sarahhod
02-18-2009, 07:28 AM
Kennewick police arrest suspect in decades-old theft
Kristin M. Kraemer, Herald staff writer
Published: 02/18/09 1:38 am
Twenty six years has passed since Barbara Kurz vanished in Kennewick.
Her Valentine's Day disappearance stymied police, who listed her as a missing person but suspected she had gone on the run because she was about to be discovered in a $106,000 embezzlement case.
On Tuesday morning, the past caught up with the now 70-year-old woman when she found two Kennewick detectives on her Arizona doorstep.
Kurz was arrested at a Mesa, Ariz., home where she reportedly has lived under a false name since 1991.
"When (Mesa and Kennewick detectives) executed the search warrant at 7:50 hours, she was cooperative but shocked," said Sgt. Ed Wessing, spokesman for the Mesa Police Department. "She stated that she knew this day was coming."
She's being held on a warrant for first-degree theft and faces extradition to Benton County.
Kurz was 44 and a married mother of four when she left her family and credit union job behind in 1983. Court documents say she moved to Arizona in 1985.
Kennewick Police Chief Ken Hohenberg said he was pleased to wrap up one of his department's unsolved cases.
"From my perspective, good police work and diligence pays off ...," Hohenberg said. "It's nice to know that our department continues to work these major cases and eventually bring people to justice for these major crimes."
Kurz is accused of taking $106,000 from the Tri-City Medical Credit Union and possibly $4,000 from GESA Federal Credit Union.
She had been an employee supervisor at GESA's Kennewick office and used the space to also do paperwork for her own business, Medical Credit Union.
Hohenberg said detectives on Tuesday searched Kurz's home, which is in a retirement mobile home park. Based on what they found, "they have been able to substantiate that this is the person they've been looking for," he said.
Kurz had been using her real birthdate. Her alias, Renee E. Fulgham, was her youngest daughter's maiden name but with a different middle name. And her Social Security number was changed by just one digit, according to police and court documents in Benton County Superior Court.
Investigators tracked her to Arizona after doing numerous database searches on her given name -- Barbara Eileen Peterson -- and the Kurz name, along with a list of aliases that popped up.
Wessing said Kennewick detectives contacted his department a couple of months ago. Mesa officers followed up and "were able to confirm that, yes, she did live there," he said.
Benton County Superior Court Judge Cameron Mitchell signed the arrest warrant last week, authorizing Kennewick Detective Sgt. Mike Genack and Detective Chris Guerrero to travel to the Southwest and get Kurz.
"We had great support from the Mesa Police Department. They gave us a group of about six detectives plus a patrol officer, and they actually sat on the house before we served the search warrant to make sure that she didn't leave before our folks got there," Hohenberg said.
The 7:50 a.m. arrest was in Mountain the time zone.
"(Detectives) hit the house fairly early. They just wanted to make sure that she wasn't going to the grocery store or taking off and going to a doctor's appointment," said Hohenberg.
"She came right to the door apparently when they knocked," he added.
Kurz could be returned to the Tri-Cities as early as next week, depending on whether she agrees to extradition, said Benton County Prosecutor Andy Miller. Otherwise, it could take at least a month.
In the meantime, she will be held in Maricopa County with bail set at $500,000.
A 12-page document -- written by Guerrero and filed in Superior Court by Miller -- details what happened after Kurz's mysterious disappearance.
Police initially thought she may have been a victim of foul play or suicide, or gone missing due to a loss of memory. Then more clues surfaced that pointed to Kurz as a suspect on the lam.
Kurz usually spent her Mondays "completing money deposits" and other duties at GESA's Kennewick office, which was closed on Mondays to the public.
On Feb. 14, 1983, two co-workers from the Richland office stopped by 7305 Canal Drive to find "the safe unlocked, Kurz's personal keys in a filing cabinet, items from her desk on the floor and a necklace on the floor in front of the safe and Kurz not there," the court document said.
Lester P. Kurz told investigators that he'd last seen his wife at 6:30 a.m. She'd told him he wouldn't need to stop by the office on his way home, as he often did to pick up paperwork.
