From Osowski v. Harer, decided today by the Minnesota Court of Appeals, in an opinion by Judge Randall Slieter, joined by Presiding Judge Jennifer Frish and Judge John Smith:
This defamation case, commenced by respondent Karen K. Osowski, arises from statements appellant Edie Harer made to law enforcement several months after the death of Harer's father (decedent). Harer made statements which suggested that Osowski—Harer's stepmother and decedent's second wife—had killed decedent.
Osowski married decedent in July 2006. Harer did not attend the wedding. In 2013, decedent discovered a cloud on the title to his property and sought signatures on a corrective deed to remedy the problem. Harer and her siblings refused to execute the corrective deed and, as a result, decedent cleared title to his home through a quiet-title action. This led decedent to "cut off all communications with his children" and sign a will that disinherited his children.
Despite their disinheritance, Osowski maintained contact with decedent's children. This included an email in early September 2018 informing Harer that decedent's health was "getting worse by the day" and she was scheduling him for cancer testing. In mid-October, Osowski informed Harer that decedent "had been tested head to toe and all is good."
On January 18, 2019, Osowski called 911 to report finding decedent dead in their home. A Cook County Sheriff's deputy responded to the call and investigated the death. Based on the deputy's description, the medical examiner declined to complete an autopsy because the death appeared to be from natural causes, and the deputy agreed that nothing "looked suspicious." Six days after her father's death, Harer called the medical examiner, asked why an autopsy had not been performed, and asked for one to be completed. It was explained to her that an autopsy would be difficult and likely uninformative at that point because the body had been embalmed.
In February 2019, Osowski's daughter informed Harer that decedent had updated his will in 2014. The updated will left decedent's estate to Osowski. Approximately two weeks later, an attorney Osowski retained to represent her in an anticipated probate proceeding informed Harer that he was in the process of preparing a petition to probate the 2014 will. The next day, Harer petitioned to probate decedent's 1994 will, which included Harer and her siblings as devisees. Osowski objected to probate of the 1994 will and counterpetitioned for probate of the 2014 will.
On June 4, 2019, one week before a scheduled probate hearing and after the probate court denied her request for a continuance, Harer contacted the Cook County Sheriff's Office asking it to reopen the investigation into her father's death. The same deputy who initially investigated the death was assigned to the case. Harer also asked the sheriff to seek a delay in the probate proceeding "due to an investigation into my father's death." The sheriff declined.
Harer obtained a transcript of the 911 call Osowski placed after discovering decedent's body. In the call, the 911 operator asked if the death was "expected," and Osowski replied that she "contemplated it because of his health."
On June 6, 2019, the deputy called Harer and conducted a recorded interview. In this conversation, the deputy asked Harer to explain "why you think that [Osowski] murdered your dad." Harer responded, "because … she said that he had an expected death" in the 911 call, but Harer believed decedent had been in good health. Harer further stated that Osowski "makes her own pills, so she has … ways that she could have easily put something in something" and suggested that someone could "put anti-freeze in something somebody drinks … and somebody … won't even know you put it in."
During the summer of 2019, Harer objected to Osowski's counterpetition to probate the 2014 will and moved multiple times to continue hearings, citing the reopened investigation. In September 2019, Harer voluntarily dismissed her petition for probate of the 1994 will and objection to probate of the 2014 will. The district court subsequently probated the 2014 will.
In October 2019, the deputy issued a supplement to his initial investigation into decedent's death. He concluded that there was no "foul play or [anything] suspicious in the death of [decedent]."
