NBC Dateline: How did detectives solve Cathy Krauseneck’s case after 4 decades?

Cathy Krauseneck was found dead with an ax in her head at her Brighton home on February 19, 1982. Decades after the murder, her husband, James Krauseneck, was arrested for second-degree murder and was found guilty last September.

Initial reports described the incident as a botched burglary, stating that the couple's three-year-old daughter was present when her mother was murdered. But owing to a lack of available evidence and suspects at the time, the case eventually went cold and remained so for decades to come.

In 2015, authorities, along with the FBI and celebrity forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, took a "fresh look" at the unsolved case. Investigators re-examined the timeline, which proved that James was at home at the time of the murder. He initially told cops that he left for work early and only returned home in the evening to find Cathy dead.

NBC Dateline sets the stage for Cathy Krauseneck's decades-old murder case in an all-new two-hour episode titled The Bad Man, scheduled to air this Friday, January 20, at 9 pm ET.

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The Brighton Ax Murder case of Cathy Krauseneck initially went cold due to lack of evidence and leads

On the day the murder occurred, James Krauseneck reported that he had just returned from work and discovered his 29-year-old wife dead in their bedroom with an ax embedded in her skull. Sara, their three-year-old daughter, was found unharmed in her room at their upstate New York residence.

Authorities in Brighton were baffled by the horrifying discovery and had difficulties finding a suspect in Cathy Krauseneck's murder. Dubbed the "Brighton Ax Murder," the case went cold over the years due to a lack of evidence. Authorities believed the killing was the outcome of a botched burglary until 2015, when the FBI and renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden got involved.

Authorities arrested James in 2019 on suspicion of killing his wife, staging the crime scene to make it appear like a botched robbery, and then going to work, leaving behind his daughter in the Del Rio Drive home. Krauseneck, a former Eastman Kodak economist who dropped out of graduate school, was ultimately found guilty of second-degree murder in September 2022.

Krauseneck allegedly murdered his wife in their home with a single strike, using the ax he took from their garage and hitting Cathy on the back of her head. Moreover, there was reportedly no other DNA found at the scene to indicate that another attacker had entered the house.

On the day his wife was murdered, 30-year-old James told investigators he had left for work at Eastman Kodak at about 6.30 am. He was initially cleared because a medical examiner determined that Cathy's time of death was between 6.55 and 8.55 that morning.

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Re-examination of Cathy Krauseneck's case FBI and Dr. Michael Baden's help led to an arrest decades later

When Cathy Krauseneck's case was re-examined in 2015 by detectives working with the FBI and Michael Baden, it was found that her body temperature suggested that she was murdered while her husband was still at home.

According to RochesterFirst.com, Dr. Michael Baden stated that her death occurred earlier than what the original medical examiner's report indicated due to partially digested food in her stomach and body stiffness.

The former medical examiner also noted body stiffness, often called "Rigor Mortis." Baden further claimed that Rigor Mortis doesn't develop until at least 12 hours after a person has died. This, in his view, would suggest that Cathy was murdered roughly between nine o'clock the night before and three or four o'clock the next morning, which meant that she died before James left for work.

The FBI also used cutting-edge DNA testing on forensic evidence collected from the crime scene and discovered a significant amount of the husband's DNA.

Detectives also discovered that James never completed his doctorate but managed to teach at Lynchburg College and find stable employment at Eastman Kodak, given that both roles depended on the degree. They believed that his falsified degree was a cause of friction between the two. Authorities also discovered a marriage counseling pamphlet inside the family's car.

James Krauseneck was given a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison for the 1982 murder of Cathy Krauseneck.