Jury confirms homicide ruling in death of NY mother at Turks and Caicos Club Med
A jury in Turks and Caicos has upheld a homicide finding in the 2018 death of Long Island mother Marie Kuhnla. No arrests have been made and it remains unclear whether police will reopen the case.
Jury upholds homicide verdict in Club Med death case, but no arrests made
A jury convened in Turks and Caicos has affirmed a medical examiner's ruling that Marie Kuhnla, a 62-year-old Long Island mother, was killed by manual strangulation — more than three and a half years after her battered body was discovered in a remote area of the island following a Club Med vacation she took with two colleagues in October 2018, nbcnewyork.com reports.
The jury was assembled solely to determine the manner of Kuhnla's death, in what prosecutors described as a fairly atypical proceeding. It upheld the finding of homicide made by government medical examiner Dr. Michael Steckbauer, who testified without hesitation that he stood by his ruling of strangulation. No arrests have been made in connection with her death, and it was not immediately clear whether Turks and Caicos police planned to reopen a case they had previously declared closed.
"A perversion of justice"
For years, Turks and Caicos police maintained that Kuhnla's death was the result of some form of accident, despite their own medical examiner's contrary conclusion. In a 2019 meeting recorded by the family's legal team, the lead detective on the case — who had travelled to Long Island — appeared to be working to persuade Kuhnla's family that she had not been murdered.
"I have reason to believe that it's not a homicide," the officer can be heard saying in the recording.
Kuhnla's son, Rick Kuhnla Jr., described the handling of the case in blunt terms. "What's happening here is just horrible and it's just egregious, and anybody who looks at the facts can see clearly this is a perversion of justice," he said.
Bombshell lab report surfaces at trial
Proceedings took a significant turn when a lab report surfaced just before the jury was due to deliberate. The document, which the Kuhnla family's attorneys received as part of mandatory document disclosures during the inquest, stated that seminal fluid had been found on Kuhnla's underwear — indicating she may have been sexually assaulted before her death. It was the first time the family had seen the report.
"The autopsy was shocking but this was beyond anything we could have imagined," Kuhnla Jr. said of the testimony and evidence presented.
Family attorney Abe George said the report fundamentally undermined the position long taken by both Club Med and local police. "It's a bombshell because Royal Turks and Caicos police and Club Med had been arguing post-Marie's death that this incident was a result of Marie herself — that she essentially caused her own death," George said. "They've been hiding this proof that this was an intentional assault, an intentional sexual assault that led to her death."
Kuhnla Jr. said the family had harboured suspicions about a sexual assault for years. "Knowing that they lied for years and years that this was an accident, is disgusting," he said.
Autopsy details and decomposition concerns
The autopsy report — which the family was unable to obtain for nearly three years — documented abrasions, bruising to Kuhnla's lower extremities, a fractured rib, and dirt and debris found in her mouth and upper airway. Her underwear was on her body, inside out.
The same lab report also noted that bloody items had been analysed from the hotel room of another guest: Frank Yacullo, a former Long Island resident and Club Med employee who had been staying at the resort during Kuhnla's trip. Yacullo was initially detained on suspicion of groping one of Kuhnla's travelling companions, Helma Hermans. Prosecutors ultimately declined to pursue that complaint.
Kuhnla's family has accused Yacullo of involvement in her death. He has denied any wrongdoing toward Kuhnla, her colleague, or anyone else. He has also declined to cooperate with FBI agents in the United States, according to officials. DNA found on Kuhnla's body returned inconclusive results.
Dr. Steckbauer testified that Kuhnla's body was badly decomposed by the time it reached the morgue, and attributed this in part to the actions of a morgue employee. In a 2022 civil deposition, he stated that the worker had "decided that she was going to place this specific decedent under a heated exhaust (fan), which no, I don't think is appropriate. I do think in this case, it rises to the level of criminal liability." He added that, based on what he had been told, the worker's actions appeared intentional. When asked directly by NBC New York's I-Team whether he believed the decomposition was deliberate, Steckbauer declined to comment further.
George pointed to the decomposition as directly undermining the DNA evidence. "How do you degrade DNA? You put the body under exhaust, which is what happened," he said.
Club Med lawsuit ongoing
Kuhnla's family has filed a separate wrongful death lawsuit against Club Med, which remains ongoing. The global hospitality operator said the pending litigation precluded it from commenting on the case.
For the family, the jury's affirmation of the homicide ruling represents a measure of vindication, but provides little closure. Kuhnla's killer has not been identified, no one has been charged, and it remains uncertain whether island authorities will now act on the jury's finding.
Source: Google News TC — Crime