Calif: Husband in teacher-wife murder could inherit $900,000 if exonerated
Patty
bank accounts after 33 years of marriage. And yet another article
stated that he made two cell phone calls and received a third, all
using the Stanford relay station, between 11:35 am and 1:59 pm, meaning
he could not have been where he says he was at the time of the murder.
Article also said that an ax was missing from the home.
Money a Motive in Slaying?
Fitzhugh could inherit $900,000 if exonerated
Alan Gathright,
San Francisco Chronicle Thursday, June 29, 2000
Kenneth C. Fitzhugh Jr. stands to inherit nearly $900,000 from his late
wife, Kristine -- unless he's convicted of bludgeoning and strangling
her in their Palo Alto home, according to court records.
Police suspect that Ken Fitzhugh, 57, was partially motivated by money
when he allegedly ambushed his wife in the kitchen of their $2 million
home and staged her death as a stumble down basement stairs. A month
after the slaying, Fitzhugh signed documents voluntarily declining to
serve as executor of his wife's estate. He remains in the county jail
in San Jose on $10 million bail.
``If you are intentionally responsible for causing the death of
someone, you cannot inherit from that person nor can you be the
survivor of their life insurance,'' said Palo Alto attorney Peter
Stern. He is representing Kristine Fitzhugh's longtime friend Thomas
Schaide, who is seeking to be executor of her estate.
Detectives have stressed in court papers that, despite the couple's
upscale lifestyle, Ken Fitzhugh, a real estate consultant, had bounced
checks in recent years and fallen behind once on tax payments.
Investigators noted that Fitzhugh stood to receive a $96,000 life
insurance award if his wife died accidentally. The day before her
death, he applied for a loan using their Southgate colonial-style home
as collateral.
But police have made no mention of Kristine Fitzhugh's 1980 will, which
became public only recently when Stern filed papers in San Jose
Superior Court to begin the legal process of certifying the will's
authenticity.
The will leaves the majority of the music teacher's estate to her
husband, including $20,000 in personal property and $870,000 in real
estate, which Stern described as the wife's community property share of
their home.
Ken Fitzhugh has declared his innocence, and his defense attorney
rejects the police theory that his client had any motive or desire to
harm his wife of 33 years.
If Fitzhugh is convicted, his wife's estate will pass to her sons,
Justin Kenneth Fitzhugh, 22, and John Patrick Fitzhugh, 20, Stern said.
She also willed her jewelry, furniture and other personal effects to
her sons.
During the probate process, creditors or anyone challenging the will
have at least four months to state their claim in court, Stern said.
Meanwhile, a preliminary hearing on whether Fitzhugh should stand trial
will resume in Palo Alto July 18.
In the first two days of the pretrial hearing, police testified that
Fitzhugh told detectives his wife must have accidentally fallen down
the stairs. He and two of her friends found the woman's body May 5
after she failed to arrive for an afternoon music class.
A detective testified earlier this week that the husband was
``dumbfounded'' on the day of the slaying when police confronted him
with his Nike running shoes stained with the wife's blood, found under
the driver's seat of the van he had driven that morning. Investigators
also discovered her blood on the husband's sport shirt and a crumpled
paper towel in the car.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Patty
Maggie wrote:
: ***Thanks for the info. A few questions--is this "van" the blue Suburban
that
: previous stories have mentioned Ken was driving that morning? Who's this
: "longtime friend" of Kristine's who's trying to get named executor? Are
the
: sons supporting this guy?
The "van" must be the blue Suburban because he only that and a BMW. Also
I had it wrong earlier when I reported that the house was investigated four
or
five days after the murder. Actually the house and car was searched the day
of the murder but they didn't find the dress shirt until they searched the
car
thoroughtly four or five days later. He must have thought he bought time by
staging it as an accident and could get rid of these things later.
I don't know who the "longtime friend" is but am also wondering. I haven't
heard
if the sons are happy with the idea. Not much has been reported about them
except that they go to their father's court appearances. I'm wondering if
they
believe in his innocence with all the evidence presented. Also wondering if
there is money left for the younger son to return to college. Never heard
where
he went but one son returned by plane on the night of the murder, so I
assume
his parents were paying for living away expenses as well as books and
tuition.
Maggie wrote:
Personally, I don't think that inheriting the house is much of a motive.
: Unless Kristine was threatening to divorce him (and maybe she was--weren't
: there some books found that indicate someone might have been trying to get
: out?), it's not terribly persuasive.
