Robert Honsch Committed Murder of Daughter Elizabeth Honsch

Robert Honsch. (Image via Ohio Attorney General’s Office.)

This week, a 78-year-old man who was found guilty of murdering his wife in Massachusetts was found guilty of murdering his daughter in Connecticut nearly three decades ago. A grand jury on Thursday returned a guilty verdict to Robert Honsch for the 1995 murder of his 17-year-old daughter Elizabeth HonschAccording to prosecutors, the body was found with a head wound, wrapped in a garbage bag and dumped in the parking lot.

Honsch was arrested in 2014 and charged with the murder of his first wife, 53 years old Marcia Honsch. Marcia’s body was discovered near the entrance to Tolland State Forest Park in Massachusetts in October 1995, eight days after Elizabeth was found dead. Both women died of gunshot wounds to the head. A Massachusetts jury found Honsch guilty of murdering Marcia in 2017.

According to a Press Release from the New Britain State Attorney’s Office in Connecticut, Honsch in September 1995 shot his daughter in the head and then stuffed her body in a sleeping bag. He then wrapped the sleeping bag in several large garbage bags. The body was later left in the parking lot of a shopping center located at 500 Hartford Road in New Britain. The girl’s remains were discovered on September 28, 1995, about 40 miles from where hikers found her mother’s body a week later. Police estimated that Elizabeth had been dead for about a week.

At the time of the murder, the Honsch family was living in Brewster, New York, WVIT, NBC affiliate report. Brewster is about an hour southwest of New Britain; both municipalities are located along Interstate 84.

Investigators at the time were unable to immediately locate the remains of the two women because neither was reported missing. None of the bodies came with any form of identification. They were known publicly as Jane Does for almost two decades.

Immediately after the murder, prosecutors argued that Honsch had concocted a fake story. They say he has told family members that he, his wife and daughter are moving abroad.

“Evidence is established that shortly after the murder, Honsch went to family members’ homes and told them that Marcia and Elizabeth had arrived in Australia before him and that he would follow them due to a job transfer. Writer,” New England State Attorney Brian W. Preleski said in the release. “Shortly after that, Robert Honsch fled to South Africa and returned to the United States many years later.”

However, investigators in 2014 cracked the case and helped them identify the bodies as Marcia and Elizabeth Honsch, prosecutors said. Once the bodies were identified, investigators were able to link the murders to Honsch using DNA and fingerprint evidence, prosecutors continued.

In 2014, Honsch lived in Dalton, Ohio, where he was married to another woman with whom he has three children, according to prosecutors. He lived under the name Robert Tyree.

A Massachusetts judge sentenced Honsch to life in prison for the murder of Marcia. He is scheduled to appear in Connecticut Superior Court before the Judge Laura F. Baldini on June 15, 2022 to be sentenced. He previously denied a 2019 settlement from prosecutors that required him to plead guilty to the murder of Elizabeth in exchange for a 25-year sentence, each CT Insider.

[image via Ohio Attorney General’s Office]

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