Man Sends a Hitman to Kill His Wife, but She Strangled Her Attacker

Susan Kuhnhausen survived and is now a victim activist 

Susan Kuhnhausen (Image courtesy of Willamette Week)

In January 1988, Susan was thirty-three years old, had a successful nursing career, and was ready to settle down. She hadn’t had much luck dating and opted to place an ad with a matchmaking service to find her perfect someone.

“SWF, 33, overweight but not over life, seeks SM who wants more out of a relationship than just “slender.” Active health care professional enjoys exploring NW, interested in conversation, good times with someone who is intelligent, thoughtful, and full of humor. Must be emotionally and fiscally mature. If you are seeking a bright, funny lady who is adventurous enough to advertise, then please reply.”

Two weeks later, she got a reply. Forty-year-old Michael Kuhnhausen responded. Michael was recently divorced, with two kids. He told Susan he was a Vietnam veteran but now worked as a janitorial supervisor. The couple exchanged phone numbers and started chatting.

Susan was extroverted, her job as an ER nurse was stressful, and she liked to decompress after a tough week by spending time with friends, traveling, and being out. Michael was more of a homebody, and when they were dating, he had no issues with Susan going out.

After five months of dating, Michael moved into Susan’s home in Portland, Oregon. After almost a year of dating, the two tied the knot in Reno, Nevada, in an intimate ceremony, on December 10th, 1988.

At first, all was well with the couple. Susan adored Michael’s kids and felt that their family was complete. However, cracks began forming in their relationship after years of marriage.

After years of marriage, Michael suddenly started questioning Susan’s spending habits. Though she made significantly more money than he did, which had never bothered Susan, it did cause issues when Michael tried to dictate how she spent her money.

He also started having angry outbursts, which were becoming more frequent. His outbursts were apparently because of the trauma he experienced during his time in the military. When Susan investigated his military history, she discovered that Michael had never seen combat and had worked a desk job. His outbursts became increasingly angry, and they began to scare Susan. She placed an ultimatum, go to counseling and get help or divorce.

By 2005, little had changed in their marriage, and Susan brought up a trial separation. Michael moved in with his father, but the couple still saw each other often. By now, they had grandchildren and attempted to keep things as normal as possible for their family, attending family events together and maintaining a friendly relationship. All the while, they still tried to work on their marriage in hopes of reconciling.

However, Susan came to realize that while they were separated, she was thriving. She started enjoying her life for the first time in years and realized that she didn’t want to be married to Michael anymore. She asked him for a divorce in the summer of 2006. After that, her relationship with Michael began to deteriorate.

On September 6th, 2006, Susan came home from a nursing shift at Providence Portland Medical Center. She needed to get ready to attend a nursing convention out of town. She disarmed her home alarm system, walked through the mudroom, and found a note by the microwave from Michael saying, “Sue, haven’t been sleeping. Had to get away — Went to the beach.” Susan had asked him to house-sit, and she guessed this was his answer.

Michael always had a key to her home and his own alarm code, and Susan never thought about changing it after he moved out. She walked to the front of the house and checked the mail. Coming back in, she noticed something odd. Her bedroom was very dark, and she thought she had left the curtains open that morning, something she did every day.

When Susan approached her bedroom, a man jumped out from behind the door. The man was five foot nine, almost two hundred pounds, wearing a baseball cap pulled low, slacks, a striped shirt, and yellow rubber kitchen gloves. He was also holding a red and black claw hammer. The man attacked her, hitting Susan in the head several times. Susan knew she had to do something, or she was going to die.

Susan began the fight for her life. She wrestled the hammer away from Haffey but lost it in the struggle. She fought ferociously, hitting, biting, and even going as far as tearing through his pockets to leave further evidence. She thought she was going to die, and if she was going to die, she was going to leave as much evidence behind as possible.

She remembered something her father had told her. He said if she was ever attacked to get as close to the person attacking as much as possible, his reasoning was that if you are close to someone, it minimizes the impact of the blows. Her father also worked in construction, and he had told her to always use the claw end if she ever had to use a hammer in self-defense.

Her job as an ER nurse had also inadvertently trained her for a moment such as this. Nurses in an ER are faced with unpredictable patients and are required to attend self-defense classes regularly. Until this night, Susan had never been required to put that training into action.

Susan wrestled with the man until she managed to swing her left leg over his body and get her left arm around his neck; she got Haffey into a chokehold. She kept asking, “who sent you here?” Susan kept him in the choke hold until he changed color and stopped moving. The fight lasted fourteen minutes.

After he stopped moving, Susan grabbed the hammer and rushed to her neighbor’s house so they could call 911. This is a portion of the transcript.

