Sun-Sentinel: South Florida 

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      Greed drove two siblings to kill mother, police say

      By Rich McKay 
      and Jeff Kunerth Orlando Sentinel 
      Posted December 25 2003 

            Grandpa's money -- a $250,000 nest egg -- was apparently the motive 
            for a ne'er-do-well son charged with killing his mother, burying her 
            in his back yard and spinning fanciful lies of his mother being on 
            the run from the IRS. 

            Fresh details from an arrest affidavit obtained by the Orlando 
            Sentinel paint a portrait of a son who planned the slaying weeks in 
            advance of his mother's disappearance. 


            Richard Kanenan Jr. confessed to killing his mother, Marilyn T. 
            Kananen, in her home and burying her in a 5-foot-deep hole behind 
            the east Orange County house he shared with his sister Stacey 
            Kananen, the affidavit said.

            In a suicide note, Kananen explained his mother's killing: "She was 
            going to use Grandpa's money."

            In the days leading up to her disappearance, Marilyn Kananen fumed 
            to co-workers about her son making a copy of her car key against her 
            wishes, about how he and his sister always seemed to be watching her 
            and how the security lights at her home mysteriously stopped 
working.

            Her son, the affidavit said, was a man who fancied himself a 
            criminal mastermind able to murder and hack into other people's bank 
            accounts.

            Family members and neighbors, however, described him as a 
            47-year-old drifter and failed businessman whose own mother called 
            him "Bad news." 

            Neighbor Stephen Rucinski said Wednesday that "Rick" was just a 
            part-time handyman who got by on yard work his mother solicited from 
            neighbors.

            He allegedly bragged to his 12-year-old nephew that he had killed 
            his father, Richard Kananen Sr., in 1988 and would be willing to 
            kill the boy's mother, Cheryl Bracken, as well, court documents 
show.

            In one of the strangest double-homicides in Central Florida's 
            history, the affidavit says the son buried the father under his 
            mother's garage 15 years before killing her. Police have found human 
            bones beneath a newly poured floor in the garage. A medical examiner 
            has yet to identify the remains.

            The affidavit also claims that the junior Kananen enlisted the help 
            of sister Stacey Kananen, 34, who has not been charged with any 
            crime. 

            The affidavit says that Richard Kananen Jr. would disappear for long 
            periods of time, resurfacing the last time following the death of 
            his grandfather Lawrence Regan Sr. in November 2002. Marilyn Kananen 
            had cared for her father for years, and after he died she was poised 
            to inherit at least $250,000, the documents say. 

            When the son returned, he moved in with his younger sister in a 
            house not far from their mother. The affidavit said that Marilyn 
            Kananen groused to one of her co-workers at Sanford's Delta 
            Connection Academy that she'd rather the pair not move so close and 
            that they seemed to be "watching her."

            The siblings offered no good explanation for their actions and were 
            found later in another storage center, having tried to commit 
            suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide.

            The Orlando Sentinel is a Tribune Co. newspaper.




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