Torres: All charges dropped against Abramowski. His quest for freedom is complete
Jeff Abramowski's 23-year quest for freedom came to an end Monday afternoon when State Attorney Will Scheiner announced in court that the state would no longer be pursuing murder charges against the 64-year-old Melbourne man.
Abramowski was freed from detention on April 3 after Scheiner did not contest a motion by defense attorney Kevin McCann to overturn Abramowski's 2006 murder conviction and subsequent life sentence. McCann, who was drawn to work on the case pro bono after listening to Abramowski's story in season four of my "Murder on the Space Coast" podcast, presented new DNA evidence that convinced Scheiner to move to vacate the conviction.
Scheiner said he had been waiting for confirmation that there was no additional material left from under the victim's fingernail to test for DNA before officially dropping the charges. He also said that some witnesses have died in the 23 years since the murder.
'The State Attorney's Office prosecuted Jeffrey Abramowski in good faith 19 years ago based on the best available DNA evidence and witness testimony," Scheiner said in a written statement released after the hearing. "Now, also in good faith, we are declining to retry Mr. Abramowski because of new DNA evidence, the loss of key witnesses, and an inability to re-test archived evidence for DNA using current techniques.'
'Our prosecutors' mission from the start has been to achieve justice for survivors of the victim, Cortney Crandall. I know this outcome is frustrating for them, and I sympathize. However, the state cannot continue to prosecute Mr. Abramowski because we no longer can prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.'
Abramowski had been convicted of killing 78-year-old Courtney "Dick" Crandall in his Palm Shores mobile home in 2002 with a claw hammer and a clothing iron. Results of recent testing on up DNA found on the weapons show that the DNA came from two separate individuals. Of those samples, one definitely excluded Abramowski, and the other is a likely exclusion.
While the conviction and sentence were overturned, Scheiner was reluctant to dismiss all charges until he had a chance to go through all the evidence another time. The 90-day window to try Abramowski again for the charges was to expire next week.
Crandall had no shortage of enemies. According to police, Crandall sold Oxycontin. They said he would befriend addicts, like Abramowski, and take them doctor shopping to area pill mills. Crandall would pay fo the doctor visits and the prescriptions and keep the bulk of the pills in order to sell them.
There were numerous problems with Abramowski's conviction including a Brevard County Sheriff's Detective lying on the witness stand, a previous defense attorney suffering through untreated mental illness, inmates who said the state tried forcing them to lie against Abramowski and the lack of any physical evidence.
There was also the very strange "coincidence" that Crandall's live-in girlfriend, Judy Foley, and her adult son Bruce ― who just had a physical altercation with Crandall a week earlier ― left town in the middle of the night with no money, the weekend that Crandall's body was discovered. The pair, along with Foley's sister and Crandall's former girlfriend, Rita Akridge, fled to Alabama for no apparent reason. All three were addicted to drugs as well.
But perhaps the biggest problem with the case was the fact that Crandall was found with Oxycontin and cash in his pockets despite investigators saying Abramowski killed Crandall for his drugs.
Since his release, Abramowski has been living with his daughter and her family in Palm Bay. He is most looking forward to having some medical issues resolved before planning out how he wants to live the rest of his life.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Contact Torres at jtorres@floridatoday.com. You can follow him on X @johnalbertorres or on Facebook at facebook.com/FTjohntorres.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard County State Attorney decides not to try Abramowski again
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