Bio 

Randall B. Knese was born on June 16, 1967. By 1996, he was living in St. Charles County, Missouri, working as a laborer and residing with his wife, Karin, and their young son in a St. Charles mobile home. Court records show that the marriage had become troubled before the murder. Karin Knese was angry about Randall Knese’s drug use and had taken their child to visit a relative the night before her death. When she returned home, she told him that she wanted him to leave the house. The couple slept separately that night, with Karin sleeping on the couch.

Murder Story

On the morning of March 23, 1996, neighbors saw Randall Knese behaving erratically outside his home. One neighbor heard a dog barking and a man yelling. Knese, wearing only sweatpants pulled down around his ankles, ran into a neighbor’s house, landed on the couch, then moved through the home while yelling. Another neighbor later saw him outside holding a broom and screaming. He jumped onto the hood of a moving car and was dragged along the side before falling away. Police were called after the incident.

When police found Knese lying in the road, he was bloody and had cuts and abrasions. He first said that “the devil had come to get him,” and later said that “the bitch tried to kill” him. While one officer dealt with Knese, another officer checked his home and found Karin Knese lying motionless on the floor. She was partially nude, and paramedics later pronounced her dead.

At the hospital, police advised Knese of his Miranda rights, and he waived them. He gave several statements admitting that he had killed his wife. According to his statements, he had used cocaine early that morning, then went to the living room to talk to Karin. She did not want to talk, and he began touching her. He removed her pants and underwear, got on top of her, and attempted to rape her, but he did not complete intercourse.

Karin screamed “rape,” and Knese put one hand over her mouth while squeezing her neck with the other. During the struggle, she grabbed a glass lampshade, which broke, and she cut his hand with a piece of glass. Knese took the glass and cut her neck. The fight continued on the floor, where he strangled her again, bit her neck, head-butted her, kicked her head, and finally stood on her neck for five to ten minutes.

A forensic pathologist ruled that Karin Knese died from manual strangulation and probable suffocation, causing asphyxiation. The autopsy also showed multiple injuries around her head and neck. The physical evidence supported Knese’s statements about the attack.

A jury convicted Knese of attempted forcible rape and first-degree murder. The jury sentenced him to 20 years for attempted rape and recommended the death penalty for the murder. The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence in 1999.

In 2002, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed the death sentence in postconviction proceedings. The court found ineffective assistance of counsel connected to the penalty phase, specifically involving trial counsel’s failure to remove biased jurors. In 2003, Knese was resentenced to life imprisonment without parole.