn't kill Kathy.
00:53:09I disagree.
00:53:10It's either me or somebody else.
00:53:11I disagree.
00:53:12Well, then.
00:53:12I think you did.
00:53:13The detective shared his theory that Kathy and James had been struggling emotionally
00:53:18and financially.
00:53:20We weren't in.
00:53:21I got half a dozen records from collection agencies from back then.
00:53:24You don't have to.
00:53:26All that stuff is absolutely, I'd love to see that.
00:53:30Well, eventually you will.
00:53:32What was his body language like that you could see that?
00:53:35Body language, everything from, uh, can't sit still, um, banging his, uh, his hands on
00:53:41his, his legs.
00:53:42His breathing and his heart rate were so excited that you, literally his collar on his shirt
00:53:48was moving from him just sitting there.
00:53:50What's that telling you?
00:53:51We're causing him to be uncomfortable at his kitchen table.
00:53:53Yep.
00:53:54Is it guilt or is it the shock of two detectives showing up on his door decades after his wife's
00:54:01death?
00:54:02Probably both.
00:54:02Could be both, for sure.
00:54:03The investigators didn't hold back, pushing James to come clean.
00:54:09You know what you gotta do?
00:54:10You gotta think not about yourself.
00:54:13You gotta think about Sarah.
00:54:15You gotta think about your wife.
00:54:17Time out.
00:54:17Time to go.
00:54:18James had had enough and asked the detectives to leave.
00:54:22But the detectives weren't done.
00:54:24Because at the exact moment they were knocking on James Krausnick's door, two investigators
00:54:29from the prosecutor's office walked up to a house 2,000 miles away in Houston, Texas.
00:54:34We're approaching the front door now.
00:54:37It was Sarah's house.
00:54:39The little girl was a mother herself now.
00:54:42What would she have to say about that morning her mother was murdered?
00:54:45And the father now under suspicion.
00:54:48Coming up.
00:54:51What has your dad told you?
00:54:53My dad doesn't like to talk about it very much.
00:54:56When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:54:59More than 30 years had passed since Sarah Krausnick sat at the Brighton police station
00:55:12drawing stick figures of her mother's murder.
00:55:15Now, investigators wanted to talk to her again about her memories of what she'd seen back then.
00:55:21About the father who raised her.
00:55:23This is delicate.
00:55:24I mean, because of the history and so much time has passed.
00:55:29I'd say it was nerve wracking.
00:55:31It was nerve wracking.
00:55:33It was hard to know what Sarah thought of her dad all these years later.
00:55:37She was living hundreds of miles away in Houston, Texas.
00:55:40It was the day after her 38th birthday when two investigators from the DA's office knocked on her door.
00:55:46At the exact same time investigators were talking to her father.
00:55:51At the same time, because...
00:55:53We don't want one talking to the other.
00:55:55You want the element of surprise for both of them.
00:55:58Yes.
00:55:59Sarah ushered the investigators into the living room.
00:56:02Again, we apologize.
00:56:03That's all right.
00:56:04It's a little shocking.
00:56:05Yeah, I'm sure it is, Sarah.
00:56:07I'm sure.
00:56:07Just talking about it this morning, strangely enough.
00:56:09Oh, were you?
00:56:10Yeah, to my daughter.
00:56:12The investigators explained why they were there.
00:56:15Her mother's case had been reopened and they wanted to hear Sarah's story.
00:56:18And so began a remarkable conversation in which you will hear a young woman confront her memories,
00:56:25her lifelong grief, and everything she thought she knew about her father.
00:56:29You were obviously a little girl when this happened.
00:56:32Sarah said her memories were hazy, jumbled, but she would do her best to remember.
00:56:38She made sure her own kids were out of earshot and then began.
00:56:41So, I remember waking up and my bedroom was across from their bedroom at the top of the
00:56:47stairs.
00:56:48And I remember going in there to get a tissue.
00:56:50This is how I remember it.
00:56:51Into your mother's bedroom?
00:56:52Yes.
00:56:53Uh-huh.
00:56:53And I remember seeing her and I, at some point in time, I remember seeing somebody else with
00:56:57curly hair and I don't know if I actually saw anybody else or if I just saw her and I
00:57:01didn't think it was her and something like that.
00:57:03And then I just remember like sitting in my bedroom, like telling my dollies it would be okay
00:57:07and like waiting until someone came.
00:57:09She said she'd gone downstairs at one point and seen what could have been broken glass.
