I can remember a year ago, hearing the details of this case filtering into the newsroom . . . A nurse was attacked by a home intruder and ended up strangling the man . . . the attacker may have been hired to kill her . . . the man who hired the attacker may have been her estranged husband . . .

In September of 2006, Edward Haffey came out of the shadows in the home of Susan Kuhnhausen and attacked her with a hammer. A nurse with 30-years experience, Kuhnhausen fought Haffey and eventually killed him.

As days progressed following the attack, a string of evidence began to reveal itself that seemed to draw connections between Haffey and Kuhnhausen's estranged husband, Michael Sr. Haffey's date book with Kuhnhausen's name in it . . . A slip of paper with Kuhnhausen's name and cell phone number in Haffey's back pack . . . comments made by Kuhnhausen . . .

Today, Michael Kuhnhausen Sr. entered a guilty plea, agreeing to ten years behind bars for hiring Edward Haffey to kill his wife. It is normal to have victims and family of victims as well as the defendant and his/her family speak . . . even in a plea agreement, the Judge has a range of penalties and one side will push for the low end, the other for the high.

In today's hearing, one of Susan's co-workers, a friend and her brother addressed the court. Then, Susan Kuhnhausen took the stand herself . . . for seventy minutes (I have never seen a victim's statement go longer than ten minutes). Over the course of her time on the bench, Kuhnhausen outlined every detail of the case to those of us in the court . . . she talked about her strained relationship with her husband . . . his fits of depression and violent statements . . . she vividly described the battle between her and Haffey . . . she held up photos of her own wounds, the blood stains in her hallway, and Haffey's lifeless body . . . those photos were then laid in front of Michael Kuhnhausen who sat in a chair, shackled at the ankles wearing blue and pink prison garb.

When she was done, Michael Kuhnhausen opted merely to tell the court he had hurt many people over the last year . . . and that he was sorry.

Kuhnhausen was sentenced to 120 months behind bars. With credit for time served he still has about nine years to go . . . with good behavior he could be released in only seven.