Yeah, I don't see the house as a motive unless she threatened divorce or he
had someone else on the side. An excerpt from an earlier Chronicle story:
"Eight search warrants reveal that detectives are scouring the couple's
financial life, computers and telephone records for evidence of marital
conflict and a motive for murder. They are also looking for the dead woman's
journal and reviewing the couple's e-mail, cellular phone calls and phone
mail."
Maggie wrote:
: And, incidentally, after 20 years of marriage, my husband and I still keep
: separate bank accounts.
You know, I would have guessed that. I'd probably be the same way and I
know lots of women who
keep separate bank accounts. No one in my immediate family keeps separate
accounts but my mother
had two sisters who kept their inheritence from their father separate from
their husbands. In fact
one aunt may have had her own checking for all we know, as she was given a
monthly allowance by her
fairly wealthy husband.
Maggie wrote:
:And I'd love to read the article about the other cell calls indicating
Fitzhugh was somewhere other than where "he said he was.
I've posted the article separate and it follows this post.
Patty
interesting twist to modern day
sleuthing. Remember in one of the latter day Columbo movie-of-the-week when
someone showed him how to use the *69 to find the last caller.
Cell Calls Poke Hole in Husband's Alibi
Records show he was in town when wife died
Alan Gathright
San Francisco Chronicle Tuesday, June 27, 2000
Soon after his wife was slain at their Palo Alto home, Kenneth Carroll
Fitzhugh's cell-phone records show him receiving a call in the Palo Alto
area, contradicting his alibi that he was returning from San Bruno.
The real estate consultant is accused of bludgeoning and strangling Kristine
Fitzhugh during a lunchtime ambush in their kitchen and then staging the
slaying as an accidental fall down basement stairs.
At a preliminary hearing in Palo Alto yesterday, a detective recounted that
57-year-old Kenneth Fitzhugh was ``dumbfounded'' when confronted with the
discovery of his white Nike running shoes stained with his wife's blood in
his blue Chevrolet Suburban the day of her murder.
``You're kidding,'' a stunned Fitzhugh told police, according to his
attorney.
Superior Court Judge Charles W. Hayden continued the hearing, in which he
will rule if there's sufficient evidence for Fitzhugh to stand trial for
murder, until July 18. He also barred attorneys or police from discussing
the case with the media until the hearing concludes.
``I want this case tried and heard in the courtroom,'' Hayden said. ``This
is a high-profile matter. . . . It's incredibly important that justice be
served.''
At issue yesterday was a cell- phone call that Kenneth Fitzhugh received
about 1:16 p.m. from a school secretary reporting that his wife, a
grade-school music teacher, was missing for her afternoon class. Police
believe that the woman was murdered between 12:08 p.m. -- when a delivery
man found no one at the couple's Escobita Avenue home -- and 1:41 p.m. when
the husband and two of her friends arrived to find her body and called 911.
Chief Police Investigator Mike Denson testified that the school secretary
told police that when she reached Kenneth Fitzhugh on his cell phone, he
told her he was in San Mateo. Denson said Fitzhugh later told police he
received the call while in Redwood City.
But cell-phone records show that between 11:35 a.m. and 1:59 p.m. on the day
of his wife's murder, Fitzhugh made two calls and received a third -- all
using a cell-phone relay station on University Avenue in Palo Alto,
according to Paul Brumley, a GTE Wireless fraud investigator.
That proves he must have been in the Palo Alto area at the time of those
calls, Brumley said. If Fitzhugh had been in Redwood City, the call would
have been routed through an antenna there, he said.
Tom Nolan, Fitzhugh's defense attorney, quizzed Brumley about the chances of
a Redwood City call being routed through the Palo Alto station during busy
cell-phone usage.
``I don't see that that's a possibility,'' Brumley said.
Denson also testified about Fitzhugh's reaction to investigators' discovery
of his bloody running shoes. Fitzhugh said he had put them back in his
closet around 8 a.m. after jogging in them with his wife that morning, but
he couldn't find them when showing the detectives the closet.
When Denson confronted the man with a Polaroid photo of the bloodstained
shoes, found underneath the front seat of the van Fitzhugh had been driving
all morning, Fitzhugh said he didn't know how they got there or how blood
got on them.
In an interview that evening, Fitzhugh recounted that his wife had cut her
hand with a gardening trowel about a week or two earlier and her blood might
have dripped on his shoes when he gave her first aid, Denson said. But
coroner's pathologists couldn't find the accidental wound the husband
described.
Nolan's questioning of detectives suggested that he plans to raise the
possibility that Fitzhugh, who bloodied his dress clothes trying to revive
his wife, may have later accidentally smeared blood on his running shoes
while reparking the van.