00:57:15I didn't know if it was like glass or ice because there was snow outside.
00:57:18So, I didn't know where to walk or what to do when it was snowy and I was confused.
00:57:22So, I stayed upstairs with my dolls.
00:57:24She said she didn't remember who found her in the house.
00:57:27She did remember talking to the police.
00:57:30What has your dad told you?
00:57:32My dad doesn't like to talk about it very much.
00:57:34Okay.
00:57:35And I think he talked to me about it when I was a kid when I would ask about it.
00:57:37My dad isn't a talk about it kind of a guy.
00:57:41She told the investigator she wasn't surprised her dad hadn't been in regular contact with the police.
00:57:47I think he can't change what happened.
00:57:49He can't change it.
00:57:50He wishes he could, but he's just going to try to move on and not dwell in it to be extremely sad all the time.
00:57:58You know what I mean?
00:57:58Sarah said she felt the same way.
00:58:01She had grown up a motherless child.
00:58:03That's what she knew.
00:58:05What happened in your life after your mother was killed?
00:58:08Where do you recall the next chapter of life for you?
00:58:11So, then we moved to Michigan with my dad's parents and we moved in with them.
00:58:16Then she described the move to Washington State, followed by college in Arizona and moving with her young family to Texas.
00:58:24Always there for her at the end of the phone was her dad.
00:58:28How close are you with your dad?
00:58:29I'm very close to my dad.
00:58:30Very close to your dad?
00:58:31Yes.
00:58:31Okay.
00:58:32Investigators had been doing all the listening, but half an hour into the conversation, they started doing the telling.
00:58:37Laying out for Sarah what they had discovered, their theory about the staged burglary and something new, some new science.
00:58:47There were significant developments that were made by the forensic people that have helped to very precisely and narrowly define a time of death on a body.
00:59:06Oh, okay.
00:59:07James Krausnick told police that when he left for work, Kathy was alive.
00:59:13Back in 1982, the medical examiner said that could very well be true.
00:59:17But the investigators told Sarah that thanks to scientific advances, they could pin down exactly what time her mother died.
00:59:25And the answer struck right at the heart of everything Sarah had been told about the murder.
00:59:29There's no easy way to say it.
00:59:31There's reason to conclude that your mother was killed before your dad left for work.
00:59:38Now, your dad left for work about, uh...
00:59:41Do you think that my dad killed my mom as I was here trying to say?
00:59:44Well, we'll progress through the case.
00:59:46Can we just, can we...
00:59:47Because I feel like that's where, I feel like this is the vibe I'm getting.
00:59:52Okay.
00:59:52So can we, can we...
00:59:54Okay.
00:59:55The investigation has certainly started to point that way.
00:59:58This had to be just incredibly unsettling for Sarah that she's probably been told one thing, you know, by her dad her entire life.
01:00:06And now the police are telling her they think her dad's a killer.
01:00:09Correct.
01:00:10So that's why we thought it was very important to come down here and talk to a person.
01:00:13Yeah, it's probably like that hip, what, a two-by-four right now.
01:00:16Okay, give me a second.
01:00:17Okay, absolutely.
01:00:19Not okay with this one.
01:00:20Okay.
01:00:21Oh.
01:00:24Take your time.
01:00:25I'm sorry.
01:00:26No, no, no.
01:00:26That's...
01:00:27Sarah, you do not...
01:00:28The last thing in the frickin' world I would ever...
01:00:30Yes.
01:00:30...imagine.
01:00:31Right.
01:00:32And I still don't believe you.
01:00:33Sarah's thoughts quickly jumped to what was at stake for her dad, and her, if he was arrested.
01:00:39I just think my kids are going to grow up without a grandpa.
01:00:42Well, no, not necessarily, because that's still their grandpa.
01:00:46I know, but a grandma that's in jail or something, you know?
01:00:50But let's take it slow.
01:00:52I don't want more taken from me than they already got taken from me.
01:00:55Right, I know.
01:00:56Sarah said she'd already lost her mother.
01:00:58She couldn't lose her dad, too.
01:01:00Now I don't want to investigate anymore, because I don't...
01:01:03Right.
01:01:04But you suffered a terrible loss growing up without your mother.
01:01:07Well, and she's...
01:01:08Yeah, that's not right, either, because she deserves it.
01:01:11Yeah, that's not fair either.
