It's an otherwise peaceful neighborhood on Hagerty Road in the tiny Town of Potter, where on Thursday police found what they believe are the charred, dismembered remains of 31-year-old Adam Chase.
"The Ontario County Sheriff's Office has arrested Rose M. Chase,” said Ontario County Sheriff Phil Povero, “on a charge of murder in the 2nd degree."
The wife of Adam Chase is accused of killing her husband by pushing him down two flights of stairs at the family home in Stanley.
"The remains of Mr. Chase may have been not only cremated, but may have been... the body may have been cut up,” Povero said.
"He was a great guy, and he doesn't deserve what Rose did to him. He doesn't deserve it at all,” Dietsche said.
Dietsche was one of about two dozen friends and family of Adam Chase who came to hear what authorities announced at the Ontario County Jail. Edward had known Adam a little more than a year by the time he went missing last June.
"When Chase went missing, we all thought he was dead. But just to hear it... it just brings a tear to my eye. You never think it would happen."
"Those of us that are rational, normal human beings have a hard time understanding why people take the actions they take," Povero said.
Sheriff Phil Povero confirmed that Rose and Adam had a four-year-old son together. The boy is now in the custody of Social Services.
Rose is jailed without bail. She will face a judge on Wednesday.
For a man once missing, now gone, his friends are at a loss.
"I'm sorry... no words for it,” Dietsche said.
Karl Karlsen, who initially told police he'd found his son's motionless body trapped under the truck, was being held without bail Saturday in the Seneca County jail in New York's Finger Lakes region. The 52-year-old father was arrested Friday after an eight-month reinvestigation of a death that had long since been ruled an accident.
The case also is prompting a new look at a 1991 California fire that killed Karlsen's first wife.
The family's phone wasn't accepting messages Saturday, and jail officials didn't know whether Karl Karlsen had a lawyer.
Levi Karlsen, 23, died in November 2008 while working on a truck in a barn on the family's property in Romulus, about 55 miles southwest of Syracuse. A distraught Karl Karlsen told sheriff's deputies he had returned from a family event and found the truck had toppled off a jack and trapped his son underneath.
"There were no indications of foul play, and from all signs, this appeared to be a very tragic accident," Seneca County Sheriff Jack Stenberg said in a press statement.
But then, this March, the sheriff's office learned about a life insurance policy on Levi Karlsen, taken out just days before his death, with his father as sole beneficiary. Investigators took another look at the circumstances surrounding the alleged accident and concluded that Karl Karlsen made the truck fall on his son, went to the family gathering and returned to make a show of supposedly discovering his son's body, Stenberg said.
"To think that a father could cause a vehicle to fall off a jack, crushing his son, and then leave for four hours — knowing all the time that his son was pinned under the truck, apparently dead — is unconscionable," the sheriff said.
He said his office and other authorities were now looking into the 1991 blaze that took the life of Christina Karlsen, the defendant's first wife. The sheriff's office declined to give further details Saturday.
She was killed in a New Year's Day fire that engulfed the couple's home, her father, Art Alexander, told The Post-Standard of Syracuse on Saturday. He said his former son-in-law told investigators he'd been in the garage when the blaze began.
Karl Karlsen said he managed to rescue Levi, then 5, and the couple's two other children by pulling them to safety through a bedroom window but couldn't get to his wife, Alexander recalled. He said Karlsen ended up with $200,000 in insurance money and used it to buy the property in Romulus.
Alexander told The Post-Standard he always had questions about the fire but was afraid he'd be cut off from his grandchildren if he broached the subject with Karlsen.
"Just to keep it bottled up — it was the hardest thing I ever did in my life," he told the newspaper.
WE HAVE A VERY SICK COUNTRY.
It is a societal problem.
Morning B&G
Lights candles for the innocent that the COWARD may he rot in eternal HELL .
I am a gun owner . i have a couple of them & yes one is a assult rifle that my father bought for me in 78 as a Christmas present . a Ruguer semi auto Mini 14 . it is a great Groud Hog weapon with a sight attached to it .a 12 gauage shotty for home defense and a .357 Mangnum Ruguer service 6 i have had also since the late seventies .
i have no solution to any of this except maybe screen those for mental issues who are attempting to buy new weapons .they already do that so whats next ? that still wont stop anybody from buying one off the "street" somewhere .
after the past week i am getting my carry liscense . at least i will be able to defend myself and family friends that are with me if God forbid some whack job decides to snap .
I respect your views muds .
one clarification for you . truely automatic weapons need a special permit from FTA to own. you have to apply for a special permit which triggers an FBI background check.
the guns you are refering to as "automatic" are really semi-auto. You need to pull the trigger for every round fired. Now people can and do make them auto fire. but there again that is illeagally done. thus a criminal act.
to limit is the first step to ban. criminals don't care . they will always have thier guns.you only punish the lawabiding citizen for following the laws.