911 dispatcher: “What did she use on him? She strangled him. What else did she do?”

Anne Warnock, neighbor: “She put a chokehold on him.”

“I’ve got help on the way. Stay on the line.”

“She has a hammer here.”

“Don’t touch it. Don’t touch it. Just leave it there.”

“She hit him in the head several times. That’s the hammer he had with him. She struck him, and she strangled him, and she thinks he’s dead.”

Dispatcher: “Was he by himself?”

Neighbor: “Did he have anybody with him? No.… She expressed a concern it may have been her ex-partner who sent the person.”

Dispatcher: “Have there been problems with her ex-husband or her ex-partner?”

Neighbor: “She did talk to Mike, her ex-partner, and asked him to house-sit for the cats, and he said he couldn’t do it. He was on his way to the beach.… He left her a note. He knows the alarm.”

“OK, that’s good information to pass to the officers.”

Edward Haffey (Image courtesy of Edward Haffey)

When the police arrived at her house, they found the man in the hallway deceased. The wallet in his pocket revealed him to be fifty-nine-year-old Edward Dalton Haffey. It was discovered after an autopsy that Haffey had a near-lethal dose of cocaine in his system at the time he attacked Susan. He had an extensive criminal history and was known to abuse substances.

Susan was never charged, and police considered the action self-defense. Haffey had a lengthy criminal history, including murdering his ex-girlfriend in 1991, and he only served nine years in prison for her murder.

Police first thought it was a burglary, but there were no signs of forced entry into the home. The next day, Susan went to the house with a friend to pack a bag. While there, they found a backpack in the basement that Susan had never seen before. Inside were some personal items, which were quickly determined to belong to the man who had attacked her. Inside was a paystub, medication, including information that implicated her husband Micheal Kuhnhausen may be involved; a datebook that said, “call Mike, get letter,” alongside Michael’s new cellphone number.

The pay stub was for the same company Michael worked for, and also a Vietnam vet. They had worked together for two years, and it hadn’t taken long for detectives to put two and two together.

Susan had told the police that the alarm was set when she had come home, so her husband must have deactivated it for this man as he was the only person with the code information. Likely when he dropped off the note.

Authorities started to look for Michael. On September 8th, they found he had left a suicide note at his father’s place. A portion of it read, “All I ever wanted was to be loved, and every time I had it — I fucked it up.” The police put out a bulletin for him. They had also discovered through financial records that he had purchased a revolver.

And on September 13th, they finally found him outside the Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center, saying he was checking himself in and had nothing left to live for. They put Michael on a psychiatric hold for eleven hours after they placed him under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder.

Michael didn’t have any life insurance policies that were still connected to Susan. She had changed the beneficiary to her brother after their separation. He was still on the deed to the house they had shared, which was worth $300,000. If Susan died, he would get the house.

During his initial interrogation, Michael denied any involvement with Haffey. Officers showed they had evidence that the two worked together, but he still tried to claim he didn’t know him. Later he said, “I didn’t do it. Just because I know the guy doesn’t mean I did anything.”

During the trial, there was overwhelming evidence that Michael had been involved in the attempt on his ex-wife. Including a man who Michael and Haffey had approached to help, they offered the man $5000, but he declined.

On August 30th, 2007, Michael pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. He admitted to offering Haffey $50,000 for her murder.

Susan was always afraid that Michael would come and try again when he got out of prison. She moved, put up security systems, and put gravel around the house so she could hear anyone coming. She even got a gun and learned to shoot. She sued and won a one million lawsuit against her ex-husband, stating she hoped he would not have enough money to try again.

Michael was set to be released on September 14th, 2014, but in June, ninety-two days before his release, he died of prostate cancer. It was a death that was sad for Susan but also brought a great deal of relief. She said in a statement to the media, “I don’t mourn his passing. Instead, I mourn the life he could have had if only he could have opened his heart for those of us who cared about him.” Susan also said she joined the Kuhnhausen family in hoping he would find the peace he didn’t find in this world.

To this day, Susan spends her time talking to people about her story. She is an activist for crime victims and hopes that she might help others by sharing her story. She still says that killing her attacker was the hardest thing she ever did. She had a hard time with the media portraying her as a hero. Her boss gave her a piece of wisdom that stuck with her.

 “They’re not calling you a hero because you killed a man. They’re calling you a hero because they want to believe, given the same circumstances, they, too, might survive.”

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Sources:https://www.wweek.com/news/2016/08/17/a-hit-man-came-to-kill-susan-kuhnhausen-she-survived-he-didnt/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/police-say-portland-intruder-strangled-by-nurse-was-a-hit-man-1/ https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2014/06/portlander_who_hired_hitman_to.html