THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 18, 1995 TAG: 9503180204
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Robb M. Harksen told jurors he hogtied his new bride on the kitchen floor to make it look like a robbery only after he had strangled her by accident during a violent argument.
But prosecutors say 24-year-old Kimberly Harksen died a slow, cruel death at the hands of her husband. They say the 26-year-old roofer wrapped a long blue nylon cord around his wife's neck and hands, holding onto a handle at the end.
Despite Harksen's tears on the witness stand, jurors apparently were not convinced that his wife's death was an accident. On Friday, they found Harksen guilty of second-degree murder and recommended the maximum sentence of 40 years.
Prosecutors told the jury that as Kimberly Harksen tried to crawl away, her husband forced the young go-go dancer to the point of death again and again by yanking the cord until she passed out, then letting off the pressure until she revived, then yanking it tight again.
As Robb Harksen testified Thursday, he began to sob.
``She came up behind me and put the rope around my neck,'' he said. ``We fell to the floor and started wrestling. She had a knife. I was trying to hold the knife back. I had the rope, I guess around her neck. . . . We fell over. I got up. . . . I thought she was crying and I left.''
The dispute began earlier in the day over how Robb Harksen handled an encounter his wife had had with a stranger. Harksen and his wife had been married a month, and had spent the afternoon of Aug. 2 drinking at a local bar.
Kim Harksen was about 5-foot-5 and weighed 110 pounds. Her husband is about 6-foot-2 and weighs about 190 pounds.
Jurors listened intently as the medical examiner described the rows of furrows she found on Kim Harksen's neck - the result of repeated tightening of the rope. She said she found a ``dog-leash type handle'' at one end of the rope.
``In my opinion, the ligature was not just applied and tightened once,'' said medical examiner Leah Bush. ``It was tightened many times to result in the layered furrows. It was probably a prolonged death. She may have become unconscious, then conscious. She was lucid at least during part of this.''
Some jurors leaned forward as Robb Harksen's best friend talked about Harksen taking him to see his wife's dead body and then pleaded for help in covering up the murder.
Schall drove Harksen to the second precinct at the Oceanfront where Harksen walked up to the desk clerk and told her: ``My wife's dead. Somebody killed her,'' Schall said.
Harksen told police there had been a bitter fight after an all-day drinking party at a local pool hall. His wife threw off her wedding rings, and he walked out, later returning to find her dead. He denied killing her.
Thursday, he told jurors that his wife lost her temper and hit him over the head several times with liquor bottles. At the height of the argument, he testified, he wrapped the rope around her neck and held her up against the wall.
He left her lying on the floor crying, he said. He found her dead when he returned from a cool-off walk.
``I realized I had to go to police and no one would believe me,'' he testified. ``I was going to make it look like a robbery, so I took about $350 out of her purse and scattered it around and out the door. Then I tied her hands behind her back.''
KEYWORDS: MURDER TRIAL VERDICT STRANGLING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
DOMESTIC ABUSE by CNB