01:01:13So you suffered a terrible loss, and your mother obviously lost maybe another 50 years
01:01:19if she could have lived and enjoyed life.
01:01:22And the investigator told Sarah some of what he'd learned about her mother by working on the case.
01:01:27The day before your mother lost her life, she took you sledding.
01:01:31Awesome.
01:01:32Did you know that?
01:01:32That's cool, no.
01:01:33Yep.
01:01:34If she got to live another day, that Saturday, you were going to go to the circus, too.
01:01:39That's very cool.
01:01:41Were investigators hoping the warm memories of her mom would make her turn on her dad?
01:01:46Maybe.
01:01:47Sarah seemed to waver.
01:01:49She agreed.
01:01:49It was strange her dad left town so soon after the murder.
01:01:53Well, you'd think you'd want to help if you're...
01:01:54Right.
01:01:55Why would you not want to help?
01:01:56That doesn't make any sense.
01:01:57Right.
01:01:58But she insisted the dad she knew was a good man.
01:02:02My dad is a wonderful person.
01:02:03There's no doubt that...
01:02:05We see a lot of wonderful people who make...
01:02:07Right, that's what I'm saying.
01:02:08If that is the case, there is absolutely no doubt...
01:02:13Yes.
01:02:13That...
01:02:14It does happen.
01:02:15I mean, good people...
01:02:16Like, good people do bad things.
01:02:17You took the words right out and off.
01:02:18Sarah briefly seemed to wrestle with the idea her dad could be behind the murder.
01:02:25If this happened, it was definitely a crime of passion, a split second.
01:02:29That's exactly right.
01:02:30Do you think your father would ever own up to doing something that he regrets like this?
01:02:35I have no idea.
01:02:37I...
01:02:37I can't comprehend...
01:02:38I just can't comprehend that he would do something like this.
01:02:42Sarah promised to think about what the investigators had told her,
01:02:45about what it all meant for her and her father.
01:02:49Because the walls were about to close in on James Krausnick.
01:02:56Coming up...
01:02:57We were trying to see if there was evidence of someone other than Kathy,
01:03:01of James, and the little girl.
01:03:04The results are in from the crime lab.
01:03:06What would the evidence reveal?
01:03:09When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
01:03:15Welcome back.
01:03:20Detectives confronted Sarah with the unthinkable.
01:03:24Her father, James Krausnick, was the prime suspect in her mother Kathy's murder.
01:03:29Sarah insisted he was a good man, but agreed to consider the evidence they presented.
01:03:35The pressure on James Krausnick was mounting.
01:03:38And the more investigators dug into his life,
01:03:40the more secrets they discovered.
01:03:44Back to Andrea Canning with the bad man.
01:03:49Detectives working the case were more convinced than ever
01:03:52that James Krausnick was the one who killed his wife Kathy.
01:03:55They went to see the prosecutor to argue their case.
01:03:58So all the bureau chiefs come in,
01:04:00we put a presentation together, and we presented it.
01:04:03District Attorney Sandra Dorley was all ears.
01:04:05I've always been a prosecutor and a district attorney who believes that
01:04:11all victims deserve justice, regardless of how long, how much time has passed.
01:04:15D.A. Dorley had reviewed the results from the FBI lab.
01:04:19All those items of evidence they had sent off for testing told her a story.
01:04:23There was no outside DNA found on any of the items.
01:04:28That's what we were looking for.
01:04:29We were trying to see if there was evidence of someone other than Kathy, of James, and the little girl.
01:04:36And sometimes the lack of DNA, external DNA, tells just as big a story as DNA does.
01:04:45Absolutely.
01:04:46It told me that there was no outside person who came into that house other than the residents.
01:04:51Why do you think there was not an arrest all those decades ago?
01:04:54You know, I think they were looking for the smoking gun, the proverbial smoking gun.
01:04:58And I'm willing to take a chance.
01:05:00And that's been my reputation.
01:05:02In late 2019, the state filed second-degree murder charges against 68-year-old James Krausnick.
01:05:08By that point, almost 40 years had passed since Kathy's murder.
01:05:13Did you ever think, in all this time, that you would hear news like that?
01:05:18Never.
01:05:19I mean, that was huge.
01:05:21The case went to trial in September of 2022.
01:05:25Kathy's family members, including her elderly father, were there every day.
01:05:29Why was it important for you and your family to be there?
01:05:34We had to be there for Kathy.
01:05:38We wouldn't have been anywhere else.
