commentary by Patrick H. Moore
I remember well how I got my ass chewed for making disparaging remarks about foster parents based on isolated incidents. The gist of the “chewing” was that I was overlooking all the kind, benevolent and hardworking foster parents who do everything in their power to give their youthful charges a better crack at life. I took the criticism to heart and have since gained a new respect for these often saintly women and men. (Although I could be wrong, my sense is that the “foster mothers” are often the ones doing the heavy lifting and the “foster fathers” may frequently be less involved in the lives of the foster children.)
Now, to my horror, we are confronted with a case in which an apparently perfectly competent foster mother lost her life in a most gruesome fashion because her foster daughter was seduced by her foster father, who was clearly all too involved in his youthful charge’s life and in the worst possible manner. In fact, the foster father ultimately persuading the child to brutally murder her foster mother (his wife).
Mark Gillispie of the AP writes:
A northeast Ohio teenager who said she killed her foster mother in 2012 at the urging of the dead woman’s husband was sentenced to life in prison on Monday.
Sabrina Zunich, 19, pleaded guilty last month to aggravated murder in the gruesome stabbing death of Lisa Knoefel, 41, in 2012. The social worker was stabbed and cut more than 150 times with a 10-inch serrated knife, authorities said. Zunich is eligible for parole in 30 years.
The killing occurred nearly two years ago shortly after midnight on Nov. 26, 2012. Lisa Knoefel’s 13-year-old daughter reportedly discovered her mother fighting for her life during the awful encounter with Zunich and called 911 in a desperate cry for help. Unlike in the horror movies, it generally doesn’t take long to kill a person and when Officers from the Cleveland suburb of Willoughby Hills arrived, poor Ms. Knoefel had left the land of the living and Sabrina Zunich, still grasping the knife, was splattered with her victim’s blood,
Prior to her sentencing, Sabrina testified against her foster father Kevin Knoefel during his trial on charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and sexual battery. Sabrina would have been around 16 when she moved in with the Knoefels and according to her testimony, Kevin began giving her the eye soon after her arrival. According to Sabrina’s testimony, by 2012 they were having sex. Their relationship, which they both appear to have seen in a romantic light, eventually deteriorated into talk of murdering Lisa.
If Sabrina’s’s testimony is reliable, and rerading between the lines, Kevin either already was or became highly unstable at some point during his illicit sexual relationship with Sabrina. (Either that or he was smart like a fox.) Sabrina testified that the day before she assaulted Lisa, Kevin threatened suicide if his wife was not killed. (Not to come across as too much of a cynic, but this is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. Particularly considering that Kevin stood to receive $750,000 of insurance money, if only his wife would conveniently die.) In her testimony, Sabrina said Kevin even gave her advice on exactly how to execute the fatal stabbing of his wife. Kevin, naturally, was conveniently out of town driving a truck in Michigan when the slaying occurred.
At Sabrina’s sentencing on Monday, prosecutors said it was unlikely they would have obtained the conviction against Kevin without Sabrina’s testimony. A different Lake County judge in August sentenced 44-year-old Kevin Knoefel to life in prison. Like Sabrina, Kevin will be eligible for parole after 30 years.
At her sentencing, Sabrina Zunich seemed suitably chastened. With her wrists manacled in front of her, she spoke briefly stating Lisa Knoefel did not deserve to die.
“I can’t explain how much remorse I have, how much sadness.”
On Monday, Sabrina’s defense attorney, Charles Grieshammer, argued “that she should receive the minimum sentence of 20 years to life. Grieshammer said Zunich had overcome a tough family life, substance abuse and mental health issues to get her life and education back on track before she was sent to live with the Knoefels.”
“Had she been placed anywhere else, she might have made it,” Grieshammer said.
And this, of course, may well be true. Not every foster father is going to sleazily seduce his new foster daughter.
On the other hand, Sabrina moving in with the Knoefels in 2011 seemed to make sense. Lisa Knoefel had a background in social work and had previous experience with troubled teens. Not only that, “she and her husband had hosted foster children before, and there were two younger girls that Zunich could bond with.”
This happy scenario, however, overlooks one critical (and as it turned out deadly) fact. The Knoefels had a troubled marriage.
One wonders how Lisa Knoefel, who presumably had her head screwed on more or less straight, allowed herself to believe that her already estranged husband would comport himself properly with a new 16-year-old girl in the house. But perhaps there had never been any indication that he “sported” a particularly inappropriate “wandering eye”. In any event, Lisa Knoebel clearly thought they could handle it and, tragically, this optimistic appraisal on her part opened the door to disaster.