The weapon used for bludgeoning Kristine Fitzhugh has not been found yet. An
ax is missing from the home, according to a list Fitzhugh provided
detectives.
Maggie
***Thanks for the info. A few questions--is this "van" the blue Suburban that
previous stories have mentioned Ken was driving that morning? Who's this
"longtime friend" of Kristine's who's trying to get named executor? Are the
sons supporting this guy?
Personally, I don't think that inheriting the house is much of a motive.
Unless Kristine was threatening to divorce him (and maybe she was--weren't
there some books found that indicate someone might have been trying to get
out?), it's not terribly persuasive. And I'd love to read the article about
the other cell calls indicating Fitzhugh was somewhere other than where he said
he was.
And, incidentally, after 20 years of marriage, my husband and I still keep
separate bank accounts.
Maggie
"There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory."
Josh Billings
Cliff or Linda Griffith
> And, incidentally, after 20 years of marriage, my husband and I still keep
> separate bank accounts.
I was wondering about that, too. I didn't realize it was odd-enough to
warrant mention in a newspaper article. After 31 years of marriage, my
husband and I have "his", "mine", and "ours" accounts. In Texas at
least, it doesn't make any real difference: unless the accounts are
provable as separate property, they're all community property funds
anyway.
Linda
George Byrd
on "Re: Calif: Husband in teacher-wife murder could inherit $900,000
if exonerated"
maggi...@aol.comSPAMBLOC (Maggie) wrote:
>Personally, I don't think that inheriting the house is much of a motive.
Half the house - agreed. Under CA law, if married couple buys a house
with community funds (such as either spouse' earnings), each is is
entitled to half on death or divorce, no matter who really held the
job and paid the mortgage.
>Unless Kristine was threatening to divorce him (and maybe she was--weren't
>there some books found that indicate someone might have been trying to get
>out?), it's not terribly persuasive. And I'd love to read the article about
>the other cell calls indicating Fitzhugh was somewhere other than where he said
>he was.
Yep, that would be interesting. FWIW, Woodside Road RWC and
University Ave. P.A. are *very* close to 5 miles apart by Highway 101.
As the crow flies they're a bit less, at least by my funky old
gas-station map. The 5 mile figure was cited in another news report
PattyC posted here as the outer range of phone cell transmitters. I
don't know where the "Stanford Site" that was referred to as the
transmitter site is, though.
>And, incidentally, after 20 years of marriage, my husband and I still keep
>separate bank accounts.
Where the money in the account(s) comes from is what matters under CA
community property law. If you don't inherit it, or get it as other
legally separate property, it's community property, so half belongs to
each spouse. For example: what either spouse earns from jobs or
employment during marriage belongs 50-50 to each.
G "50-50 foresight, 20/20 hindsight" B
--
Opinions above are NOT those of APAN, Inc. & are NOT legal advice.
`It is criminal to steal a purse. It is daring to steal a fortune.
It is a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes
as the guilt increases." << Schiller (1759-1805) >>
Maggie
>of his bloody running shoes. Fitzhugh said he had put them back in his
>closet around 8 a.m. after jogging in them with his wife that morning, but
>he couldn't find them when showing the detectives the closet.
>
>When Denson confronted the man with a Polaroid photo of the bloodstained
>shoes, found underneath the front seat of the van Fitzhugh had been driving
>all morning, Fitzhugh said he didn't know how they got there or how blood
>got on them.
***Thanks for posting, patty. I wonder if the next thing we're going to see is
some sort of diminished capacity/split personality defense. "Your honor, I
must have done it but I have no memory of it at all."
Patty
> patty posted a news story:
> >Denson also testified about Fitzhugh's reaction to investigators'
discovery of his bloody running shoes. Fitzhugh said he had put them
back in his closet around 8 a.m. after jogging in them with his wife
that morning, but he couldn't find them when showing the detectives the
closet.
> >
> >When Denson confronted the man with a Polaroid photo of the
bloodstained shoes, found underneath the front seat of the van Fitzhugh
had been driving all morning, Fitzhugh said he didn't know how they got
there or how blood got on them.
>
> ***Thanks for posting, patty. I wonder if the next thing we're going
to see is some sort of diminished capacity/split personality
defense. "Your honor, I must have done it but I have no memory of it
at all."