01:05:40How did he get through all of this?
01:05:41He's in his 90s.
01:05:4395.
01:05:43Your mom never got to see justice, but was your dad determined to be there and see this through?
01:05:50I believe he was quoted, come hell or high water, I'm going to be at that trial.
01:05:55It's been 40 years, seven months, and approximately four days.
01:06:04That's how long Kathy's family has been waiting for justice.
01:06:09Monroe County Assistant District Attorneys Patrick Gallagher and Constance Patterson knew they had a big challenge ahead.
01:06:17I don't think anybody thought it was a slam dunk.
01:06:19Did we think it could be an uphill battle just because it was circumstantial?
01:06:22Of course.
01:06:23This case really was about looking at all the pieces in this case, looking at what doesn't fit.
01:06:30And the jury learned all about those little pieces, the clearly staged crime scene, the shoe print that looked just like James' boat shoe,
01:06:39the fact that no one else's DNA or fingerprints were found inside the home,
01:06:43and how James showed little interest in the investigation during the decades that followed his wife's murder.
01:06:49Our goal was to just have the jury use their common sense to see that there was only one answer here,
01:06:55and that was that James Krause committed this crime.
01:06:58And the state attempted to back up its claim by putting on testimony about Kathy's time of death.
01:07:05Forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Bodden, famous for working on high-profile cases,
01:07:10told the jury that in his opinion Kathy died before James went to work.
01:07:14We felt confident in Dr. Bodden's experience and his opinion that Kathy died before 6.30.
01:07:20I think his reasoning was easy to follow for the jury,
01:07:24but we also didn't want the case to rise and fall on that.
01:07:28Another piece of their puzzle, a burglary gone bad, made no sense.
01:07:33Case in point, the murder weapon.
01:07:35It belonged to the Krausnicks, had been stored in the family garage.
01:07:39Wouldn't you bring a weapon?
01:07:41If you're coming to commit a murder, wouldn't you bring something with you to commit that murder?
01:07:45What is the story that you told the jury about what happened on that February morning?
01:07:50What happened that morning is that James Krausnick snapped.
01:07:57At some point, we know that Kathy goes to bed that evening of February 18, 1982, and she never wakes up.
01:08:05I mean, snap and grab an axe?
01:08:07It just seems almost far-fetched.
01:08:09Right.
01:08:09I mean, this was so personal.
01:08:13This was, it couldn't be anybody else.
01:08:16But why?
01:08:18Why would this highly educated man with no history of violence kill his wife?
01:08:23The state had a theory that it all had to do with a secret James had been keeping.
01:08:27The week Kathy was murdered, James' employer, Kodak, was pressing him to provide proof of his Ph.D.
01:08:35Well, turns out, despite all the fanfare around his graduation, he'd never completed his degree.
01:08:42So that's a jaw-dropper.
01:08:43Yeah, that was definitely.
01:08:45He got the job at Kodak because of the doctorate?
01:08:48Yes.
01:08:49What a lie.
01:08:50What a huge lie.
01:08:51He was confronted about not having a Ph.D., and, you know, he knows that he moved his family to Rochester because he had this nice job, and if he loses that job, what's going to happen?
01:09:01And so he knew that within a short time, the truth was going to come out.
01:09:06How could that lead to murder?
01:09:09Prosecutors believed the stress at work had led to tension in the marriage.
01:09:13They called Kathy's friend Gloria to the stand.
01:09:15At the end, just before she was murdered, she told me that, you know, Kodak was bothering him because he lied to them about his Ph.D., and she said that by Thursday of the week, he was a bear.
01:09:32He wasn't very nice.
01:09:34She said he just didn't, he couldn't handle it anymore because he was just very upset about it.
01:09:39The state also told the jury there was more evidence that the marriage was under stress.
01:09:44Investigators believed James was sleeping on the pull-out couch.
01:09:48Plus, they'd found a pamphlet that included information on marriage counseling in the family car.
01:09:53You're saying this is all over a, you know, Ph.D. that he almost got but didn't and was struggling at work?
01:10:00I mean, it seems like a thin motive.
01:10:03A lot of times, you just don't know why something happens.
01:10:06We don't know what happened that night before Kathy went to bed.
01:10:10What happens inside a home, you know, stays inside a home, and we never really know the truth behind a lot of domestic violence cases.
01:10:18That was some serious rage to put an axe into someone's head.
01:10:24Yeah, it's one of the most horrific things I've ever seen.
