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Larry Fairchild
and Elizabeth Krusinga
The
information on this page was originally posted on the internet
in 1998. After several years the page was no longer maintained.
Larry Fairchild recently contacted injusticebusters and we have
reposted the story more or less as it first appeared. We will
soon include updates . . .
Larry Fairchild and
Elizabeth Krusinga
They met in the spring of 1991
after Larry had just gone through a nasty divorce and Elizabeth
had been dealing with her own tragedies.
Within a few months they were
living together and talking about getting married some day in
the near future.
It was also a stormy relationship
at times with a lot of problems, and a few break ups over money
and alcohol.
It nearly came to a tragic
end the night of March 7, 1992.
Things hadn't been going well
for a while and they were talking about splitting up for good,
as the house that they were renting had just been sold......they
were given 18 days to find a place to move.
Elizabeth had been seeing another
guy off and on for a while, trying to make up her mind what she
wanted to do.
It happened to be this other
guy's birthday on a Saturday in March, so they all met at a local
bar to celebrate.
After a few hours the party
broke up and Elizabeth went to drive the other guy to his home,
as he had too much to drink to drive himself.
Larry went home soon after
to find her car in the driveway and the two of them in bed together.
There was a screaming match,
which ended up with Larry out in the kitchen smashing dishes
against the wall.
Elizabeth came out of the bedroom
with a handgun to get Larry to leave the house before there was
more damage.
As she entered the kitchen,
Larry turned and threw a broken plate at her.
She panicked, in fear for her
life, and emptied the gun at him. He was hit three times.
She stood there, as if in a
trance, and then went back down the hall to the bedroom. Larry
was able to get to the phone and call for help.
Larry was taken to the hospital
and Elizabeth was arrested for Aggravated Assault. After a few
days the Prosecutor changed the charge to Assault with intent
to Murder because of a drawing that the police had found in Larry's
car. It was a drawing containing a list of names of men in Elizabeth's
life about eight months earlier. Next to some of the names was
the word "deceased" and next to Larry's name someone
had written "next." 
The Prosecutor took this to
be a "hit list ", even though Elizabeth had nothing
to do with the deaths. They had died in car wrecks and fights,
one even died in the county jail under "mysterious circumstances"
-- he allegedly hung himself with someone else's shoe lace.
After Elizabeth had sat in
jail for eleven months, the Prosecutor convinced the jury at
her trial that the drawing jrepresented a fantasy she was acting
out. She was convicted and sentenced to 12 to 20 years in prison.
The sentence for the original charge of Aggravated Assault is
anywhere from one to three years, sometimes a lot less.
This part of the story ended
with Elizabeth going to prison for defending herself in a domestic
situation that got out of hand and Larry trying to pay off a
$30,000 hospital bill because he had no insurance.
Larry and Elizabeth got back
together after she had been in prison for a while and they got
married in there on 8-4-94.
They waited for over two and
a half years for a Court of Appeals decision to come back, hopeful
for a new trial and justice.
Her appeal was turned down.
The appeals court felt the
Prosecutor didn't intentionally deceive the jury about the drawing;
he just made the suggestion that it might mean something while
her Public Defender sat there and did very little.
The Prosecutor's favorite quote
at the trial was........
"Ladies and Gentlemen,
draw your own conclusions."
A jury is supposed to draw
its own conclusion based on the facts of the case, not a Prosecutor's
fantasy of what he thinks something means.
Elizabeth's case has now been
appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court and it will be sometime
in the spring of 1996 before they will make a decision to hear
the case or not.
Larry has been told that he
can make no representation of support in a victim's impact statement
to the Supreme Court as to Elizabeth's right to a new trial,
because that would be trying to influence the judges.....yes,
that is what he was told.
The purpose of this Web Page
is to ask the people of this country, who believe in justice,
to take the time to send a post card to the Michigan Supreme
Court and ask them to hear her case and give her a new trial
.
The address is:
Supreme Court Clerk
P.O. Box 30052
Lansing, Michigan 48909
Her name and case number must
be on the card.
Elizabeth A. Krusinga - Court
of Appeals No. 162623
You might also want to send
a card to the Prosecuting Attorney in her case and tell him what
you think of Branch County Justice ...
His address is ;
Mr. John L. Livesay, Esq.
Branch County Prosecuting Attorney
31 Division Street
Coldwater, Michigan 49036
E-mail
Larry
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell