Police say Portland intruder strangled by nurse was a hit man

PORTLAND — When Susan Kuhnhausen returned home from work earlier this month, she encountered an intruder wielding a claw hammer. After a struggle, the 51-year-old nurse fended off her attacker by strangling him with her bare hands.

Neighbors praised the woman for her bravery. Investigators initially said they believed the dead man — Edward Dalton Haffey — was burglarizing Kuhnhausen's home.

But after an investigation, police say the intruder Kuhnhausen strangled was apparently a hit man hired by her estranged husband — Michael James Kuhnhausen Sr., 58 — to kill her.

The husband was arrested Thursday, charged with conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder, and ordered held on $500,000 bail.

Haffey had worked as a custodian under Michael Kuhnhausen at an adult-video store, according an affidavit filed by the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office.

Kuhnhausen and his wife were in the process of divorcing, and she told officers "her husband was distraught about the divorce and wanting to reconcile but that she was insisting on the divorce," the affidavit states.

A background check showed Haffey had served lengthy prison terms for conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, and convictions for robbery and burglary.

Inside a backpack Haffey left at the scene was a day planner with "Call Mike, Get letter," scribbled on the week of Sept. 4, the affidavit said. Michael Kuhnhausen's cellphone number was jotted on the inside of a folder, it said.

Susan Kuhnhausen, an emergency-room nurse who lives in a southeast Portland neighborhood, arrived home on the evening of Sept. 6 to find Haffey coming at her with a claw hammer.

She was struck in the head and wrested the weapon away, but the struggle continued and Haffey bit the nurse, according to police. She was eventually able to get the slight Haffey into a chokehold and police later found him dead in a hallway. An autopsy revealed the cause of death as strangulation.

Police say she acted in self-defense.

There was no sign of forced entry into the home, but according to the affidavit, Susan Kuhnhausen offered an explanation for the lack of evidence of a break-in: Her estranged husband had the security codes for the home's alarm system and would have been able to disarm it.

Michael Kuhnhausen denies any involvement in the attack, the affidavit states.