THE mystery of the death of a Long Island woman Marie Kuhnla found strangled at a resort has taken a shocking new twist over three and a half years later.
Marie Kuhnla’s body was found in a remote area of Club Med in the Turks and Caicos Islands and now the government is re-examining her death.
The son of a woman who died while vacationing at the Club Med Turkoise resort on the Turks and Caicos Islands says he’s concerned with the legitimacy of a new government inquest into her death, initially ruled murder.
The inquest, which ends Thursday is meant to review the official cause of death, and Marie Kuhnla’s son alleges island officials are hoping the court will reconsider the original findings.
The 62-year-old public defender from Long Island, New York, vanished on Oct. 14, 2018 while vacationing with two colleagues from the Suffolk County Legal Aid Society. Her body was found on Oct. 16 in the bushes of a remote area of the resort.
Marie Kuhnla and her family in an undated photo. From left to right: Rick Kuhnla Jr., Rick Kuhnla Sr. and Marie Kuhnla. (Courtesy: Kuhnla family)
The death certificate issued by Turks and Caicos states that Kuhnla’s death was a result of manual strangulation, and while police initially described the death as a murder, their tone shifted as time passed, according to Marie Kuhnla’s son, Rick Kuhnla Jr.
Who Was Marie Kuhnla?
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Marie Kuhnla was an attorney from New York, she was on a getaway with her colleagues at Club Med in the Turks and Caicos Islands when she was brutally murdered and her dead body was only found after one and half days of her disappearance.
Kuhnla got off the pool and decided to go to her room when she disappeared, the island’s police found her body the following day in a remote part of the resort covered in a sandy clump of bushes according to NBC New York.
According to Rick Kuhnla Jr., the lead investigating police officer from the islands over his mother’s murder case traveled to Long Island in 2019 and met with his father, Rick Kuhnla Sr., and began expressing that he did not think that Marie Kuhnla’s death was the result of a homicide.
Instead, according to Rick Kuhnla Jr., the police officer believed that the death was the result of positional asphyxia, which is where a person’s position causes improper breathing, which can lead to death.
“I think that they have the interest that tourism is their number one industry and it’s a lot smoother for them to say that she died by accident in some bushes.”
“He thinks that she just got herself into a position in the bushes where she couldn’t breathe, which didn’t happen. It’s not possible. We’ve talked to, you know, through our lawyer, we’ve gotten in touch with retired NYPD officers who run a private investigation firm and said that that’s just absurd,” Kuhnla Jr. said.
Let us learn more about Marie Kuhnla’s murderer and take a closer look at her son and husband.
Who Murdered New York Woman And Public Defender Marie Kuhnla?
Marie Kuhnla’s murderer has not been identified yet, her case remains unsolved even after nearly four years of the incident.
However, according to Daily Mail, fellow Club Med guest and former employee Frank Yacullo was accused of Marie’s murder.
Yacullo has not pleaded anything in relation to the case, he does not remain in police custody as of now.
As the case has been unsolved for nearly 4 years now, the government has launched a re-examination of the case. Kuhnla’s family do not appear to be happy with the government’s decision.
We might need to stick around for a little longer to know about the murderer of Public Defender Marie Kuhnla as there are no hits of the case being solved anytime soon and suspects in the case are also not available as of now.
Abe George, a lawyer for the family says these types of hearings are rare and added that the police department is “trying to cast doubt” on the initial cause of death.
George said that there’s evidence suggesting after being found, her remains were put in front of a refrigerator exhaust fan blowing hot air rather than inside the refrigerator, with a possible intent to accelerate decomposition of the body prior to the medical examiner’s arrival on the islands.
Despite the decomposition of Marie Kuhnla’s body, which her son said there was “insect larvae on and around,” the medical examiner, Dr. Michael Steckbauer, was still able to determine that she died of strangulation by homicide. Steckbauer told NBC New York that he stands by the ruling.
Who Are Marie Kuhnla Husband And Son?
Marie Kuhnla’s husband’s name is Rick Kuhnla and her son’s name is Rick Kuhnla Jr.
Both her husband and son are trying to get justice for Marie now but they are not in luck at the moment.
Her son Rick Jr. was seen frustrated as the trial began and the government started the re-examination of the murder, he said, “This is clear this was not accidental-it was a violent homicide and anything else suggesting it wasn’t is a lie.”
During a civil hearing on the matter as part of a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit, Steckbauer said that a morgue employee had put the body under the heated exhaust fan, and called the action “intentional.”
The worker “decided that she was going to place this specific decedent under a heated exhaust (fan), which no, I don’t think is appropriate. I do think in this case, it rises to the level of criminal liability… from what I have been told, her actions were intentional,” Steckbauer said during the hearing, according to the report.
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