>
Could be. There is another trial going on at the moment in Santa Clara
County of another executive-husband who killed his wife last year and
is pleading insanity. I'll post the Tuesday's story on this case after
this post. And in another case of a husband killing his wife with a
bat two years ago in nearby Alameda County, the jury recently
convicted the husband of voluntary manslaughter. The couple were
having marital problems and the wife had recently lost weight with the
help of diet pills and was having multiple affairs with different
coworkers. She had threatened her husband that morning that she was
going to get everything including the house and kids. I remember this
one because it tied up traffic for miles and miles while they recovered
the body.
Here's an excerpt from the Hayward Review on that case:
quotes on
Mackay told police he killed his wife on the morning of April 24, 1998
in the master bathroom of their home in the Irvington district of
Fremont. He cleaned up the bathroom, wrapped up the body, put it in the
back of his truck and drove to work in Mountain View.
An hour later, Mackay drove west and hid his wife's body in a ravine
off Highway 17 in the Santa Cruz Mountains. While dumping evidence at
other turnouts on the same highway, a California Highway Patrol Officer
stopped behind him, thinking Mackay was having engine trouble.
After the officer saw blood in the truck, Mackay was arrested. Later he
assisted police in recovering some evidence and confessed to the
killing.
Patty
She thought mom's yell was part of another argument with dad
BY BILL ROMANO
San Jose Mercury News
June 27, 2000
When she heard her mother cry out from the bedroom, ``What are you
doing?'' 11-year-old Gabriella Bowers figured her parents were only
arguing again and went on reading a book.
But, prosecutors say, that probably was the very moment Colman Michael
Bowers chose to drive a knife into the heart of his wife, Georgina, as
she dozed on the afternoon of Feb. 7, 1999.
After that, there was only silence.
A while later, a tearful Colman Bowers emerged from their bedroom and
announced in a ``trembling'' voice that he had just ``wrecked the
family,'' Gabriella told a jury in Santa Clara County Superior Court on
Monday. Gina and Colman -- as she called her parents -- had been
quarreling with each other more and more, and, she said, she thought
her father meant he had demanded a divorce.
Bowers, former vice president of a Silicon Valley software company, has
pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges he murdered his
wife that afternoon. The defense maintains that Bowers, 46, is a manic-
depressive who suffers from a phobia disorder brought on by head
injuries from a traffic accident 20 years ago and was mentally impaired
at the time of the killing.
Prosecutors contend that the Bowers marriage had been falling apart,
fueled by the husband's excessive drinking, gambling and infatuation
with a Las Vegas prostitute. Gina Bowers reportedly wanted to return to
their native Ireland, but Colman Bowers was set against it.
In the course of her testimony during the second week of the trial on
Monday, Gabriella Bowers could not recall details of the incident
clearly until she was read transcripts of her interviews with police
conducted more than a year ago. She was flown to San Jose over the
weekend from Ireland, where she now lives with her mother's brother,
Brendan McCormack.
On the witness stand, the soft-spoken youngster fidgeted nervously,
continually touching her blond ponytail and brushing her face with her
hands. Occasionally, she responded to questions with a shy smile but
hardly glanced in the direction of her father, seated across the room.
Under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Terry Bowman, Gabriella
recalled that her father had followed her to her room after his
announcement that afternoon. He seemed to want to talk with her, she
said, but left her room immediately when she asked to be alone.
Later on, Gabriella went to her parents' room to talk with her mother
about what had happened earlier and -- opening the door -- found Bowers
kneeling over his wife's body on the floor. She thought that he
appeared to be weeping. The girl testified that when she screamed, he
clamped a hand over her mouth and said the noise would arouse neighbors.
Still later, she said she implored her father to call for help but he
first refused, telling her that he could be put in jail.
``What else did he say about jail?'' Bowman asked.
``You'll never have both of your parents again,'' Gabriella replied.
The girl said she told her father he should then call her two older
brothers, Michael and David, on their cell phone and have them come
back to the house. The sons subsequently persuaded their father to
inform police.
In a tape recording of the 911 call -- entered into evidence earlier in
the trial -- Bowers told the emergency dispatcher he had been sleeping
and woke up to discover that he had accidentally stabbed his wife.
According to a prepared statement of his lawyer, K. Kleigh Hathaway, in
the months immediately preceding his wife's death, Bowers suffered a
severe reaction to a prescribed psychoactive drug but was not properly
treated.
As a result, ``the Colman Bowers who interacted with the world during
this time was a stranger,'' Hathaway said, arguing that Bowers was
psychologically unaware of his actions, unable to understand their
quality, incapable of reflection. In short, she said, Bowers was ``not
in control.''
The trial continues today before Judge Paul Teilh.