Man who killed wife, 2 kids: I failed as husband, dad
"The despair in my head eclipsed the love I felt in my heart," Timothy Fradeneck says before he's sentenced to life in prison.
Timothy Fradeneck entered a Macomb County courtroom Tuesday faced with dozens of framed pictures of the people he was supposed to love and protect — his wife, Christie, and their children, Timothy (Trey), 8, and Celeste, 2.
Family and friends tearfully held the photos above their heads in the packed courtroom, where Fradeneck admitted that he killed his wife and children and apologized, asking for forgiveness from a long list of people. Fradeneck said he "failed as a husband, as a father, as a son .... and as a member of the human race."
"I failed myself when I failed to protect my family from myself. I let the despair that I felt in my head eclipse the love I felt in my heart," Fradeneck, 38, told Judge Diane Druzinski, who sentenced him to life in prison without parole in the strangulation deaths of his family as they slept last year in their Eastpointe home.
Druzinski said she read victim impact letters that indicated Christie Fradeneck was a "kind, loving and sensitive" woman, an outstanding mother who loved her children and became the best friend of everyone she met.
"We don't often think about when young lives are taken, when it affects the peer group," Druzinski said, adding that children who knew Celeste and, especially, Timothy will "probably never forget" they were "murdered by their own father."
For Leslie St. Denis — who lost her daughter and two grandchildren in the April slayings — Fradeneck's sentencing brings closure.
"Maybe now," she said tearfully afterward, "maybe we can start to heal."
Fradeneck, who has mental health issues and said he swears to spend the rest of his life effecting change in the mental health system "that failed us all," pleaded guilty but mentally ill in January on multiple counts of first-degree murder and first-degree child abuse. The plea was expected and spared the families hearing the details of the crimes during a trial.
In a letter to the media handed out by Fradeneck's father, Fradeneck said the family made $24,000 and applied with the county's Medicaid program but was ignored, given the runaround and mired in bureaucratic red tape and that: "In the end, I despaired of ever getting the help that I so desperately needed and my wife and two children died by my hand as a result."
Assistant Prosecutor William Cataldo said the crime "wasn't about the mental health system" but about Fradeneck's "narcissism." Druzinski told Fradeneck that he didn't reach out to the list of people he mentioned in court.
"I do believe it was your failure completely from start to finish," she said.
An Eastpointe police detective testified in a preliminary exam last year that Fradeneck killed his wife, then his son — who struggled a bit — and finally his daughter by lying on them to force the air out of their lungs. Then he strangled them with a USB cable. Police previously testified that Fradeneck put a Lego in his son's hand after strangling him and telling him it would be "OK."
Another police officer testified that the victims were found tucked in their beds — their heads on a pillow; a blanket up to the children's necklines and another one covering most of his wife's upper torso.
Prosecutors and police said Fradeneck admitted that he had planned to kill his family for months. They said that he tried to kill
himself. The detective testified previously that Fradeneck told police he killed his family "to spare them the heartache" of him killing himself.
On Tuesday, Fradeneck told the court he accepted responsibility for the "deplorable" crimes, asked for forgiveness and understood if people didn't forgive him. He said he took the lives of three innocent people in addition to the innocence of his son's school family. He said he disgraced his father's name.
Christie Fradeneck's sister, Courtney Zanni, read a statement in court as their parents stood by. She said she refuses to let Fradeneck steal her life and encouraged everyone to spread love.
She said Christie Fradeneck was not only her hardworking, kind sister but her best friend "who fought so hard to give life to her precious babies." She said Trey was compassionate and kind, and Celeste was "my little mini me, right down to her attitude." She said they were loved by friends and family and "school family."
She said the family never liked her brother-in-law but accepted him. She described him as lazy, arrogant and a complete narcissist. Zanni said her sister was on the verge of leaving him and asking for a divorce. She said killing her sister "was the single most ambitious thing this man has ever accomplished."
Zanni said that she believes once Fradeneck hit her sister, "the dam broke; all the rage he had denied his whole whole life came flooding out."
"We don't believe his stories. He's a master storyteller," Zanni said. "She was married to a monster."
Contact Christina Hall: chall99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @challreporter.