Published: Thursday, November 03, 2011, 4:45 PM Updated: Thursday, November 03, 2011, 4:51 PM
By Andy Hoag | The Saginaw News
SAGINAW — Mark A. Abraitis confessed to killing Francine Conversa-Redburn in a suicide note and to his childhood friend and his wife, witnesses said today.
With the confessions and evidence that the bullet that killed the 48-year-old Conversa-Redburn was fired from a gun that Abraitis told his friend he hid, Saginaw County District Judge A.T. Frank ruled that probable cause exists for prosecutors to take Abraitis to trial in Circuit Court.
Abraitis, 25, is charged with first-degree premeditated murder and nine other felonies in the April 25 death of Conversa-Redburn.
Frank presided over Abraitis’ preliminary hearing, listening to testimony from nine witnesses, and reviewing photographs before making his decision.
County sheriff’s detectives David Kerns, John Butcher, and Miguel Gomez testified that their investigation led them to connect Abraitis as the suspect in an April 23 robbery at Jerry’s Gunsmithing Shop, 13500 Amman in St. Charles Township, and a report that Conversa-Redburn was missing.
Detectives, along with the county Emergency Services Team, executed a search warrant at Abraitis’ home at 1808 Cooper on the evening of April 25, Butcher said. The emergency team ordered Abraitis out of a bedroom in the house, but he didn’t come out, Butcher said. When team members entered the bedroom, they found Abraitis laying on the closet floor “in the fetal position,” Butcher said.
Saginaw Police Detective Oscar Lopez, a member of the emergency team, located a handwritten note on a couch in the house, Butcher testified. The note was an apparent suicide note written by Abraitis, Butcher said.
The note states that Abraitis “did the unthinkable” and “killed someone.” Later, the note states he killed “Francine” because he “caught her cheating with her ex.” The end of the note states where her body could be found.
Police also found a black bag, in a barn outside the house, that contained a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun.
Francine Conversa-Redburn
Sheriff’s Lt. Robert Phelps testified that he found Conversa-Redburn’s body in the spot that the note mentioned, on just off Swan Creek Road in Swan Creek Township. Phelps said he found her body in a ditch and saw blood spattering on the road, which appeared to be from Conversa-Redburn being carried across the road.
He followed the blood trail to the other side of the road, where he saw a hole in the ground with “human tissue” and blood near and inside it. Phelps said he found a .45-caliber shell casing near the hole.
State police crime scene investigator Ronald Crichton examined the scene with other state police investigators. He testified that he found a .45-caliber bullet six inches into the ground. The hole that the bullet caused, the same hole that Phelps saw, had blood inside it, Crichton said.
Crichton testified that the bullet and casing both were fired by the gun seized outside Abraitis’ home.
Kerns, the lead detective on the case, testified that he attended Conversa-Redburn’s autopsy. Kerns said that she had a “contact wound,” caused by a gun firing very close, within inches, to the body, on the right side of her ear.
The detective said his theory is that Conversa-Redburn was laying face down but had her face turned away from the gun, with her left side of her face on the ground.
Abraitis’ friend, Adam Kinville, and Kinville’s wife, Angela Kinville, testified that Abraitis called Angela Kinville’s cellphone late in the morning April 25. Abraitis asked Angela Kinville to wake up her husband to allow Abraitis to talk to him because it was a “dire emergency.”
Both Kinvilles listened as Abraitis spoke.
“He said he killed his girlfriend,” Angela Kinville testified, adding that she heard Abraitis say that they had an “altercation” and that he couldn’t believe she was dead.
Both Kinvilles thought Abraitis was joking but became concerned about his welfare as he continued to say, both on the phone and through text messages, that he was going to kill himself.
They went to Abraitis’ home twice, the second time finding the bag, with the gun inside, that Abraitis told Adam Kinville about and asked him to “take care of.” They didn’t move the bag, and Angela Kinville called the police, she said.
Adam Kinville testified while wearing a blue state Department of Corrections jumpsuit. He’s imprisoned for two to five years for larceny and conspiracy in a Jan. 24 incident in Saginaw. Kinville and Abraitis were co-defendants in a 2005 larceny case in which they broke into a woman’s home on State Street and used her credit cards.
One of the charges that Abraitis faces in the Conversa-Redburn case is receiving and concealing a stolen firearm. Sheriff’s Deputy Toby Sewell testified that he found a .22-caliber semi-automatic handgun in the trunk of Abraitis’ 1993 Buick vehicle.
Gerald Richmond, the owner of Jerry’s Gunsmithing Shop, testified that the firearm was his.
If convicted of first-degree murder, Abraitis would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He remained jailed today without bond.
Follow Andy Hoag on Twitter @SNAndyHoag
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