OLATHE, Kan. (AP) - A man who eluded capture for more than two decades after fatally beating his then-lover’s husband in Kansas will be freed from prison after serving just 10 years for the crime.
Mark Mangelsdorf, who moved to Pelham, New York, and became a marketing executive before his arrest, was convicted in 2006 in Kansas after police reopened the fatal 1982 beating of 25-year-old David Harmon, The Kansas City Star (https://bit.ly/21t966Q) reports.
On Saturday, Mangelsdorf, now 56, will be placed on conditional release. Under the sentencing rules in place at the time of the crime, he must be released after serving 10 years. He intends to move back to New York, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.
Harmon’s wife, Melinda Raisch, worked at Mid-America Nazarene College, now MidAmerica Nazarene University, while Mangelsdorf was student body president at the Olathe school. Prosecutors claimed Mangelsdorf and Raisch were romantically involved and conspired to kill Harmon because their church did not condone divorce. The affair ended after the killing.
Raisch, who subsequently moved to Ohio, remarried and had two children, also was convicted in the 1982 killing. She left prison on parole last year after serving nine years.
She initially said that her husband was killed after two intruders came into their Olathe home, demanding keys to the bank where her husband worked. She said one of the men pulled her out of bed, forced her downstairs and knocked her unconscious.
The crack in the case when Raisch offered investigators a different account of what happened the night of the killing.
David Harmon’s mother died in 2004. His father, John Harmon, said he is resigned to the fact that the killer of his only son soon will go free.
“I hope he’s learned something,” John Harmon said. “If he didn’t, he’s stupid. But I don’t think he’s stupid.”
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Information from: The Kansas City Star, https://www.kcstar.com
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