01:10:28The defendant is guilty of murder.
01:10:30But his defense attorneys had been listening, and they were focused on what the prosecution did not have.
01:10:38The prosecution said that, you know, he snapped.
01:10:41You know, his whole world was falling apart that week, the week of the murder.
01:10:45Great theory, except there's no evidence of it.
01:10:48Coming up.
01:10:50It wasn't Jim Krausnick who did it.
01:10:52We think it's Larrabee.
01:10:53Ed Larrabee, the one who confessed.
01:10:56He was stalking her, and as soon as Jim Krausnick left at 6.30, he was in that house.
01:11:02When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
01:11:13While Kathy's family had been in court every day, so too had James Krausnick's.
01:11:18In the gallery, right behind him, was his current wife, Sharon.
01:11:23And there was also Sarah, the little girl, now a grown woman in her 40s.
01:11:28She had listened to the suspicions about her dad, and was standing by him.
01:11:33Here you are, in the same room with Sarah.
01:11:36Yes.
01:11:37After all these years.
01:11:38Do you try to talk to her?
01:11:39She refused to look at us or talk to us.
01:11:43So, you know, I couldn't push it.
01:11:45So they sat close by, but an ocean apart.
01:11:50As the attorneys representing James, Michael Wolford, and Bill Easton,
01:11:54prepared to make their case to the jury.
01:11:56Jim Krausnick didn't do it, and there's no evidence that he did it.
01:11:59Wolford was his attorney way back in 1982, when the murder happened.
01:12:04When you're dealing with such an unusual case that's so old,
01:12:08what tone do you want to set with the jury, with your opening arguments?
01:12:12What do you want them to know, right out of the gate?
01:12:14Well, if you looked at Jim's entire life, here he was, 70 years of age,
01:12:22and despite years of investigation,
01:12:25they could find one derogatory thing that occurred in his life.
01:12:29And that is that he misrepresented the Eastman Kodak Company,
01:12:33that he had his Ph.D. rather than a Ph.D. candidate.
01:12:38And that was really it.
01:12:40It is hard to believe that this family man finds out he's possibly going to get in trouble at work,
01:12:47goes home and, you know, kills his wife with an ax.
01:12:51Yeah. He had the written dissertation that he presented was turned down on a 3-2 vote,
01:12:57and he had to rewrite it.
01:12:59It would take about a month to do it.
01:13:01And he just didn't get it done.
01:13:03And he misrepresented a Kodak, no question about it.
01:13:07But to suggest that that led him to kill his wife makes no logical sense.
01:13:12So the motive was lacking, according to the defense.
01:13:16And the rest of the state's case?
01:13:18There is no direct evidence.
01:13:22That was the case 40 years ago, and that's the case now.
01:13:27One of the things you wanted the jury to know was that James Krausenek loved his daughter,
01:13:32and that this man was incapable of leaving her there with her dead mother.
01:13:36Absolutely.
01:13:37Yeah.
01:13:38That is absolutely true, that it's inconceivable, I think, for anyone to do that to their kid.
01:13:46For James Krausenek, absolutely inconceivable.
01:13:50And if it did happen, if by some fluke of nature he possessed that kind of sociopathy,
01:13:58it would have to have been demonstrated during the course of his life.
01:14:02And while the state told the jury that Krausenek's marriage was under stress back in 1982,
01:14:08the defense disagreed.
01:14:10There was marriage counseling, you know, pamphlet.
01:14:13They think he wasn't sleeping in the bed.
01:14:15There was no evidence of that.
01:14:17It wasn't a marriage counseling pamphlet.
01:14:19It was a marketing brochure that covered a number of ills, you might say.
01:14:25You know, whether you wanted to lose weight, you know, stop smoking, and marriage counseling.
01:14:32And the shoe print detectives linked to a pair of James' dog sides in the couple's bedroom?
01:14:36Pure speculation, said the defense.
01:14:39Forty years later, it's, well, that could have been the shoe.
01:14:42No, it couldn't have been.
01:14:43They cannot say that it's that shoe.
01:14:46They can't even come near saying that.
01:14:49Then there was the testimony from the state's hired forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Bodden,
01:14:54who testified that Kathy was killed before James left for work.
01:14:58I'm not buying it for a second.
01:14:59Dr. Bodden comes in and says, yeah, based on his experience, not a new methodology or
01:15:04anything that's come up since 1982, that he has the opinion it must, it's 6.30, before
01:15:106.30, and that's it.
