Cathy Krauseneck always lived for love. At least, until it was no longer there…
From the start, it seemed as though Cathleen Schlosser and Jim Krauseneck were meant to be.
Coming from separate sides of the same small town in Michigan, Cathy’s father was a trucker, while Jim’s dad owned a successful carpet store.
They came from different backgrounds, but the two were inseparable. They crossed paths in high school, dated throughout college and married shortly after graduation. It was the perfect fairytale love story, and their wedding celebrated exactly that.
‘It was a fancy wedding,’ Cathy’s cousin Susie Jackimowicz said. ‘Like a princess wedding.’
And even Cathy’s best friend, Cathy Behe, recalled just how happy she was.
‘She was a warm soul who just lived for love,’ she said.
And when the couple’s daughter Sara arrived in 1978, Cathy was besotted.
The young couple started building a stable, happy family life together, just the three of them. Jim began studying for his economics degree in Colorado and had his sights set on a successful career.
There was an axe in her head
To their friends and family, Jim and Cathy seemed to have the perfect life.
But with every coin, there are always two sides…
Landing an impressive new job as an economist at Kodak in September 1981, Jim’s hard work paid off.
While he worked to provide for his family, Cathy, 29, stayed at home to raise their three-yearold daughter.
So on 19 February 1982, the family followed their usual routine –with Jim leaving their home in Brighton, Rochester, at 6.30am for work while Cathy was still asleep. Only, when Jim arrived home from work that evening, his beautiful wife wasn’t waiting for him.
Stepping foot into the house, the couple’s belongings were strewn about the floor.
And finding Sara wandering around the house alone, Jim stepped into their shared bedroom.
There, he found Cathy.
Dead, with a huge, long-handled axe lodged deep into her head. She was only 29.
Grabbing Sara, Jim rushed over to his neighbour’s house, traumatised. Crying out that he’d found Cathy dead, his neighbour rang 911 immediately.
As soon as the police arrived, they were met with a distraught Jim, moaning and crying.
Jim told the authorities that he’d left the house at 6.30am for work.
So, only Sara could have witnessed her mother’s death –but the little girl was just as traumatised as her dad.
‘There was a bad man sleeping in mommy and daddy’s bed with an axe in his head,’ she told detectives. Investigating the Krauseneck fam