Kurz's 1977 Thunderbird was found that afternoon in an isolated field near Pendleton. Schoolboys doused small fires in the trunk and front seat.
Partially burned financial documents, gloves and a muddy pair of women's dress shoes were found in the car's trunk. Keys and a hand-drawn map to Kurz's sister's home in Las Vegas were on the charred front seat.
A calculator traced to Kurz was also found that evening in a ditch along Interstate 84 in Oregon, as if it had been tossed from a car.
Kurz separately called her husband and one of her daughters Feb. 15, but reportedly ended her contact with relatives after that. In her call to Lester Kurz, she claimed to have been kidnapped.
But investigators learned that a routine federal audit of the Medical Credit Union had been scheduled for Feb. 14 -- the day Kurz disappeared. Three audit appointments in the previous three months had been canceled under suspicious circumstances.
The first time, Kurz disappeared and was found in Columbia Park suffering from a seizure induced by a type of barbiturate, according to court documents and Herald reports. After she came out of the coma, she denied using drugs.
The second time a fire had started in one of the office's typewriters. The third time, she missed the appointment.
In June 1983, Kurz was charged in U.S. District Court with misapplication of federal credit union money. She was indicted by a Spokane grand jury in 1988 on the same charge.
But in January 1990 the case was dismissed because the indictment had come down three months after the statute of limitations had passed for the crime.
Police do not have a lot of details about what Kurz has been doing in Arizona for more than two decades.
Her husband eventually got a divorce and later died in 1991. One daughter died in a car accident about 10 years ago, and police aren't sure what happened to the other daughter and two sons.
Kurz never got a state driver's license or identification card, court documents said. She once received a traffic ticket from Mesa police under the Fulgham name and did not have a license at the time, documents said.
The Social Security number Kurz was using belonged to a Raymond Kurtz, who was born in 1893 and died in 1974, court documents said. It is unknown if there was any family connection.
"It will be nice bringing this gal back to justice and having her held accountable for her actions 26 years ago," Hohenberg said.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/northwest/story/630338.html
Kristin M. Kraemer, Herald staff writer
Published: 02/18/09 1:38 am
Twenty six years has passed since Barbara Kurz vanished in Kennewick.
Her Valentine's Day disappearance stymied police, who listed her as a missing person but suspected she had gone on the run because she was about to be discovered in a $106,000 embezzlement case.
On Tuesday morning, the past caught up with the now 70-year-old woman when she found two Kennewick detectives on her Arizona doorstep.
Kurz was arrested at a Mesa, Ariz., home where she reportedly has lived under a false name since 1991.
"When (Mesa and Kennewick detectives) executed the search warrant at 7:50 hours, she was cooperative but shocked," said Sgt. Ed Wessing, spokesman for the Mesa Police Department. "She stated that she knew this day was coming."
She's being held on a warrant for first-degree theft and faces extradition to Benton County.
Kurz was 44 and a married mother of four when she left her family and credit union job behind in 1983. Court documents say she moved to Arizona in 1985.
Kennewick Police Chief Ken Hohenberg said he was pleased to wrap up one of his department's unsolved cases.
"From my perspective, good police work and diligence pays off ...," Hohenberg said. "It's nice to know that our department continues to work these major cases and eventually bring people to justice for these major crimes."
Kurz is accused of taking $106,000 from the Tri-City Medical Credit Union and possibly $4,000 from GESA Federal Credit Union.
She had been an employee supervisor at GESA's Kennewick office and used the space to also do paperwork for her own business, Medical Credit Union.
Hohenberg said detectives on Tuesday searched Kurz's home, which is in a retirement mobile home park. Based on what they found, "they have been able to substantiate that this is the person they've been looking for," he said.
Kurz had been using her real birthdate. Her alias, Renee E. Fulgham, was her youngest daughter's maiden name but with a different middle name. And her Social Security number was changed by just one digit, according to police and court documents in Benton County Superior Court.
Investigators tracked her to Arizona after doing numerous database searches on her given name -- Barbara Eileen Peterson -- and the Kurz name, along with a list of aliases that popped up.