01:15:11To counter Bodden's testimony, the defense called not one, but four separate medical examiners
01:15:17who unanimously disagreed with Bodden.
01:15:20Four other witnesses all say you can't eliminate the possibility that this death occurred after
01:15:276.30. Forensically, there is just no way to do it.
01:15:30We had, you know, the medical examiner for Monroe County who said, basically, she doesn't give
01:15:36opinions on time of death because there's so many variables that they're uncertain.
01:15:41Was this all smoke and mirrors to you?
01:15:42Yes.
01:15:43Yes.
01:15:43What is your theory of what happened?
01:15:46We have to acknowledge we can't answer that.
01:15:48And they can't answer it either.
01:15:51We know one thing.
01:15:52It wasn't Jim Krausnick who did it.
01:15:54We think it's Larrabee.
01:15:56Ed Larrabee, the man whose name came up several times in the investigation.
01:16:00We can speculate and say, you know, Kathleen was a very attractive young woman, and as
01:16:06he did with other women, stalked them.
01:16:09And he was stalking her.
01:16:11And as soon as Jim Krausnick left at 6.30, he was in that house.
01:16:16We're relying in part on the fact he did confess to it, number one.
01:16:21Number two, he was a four and a half minute walk from Del Rio Drive.
01:16:26And the defense believes Larrabee could very well have been the man spotted by Kathy's
01:16:31neighbor, Joanne, the morning of the murder.
01:16:34Joanne was a defense witness.
01:16:36I was just passing the Krausnick home.
01:16:41The jogger was coming toward me, and he wasn't jogging with intensity.
01:16:48The defense noted that Ed Larrabee had worn a ski mask during some of his violent crimes.
01:16:53He was a big man.
01:16:56He was about at least six feet tall, 180, 200 pounds.
01:17:00He was wearing a gray sweatsuit and a royal blue ski mask.
01:17:07Now, who is this masked guy?
01:17:10The defense said the investigation was so shoddy back in 1982, they just dropped Larrabee
01:17:15as a suspect after he refused to talk with the police.
01:17:19They never went back to him.
01:17:22They never talked to his neighbors.
01:17:24They literally just forgot about Ed Larrabee.
01:17:28Police had a reason to discount Larrabee back then.
01:17:31He was a convicted rapist, and Kathy had not been sexually assaulted.
01:17:35Now, the defense had an explanation for that.
01:17:38Back in 1982, while on parole, Larrabee was required to receive injections of a drug that
01:17:43reduces sex drive.
01:17:45When we had a psychiatrist testify at trial, he was on chemical castration at the time.
01:17:51The chemical castration didn't eliminate the risk to women.
01:17:56It increased it because he was fueled not by sex.
01:18:01It was anti-women rage.
01:18:03When he couldn't rape her, it made it worse, and that's why he killed her in such a way.
01:18:08And, of course, there was the fact that Larrabee had confessed to the murder, a confession
01:18:14that was discounted entirely by police and prosecutors.
01:18:17What do you make, though, of the discrepancies with his confession?
01:18:22Mike, take it out.
01:18:22You know, he's saying he sexually assaulted her.
01:18:25There's no evidence of sexual assaults with Kathy.
01:18:29He's getting details wrong.
01:18:31The details are wrong.
01:18:32He was within 10 days of his death, and he's debilitated mentally, and he's debilitated
01:18:39physically.
01:18:39And it's 34 years after it occurred.
01:18:42In his closing argument to the jury, Krausnick's attorney said the case was overflowing with
01:18:47reasonable doubt.
01:18:48The uncertainty of the mystery of Kathy Krausnick's death remains to this day, and we submit it has
01:18:58not been resolved by this trial.
01:19:01A 40-year-old case, now in the hands of the jury.
01:19:06Coming up.
01:19:07It was very tense.
01:19:09Everyone wanted an answer to the case.
01:19:12Four decades later, what would the verdict be when Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues?
01:19:28Kathy Krausnick had been killed in one quick, explosive moment of rage, and the impact had
01:19:34been felt for decades.
01:19:36Now, as a jury went off to decide the fate of Kathy's husband, James, Annette was well
01:19:42aware of what was at stake for her niece, Sarah, the young woman who had stood by her
01:19:46father this entire time.
01:19:48Well, who else was she going to support?
01:19:50He raised her.
01:19:51She had nobody else.
