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Judge refuses to release suspect in strangling case
Friday, December 29, 2006 | No comments posted.
PORTLAND (AP) - A Multnomah County judge declined to release Michael Kuhnhausen Sr. from jail pending a February trial on charges that he hired a hit man to kill his estranged wife.
Judge Frank Bearden, however, reduced Kuhnhausen's bail from $2 million to $1 million. Kuhnhausen must post 10 percent of that bail, or $100,000, to leave jail.
An intruder attacked Kuhnhausen's wife, 51-year-old Susan Kuhnhausen, with a hammer when she arrived home from work Sept. 6. She fought the man off and strangled him with her bare hands.
One week after the attack, Michael Kuhnhausen was arrested under suspicion of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
At Thursday's hearing, Deputy District Attorney Brian Davidson said Kuhnhausen had complained to his daughter's boyfriend that he couldn't face losing everything as he did in his previous divorce and that “anyone who'd be willing to kill his wife would be well compensated.”
As Davidson spoke, Susan Kuhnhausen sobbed. Moments earlier, she had told the judge that she would live in fear if Michael Kuhnhausen was set free.
“I don't believe I should be forced into hiding,” she said.
Defense attorney Donald Upham argued that the connection between his client and the slain intruder, Edward Haffey, is weak.
“There is no evidence, no proof period that Mr. Kuhnhausen let this man into this house,” Upham said.
But Davidson said Haffey, an ex-con, told acquaintances he planned to kill a man's wife for $25,000 upfront and $25,000 after he did the deed. Davidson also said Kuhnhausen's daughter told authorities she'd seen Haffey and her father together in the days before the attack.
Upham questioned the legality of the state's case against his client, saying that police wrongfully took him into custody to question him. Clackamas County sheriff's deputies spotted and reportedly detained Kuhnhausen based on information that he was carrying a handgun and wanted to die by a police officer's bullet.
Instead of holding him on probable cause in a murder-for-hire plot, Upham said, his client was questioned about the attack on his wife while being in custody for his own protection.
“Anything that the state gathered is out,” Upham said.
Judge Frank Bearden, however, reduced Kuhnhausen's bail from $2 million to $1 million. Kuhnhausen must post 10 percent of that bail, or $100,000, to leave jail.
An intruder attacked Kuhnhausen's wife, 51-year-old Susan Kuhnhausen, with a hammer when she arrived home from work Sept. 6. She fought the man off and strangled him with her bare hands.
One week after the attack, Michael Kuhnhausen was arrested under suspicion of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
At Thursday's hearing, Deputy District Attorney Brian Davidson said Kuhnhausen had complained to his daughter's boyfriend that he couldn't face losing everything as he did in his previous divorce and that “anyone who'd be willing to kill his wife would be well compensated.”
As Davidson spoke, Susan Kuhnhausen sobbed. Moments earlier, she had told the judge that she would live in fear if Michael Kuhnhausen was set free.
“I don't believe I should be forced into hiding,” she said.
Defense attorney Donald Upham argued that the connection between his client and the slain intruder, Edward Haffey, is weak.
“There is no evidence, no proof period that Mr. Kuhnhausen let this man into this house,” Upham said.
But Davidson said Haffey, an ex-con, told acquaintances he planned to kill a man's wife for $25,000 upfront and $25,000 after he did the deed. Davidson also said Kuhnhausen's daughter told authorities she'd seen Haffey and her father together in the days before the attack.
Upham questioned the legality of the state's case against his client, saying that police wrongfully took him into custody to question him. Clackamas County sheriff's deputies spotted and reportedly detained Kuhnhausen based on information that he was carrying a handgun and wanted to die by a police officer's bullet.
Instead of holding him on probable cause in a murder-for-hire plot, Upham said, his client was questioned about the attack on his wife while being in custody for his own protection.
“Anything that the state gathered is out,” Upham said.
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