Wessing said Kennewick detectives contacted his department a couple of months ago. Mesa officers followed up and "were able to confirm that, yes, she did live there," he said.
Benton County Superior Court Judge Cameron Mitchell signed the arrest warrant last week, authorizing Kennewick Detective Sgt. Mike Genack and Detective Chris Guerrero to travel to the Southwest and get Kurz.
"We had great support from the Mesa Police Department. They gave us a group of about six detectives plus a patrol officer, and they actually sat on the house before we served the search warrant to make sure that she didn't leave before our folks got there," Hohenberg said.
The 7:50 a.m. arrest was in Mountain the time zone.
"(Detectives) hit the house fairly early. They just wanted to make sure that she wasn't going to the grocery store or taking off and going to a doctor's appointment," said Hohenberg.
"She came right to the door apparently when they knocked," he added.
Kurz could be returned to the Tri-Cities as early as next week, depending on whether she agrees to extradition, said Benton County Prosecutor Andy Miller. Otherwise, it could take at least a month.
In the meantime, she will be held in Maricopa County with bail set at $500,000.
A 12-page document -- written by Guerrero and filed in Superior Court by Miller -- details what happened after Kurz's mysterious disappearance.
Police initially thought she may have been a victim of foul play or suicide, or gone missing due to a loss of memory. Then more clues surfaced that pointed to Kurz as a suspect on the lam.
Kurz usually spent her Mondays "completing money deposits" and other duties at GESA's Kennewick office, which was closed on Mondays to the public.
On Feb. 14, 1983, two co-workers from the Richland office stopped by 7305 Canal Drive to find "the safe unlocked, Kurz's personal keys in a filing cabinet, items from her desk on the floor and a necklace on the floor in front of the safe and Kurz not there," the court document said.
Lester P. Kurz told investigators that he'd last seen his wife at 6:30 a.m. She'd told him he wouldn't need to stop by the office on his way home, as he often did to pick up paperwork.
Kurz's 1977 Thunderbird was found that afternoon in an isolated field near Pendleton. Schoolboys doused small fires in the trunk and front seat.
Partially burned financial documents, gloves and a muddy pair of women's dress shoes were found in the car's trunk. Keys and a hand-drawn map to Kurz's sister's home in Las Vegas were on the charred front seat.
A calculator traced to Kurz was also found that evening in a ditch along Interstate 84 in Oregon, as if it had been tossed from a car.
Kurz separately called her husband and one of her daughters Feb. 15, but reportedly ended her contact with relatives after that. In her call to Lester Kurz, she claimed to have been kidnapped.
But investigators learned that a routine federal audit of the Medical Credit Union had been scheduled for Feb. 14 -- the day Kurz disappeared. Three audit appointments in the previous three months had been canceled under suspicious circumstances.
The first time, Kurz disappeared and was found in Columbia Park suffering from a seizure induced by a type of barbiturate, according to court documents and Herald reports. After she came out of the coma, she denied using drugs.
The second time a fire had started in one of the office's typewriters. The third time, she missed the appointment.
In June 1983, Kurz was charged in U.S. District Court with misapplication of federal credit union money. She was indicted by a Spokane grand jury in 1988 on the same charge.
But in January 1990 the case was dismissed because the indictment had come down three months after the statute of limitations had passed for the crime.
Police do not have a lot of details about what Kurz has been doing in Arizona for more than two decades.
Her husband eventually got a divorce and later died in 1991. One daughter died in a car accident about 10 years ago, and police aren't sure what happened to the other daughter and two sons.
Kurz never got a state driver's license or identification card, court documents said. She once received a traffic ticket from Mesa police under the Fulgham name and did not have a license at the time, documents said.
The Social Security number Kurz was using belonged to a Raymond Kurtz, who was born in 1893 and died in 1974, court documents said. It is unknown if there was any family connection.
"It will be nice bringing this gal back to justice and having her held accountable for her actions 26 years ago," Hohenberg said.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/northwest/story/630338.html