01:19:53This isn't you against her or her, it's just unconditional love.
01:19:58Absolutely.
01:19:59The hours ticked by that Friday as the jurors deliberated behind closed doors.
01:20:05It was very tense.
01:20:07The notes that came out, we couldn't tell what they were thinking and which way they were
01:20:12leaning.
01:20:13The defense was on edge as well.
01:20:15We were worried because of a presumption of guilt that attaches to a husband, and everyone
01:20:21wanted an answer to the case.
01:20:23By day's end, the jurors hadn't reached a verdict.
01:20:27The judge sent them home for the weekend.
01:20:29Deliberations resumed Monday morning, but not for long.
01:20:33By 10.30, the jury announced it had a verdict.
01:20:36I was crying because the jury came in so quick.
01:20:40So I'm standing there, and I look, and we're all huddled, and there's Sarah, and she's
01:20:44standing there crying, too.
01:20:46And I looked at her, and I said, no matter what happens, I will always love you.
01:20:52And for the first time in years, she's looked at me and said, thank you for saying that.
01:20:58Members of the jury, how do you find in the matter of the people of the state of New York
01:21:02versus James Crosnick?
01:21:04Guilty.
01:21:05Yes.
01:21:06Guilty.
01:21:07She says, guilty?
01:21:09And I'll never forget the look on my father's face when he just went, his eyes got real big,
01:21:16and he got a smile on his face.
01:21:18Across the room, Sarah and James's current wife shook their heads in disbelief.
01:21:24James, who had been free on bail ever since his indictment, was handcuffed and taken into custody.
01:21:31We did it.
01:21:32We did it.
01:21:33Justice for Kathy.
01:21:35We did it.
01:21:37Bring out her justice.
01:21:38Justice for 40 years.
01:21:42Thank God we got it.
01:21:44The defense attorneys promised to fight back with an appeal.
01:21:48We believe that there was no justification for waiting 37 years for this indictment.
01:21:55We think the law is on our side, and we're confident we're going to have a reversal of this conviction.
01:22:03Six weeks later, James Crosnick was back in court for his sentencing.
01:22:08So was his daughter, Sarah, who'd lost her mother so long ago.
01:22:12And now, all these years later, was losing her father.
01:22:14My mother's killer got away with her murder, and my father's life has been taken by a failed justice system that convicted him of a crime he did not commit.
01:22:24It is absolutely inconceivable that a person capable of the heinous brutality exhibited in my mother's murder would be capable of suppressing that aspect of their personality entirely and not letting it leak out over time.
01:22:38My father is not violent, angry, abusive, controlling, afraid of failure, ego-driven, or anything similar.
01:22:47The justice system has failed my parents, myself, and both sides of my family.
01:22:52It has also failed this community.
01:22:53Kathy's 95-year-old father got up next and seemed to respond to what Sarah had just said.
01:22:59You brainwashed my granddaughter for 40 years.
01:23:04We've lost her love.
01:23:07We still love you, Sarah, and always will.
01:23:10And then it was James Crosnick's turn, maintaining his innocence to the end.
01:23:15I did not murder Kathy.
01:23:18I love Kathy with all my heart and with all my soul.
01:23:23I contribute, continue to be haunted at why and who someone would have murdered such a beautiful person.
01:23:33The jury has found you guilty.
01:23:35With that, the judge sentenced him to the maximum time in prison, 25 years to life.
01:23:41Soon after, Crosnick was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.
01:23:46He died six months into his sentence.
01:23:48At the time of his death, his appeal was pending, which under New York law meant his conviction would be vacated.
01:23:55Those close to Kathy still think about Sarah.
01:23:58The little girl who waited alone in a house with her dolls and her murdered mother.
01:24:03A mother she never really had the chance to know.
01:24:07What do you want Sarah to know about her mom?
01:24:09I just want Sarah to know that her mother adored her.
01:24:13Sarah, she loved you.
01:24:15I want Sarah to know that.
01:24:16She adored you and she'll always be with you.
01:24:23Sarah, if you're watching, I love you.
01:24:27I'll always love you.
01:24:29And just please, please call me and we'll get through this together.
01:24:35Get through the loss and the grief that never goes away, even after so much time.
01:24:45I just want people to remember Kathy as the loving, beautiful, caring person that she was.
01:24:51That's all for this edition of Dateline, Secrets Uncovered.
01:24:59I'm Craig Melvin.
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