The Ridgewood man who lived with his grandmother’s corpse for five months has now been charged with second-degree manslaughter in the 85-year-old’s death, prosecutors said on Wednesday, Aug. 2.
Christopher Fuhrer, 30, was arrested in October 2016 on charges of concealing a human corpse after officers from the 104th Precinct discovered his grandmother Erika Kraus-Breslin’s body at her home on 65th Street near 68th Avenue where she lived with Fuhrer.
When police entered the home on Oct. 5, 2016, during a wellness check, they found Kraus-Breslin’s corpse in a second-floor bedroom covered in paint and wrapped in 16 plastic garbage bags as numerous air fresheners hung throughout the house in an attempt to mask the odor of the decomposing body.
In January 2017, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Kraus-Breslin succumbed to homicidal asphyxiation via neck compression on May 21, 2016, allegedly at the hands of Fuhrer. The motive remains under investigation.
When asked why he did not report his grandmother’s death, Fuhrer — who was Kraus-Breslin’s sole caregiver for five years before her death — told authorities that he was afraid he would lose the home where he and his grandmother lived.
Fuhrer is being held on $350,000 bail and is due back in court on Aug. 17.
