Former LU LAX Player Arrested (Warning: Graphic)
Posted: June 18th, 2009, 11:12 pm
Victim's Sister Gives Gruesome Details of KillingOriginal Article: http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.a ... yid=105268
Posted By: Kathleen Shannon, WCSH Anchor/Reporter
May 28, 2009
PORTLAND -- The older sister of Zoe Sarnacki says she wants people to know what Chad Gurney, the man accused of killing Sarnacki, is capable of. So she is making public gruesome details of the murder.
18-year-old Sarnacki's body was found Monday night in Gurney's Portland apartment after crews were called in to a fire there.
Kristin Kosnow says a Portland Police detective told her Gurney confessed to the killing, saying, " He had strangled her until she was dead ... went into the kitchen and got knives and cut her head off. He then went and bought gas and set her on fire."
Kosnow says the detective gave the family the grim details because many stories were circulating and they wanted the family to know what really happened.
The Sarnacki family is pursuing a civil lawsuit against Gurney. In 2005 he was injured in an accident involving two school vans while attending Liberty University in Virginia. He was awarded a settlement described by his lawyer in that case as, "substantial."
Portland attorney Dan Lilley is representing the Sarnackis in their civil suit to seize that money and any other assets Gurney may have and to ensure there is a public trial since Gurney reportedly confessed.
"Often time if that's the case and it's open and shut there's a plea - there's not a trial," says Lilley. "But that wouldn't prevent a civil case from going forward with a trial. So that the entire set of circumstances including the defendent testifying might come to bear."
Gurney did not enter a plea when he made his initial court appearance yesterday.
On Monday night, friends will hold a candlelight vigil for Zoe Sarnacki at 6 PM at 463 Cumberland Avenue in Portland outside Gurney's apartment where Sarnacki's body was found.