Kraft Jury to Hear Tale of 2 Cousins--Their Lives, Deaths

The annual horticulture show at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Mich., with its displays of mammoth, shiny farm rigs, is the winter event for the region’s fruit farmers. The highlight of the 3-day event is an evening ball, with the crowning of the Apple Queen.

“It’s a chance for us to get together and have fun,” said Ed Alt of nearby Comstock Park.

But six years ago, the community was shocked when two young cousins attending the show were found dead in an icy field a few miles north of the city.

Prosecutors say the cousins--Dennis Patrick Alt, 24, and Christopher Alan Schoenborn, 20--unwittingly had made a fatal mistake: They met Randy Steven Kraft in the hotel bar.

Linked by Prosecutors

The 44-year-old, gay Long Beach man, convicted last week of 16 Orange County murders, has been linked by prosecutors to a total of 45 sex-related murders of young men in three states, including the killings of Alt and Schoenborn in Grand Rapids. Orange County prosecutors say he could be responsible for more than 60 murders, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in the country.

Next month, the Alt and Schoenborn families must relive their tragedy in front of Kraft’s jury. The two Michigan murders and six in Oregan will be linked to Kraft during the penalty phase of his trial. Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown will ask for a verdict of death. The defense is seeking the jury’s only alternative: life in prison without parole.

Ed Alt, 41, brother of the slain Dennis Alt, said the California stay for their two families will be traumatic.

“We’re glad the prosecutor is using (the Michigan deaths) if it will help,” he said. “But it’s going to mean bringing up a lot of things that we’ve been working so hard to put behind us.”

The Alt and Schoenborn families, who live spread among two rural counties about 15 miles northeast of Grand Rapids, have always been close. Chris Schoenborn’s grandmother was Denny Alt’s aunt. The Schoenborns are from Conklin in Ottawa County; the many branches of Alts are based in Comstock Park in neighboring Kent County. The two families’ farms are on opposite sides of The Ridge, the high plateau bountiful in apple and cherry orchards that stretches along the western border of Kent County.

Both From Large Families

Both young men came from large families. Chris Schoenborn had five brothers and sisters. Denny Alt had 10.

“I tell ya, there have been so many of us Alts over the years, practically everyone around here is related one way or another,” Ed Alt said.

The Schoenborns’ 800 acres of fruit orchards bear a “Centennial Farm” marker, because the farm has been in the Schoenborn family for more than 100 years.

“If this tragedy hadn’t happened, Chris would be working the farm right here beside me; he loved it,” said his brother, Rick Schoenborn, 29.

Denny Alt had been working an uncle’s farm with his brother, Steve, at the time of the murders.

“Denny loved anything outdoors; he loved to hunt and fish, snowmobile. He’d go deer hunting weeks at a time,” Ed Alt said.

The farm, the outdoors, and family and friends were their life.

The two men’s families knew little about crime. It was something they read about that happens in Detroit, Ed Alt said.

On Dec. 7, 1982, a Tuesday, Denny Alt had gone to the annual horticulture show at the Amway with his mother, Thelma, who had overseen the family operation since her husband’s death 3 years earlier. Chris Schoenborn was there with his brother, Rick, but had taken his own pickup truck.

‘Farm Kids Out on the Town’

Thelma wanted to leave early; Denny said he would get a ride home later with Chris.

“The two of them wanted to party; they were young farm kids out on the town,” Rick Schoenborn said.

The next morning, Thelma Alt called her son, Ed, worried because Denny had not come home. Ed Alt told her he probably just stayed with friends and forgot to tell her.

The Schoenborn’s worries grew when Chris’ truck was found in the hotel parking lot. The frozen bodies of the two young men were found face up in the snow and ice about 10 a.m. Thursday on a rural road near the Plainfield Township water tank.

Chris Schoenborn was nude; he had been mutilated with an ink pen bearing the name of the hotel. Alt was partially disrobed. His boots were found later in downtown Grand Rapids.

Prosecutor Brown’s case against Kraft in the two deaths appears overwhelming.

Alt’s keys were found in the room Kraft had vacated. Schoenborn’s “Federal Land Bank” bottle opener and his Mighty Mac jacket later were found in Kraft’s house. Both men had been strangled or choked, and the drug diazepam was found in their systems, two factors in common with many of the Orange County murders of which Kraft has been convicted.

Also, witnesses who were in the bar with Kraft that night have told prosecutors that they saw him talking to Schoenborn. Kraft had just come into Grand Rapids from Oregon. He was on business in both states for Lear Siegler Inc., a firm he worked for as a computer programmer in Anaheim.

“From what we’re told, Chris was telling him his life story,” Rick Schoenborn said. “That’s the way both boys were, they trusted people.”

‘GR 2’ Found on Kraft List

Other damning evidence is “GR 2” on a list found in Kraft’s car, which prosecutors say is a death list. The entry is immediately below six entries Brown claims represent the Oregon deaths, which all start with the word “Portland.” Prosecutor Brown claims “GR2” stands for Grand Rapids 2.

Family members of the two victims are needed at the trial to identify their pictures for the jury and testify about the events surrounding their deaths.

Thelma and her son, Ed, who will represent the Alt family at the trial, are scheduled to arrive the week of June 12. It is a hectic time because of school graduations that week, he said.

“I wish you could know my mother,” he said. “Here she’s got to be in California for the trial, but first she’s going by way of Virginia, because she’s got a granddaughter graduating (from high school) that week and she refuses to miss it.”

The Alt family, he said, has marveled that Thelma has been the one to help them deal with Denny’s death, when everyone thought she would need strength from them.

“Every once in a while we’ll all get croaked up and half wild about Kraft, and she’ll be the one to simmer us down,” he said.

But she is 67 and in frail health, and the family worries about her. After Kraft’s conviction, she became upset when a Grand Rapids newspaper reporter called her. Since then the family has asked reporters to leave her alone.

The Alt and Schoenborn families were told of the Kraft guilty verdicts by Lawrence B. LeRay, an Orange County district attorney’s investigator who has been their liaison during the trial. Rick Schoenborn said his reaction was “utter joy.” Ed Alt said his was “relief.”

Officer Given Praise

Both give high praise to LeRay for his help over the years. LeRay has not only kept them informed by telephone, but has sent them packets of clippings and transcripts.

“That’s one reason we want to go: Those folks out there have been so great to us,” Ed Alt said.

Bob and Carol Schoenborn, Chris’ parents, will represent the Schoenborn family at the trial. Rick, the family spokesman for the news media, said his parents have separated since their son’s death, and are coming only because they view it as their duty.

Although Kraft has been indicted by the Kent County Grand Jury for the two murders, officials say it is unlikely he will ever be tried in Michigan, because at the time Kraft was arrested in 1983, Michigan had no death penalty.

“We don’t need to have our boys’ deaths come up in the trial (in Santa Ana) to receive any satisfaction that we’ve had our day in court,” Rick Schoenborn said. “We know the facts, and it’s not that important to us for the jury to know them. But those folks in California have been so good to us, we want to cooperate.”

The Alts have been talking to each other a lot in recent days about the Kraft trial. Some have been telling Ed Alt they cannot believe the time finally has come, after so many years of delays.

Ed Alt has been thinking of his reaction when he will see Kraft face to face for the first time.

“Our whole way of life has taught us that there are times when restraint must control the day,” he said. “I imagine that’s going to be one of those times.”