Woman pleads guilty to strangling 92-year-old World War hero 34 years ago

A New York woman has admitted to strangling a 92-year-old World War I veteran with his own neckties during a break-in more than 34 years ago.

The family of Edmund Schreiber is feeling "fantastic" because Saundra Adams is finally being brought to justice, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said Thursday.

Adams, now 51, pleaded guilty in a Buffalo courtroom the day before to a reduced charge of manslaughter. She faces a maximum of 25 years in state prison.

"Mr. Schreiber survived World War I, but he did not survive those who, during the night of June 23, 1983, invaded his home, attacked him, and took his life," acting Erie County District Attorney Michael Flaherty Jr. said last year.

Adams was 17 when she and an accomplice broke into the war hero's home in Buffalo. Adams and Schreiber lived on the same street, and she had done errands for him. The suspected accomplice is no longer alive.

Schreiber's hands were tied and he was strangled with several of his neckties. Friends later found his body on his bed.The case had been unsolved for decades, but DNA found on some of the neckties and fingerprints collected from furniture in the bedroom linked Adams to the killing.

Saundra Adams, now a mother of two, was enrolled in college classes in Buffalo and was working in the school's library when she was arrested.

The New York Daily