Seven years after authorities found a man dead inside his Riverside home, first-degree murder charges have been issued in the previously cold case.
A Platte County grand jury indicted Letti Strait, 54, and Terry Strait, 58, on Dec. 12 in the death of Charles V. Cammisano. Letti Strait is Cammisano’s former wife, currently married to Terry Strait.
“These charges are the result of tireless police work by the Riverside Police Department and the relentless efforts of assistant prosecuting attorney Joe Vanover and other prosecutors in my office,” Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd said. “It is often said that, ‘Justice never sleeps.’ In this case, we were never going to rest without doing everything we could to obtain justice for the family and friends of Charles Cammisano.”
According to the Platte County Prosecutor’s office, a family member found the body of 52-year-old Cammisano on Sept. 1, 2007 inside his Riverside residence on Northwest High Drive after being unable to contact him. He was lying in a pool of blood and had been shot several times.
Cammisano’s vehicle was missing from the residence but was later found in downtown Kansas City, Mo.
A 17-member metro squad investigated about 100 leads before disbanding. The Riverside Police Department continued the investigation over the course of the past seven years, leading to the grand jury indictment last week.
The Straits were arrested later the same day the charges were issued.
Letti Strait is being held in the Platte County Detention Center on $1 million cash-only bond. Terry Strait remained in custody Tuesday, Dec. 16 and awaits extradition after he was arrested in Kansas.
If convicted on the charge, the Straits each face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Because the Straits were indicted by a grand jury, no statement of probable cause is available. However, a Citizen story from September of 2007 noted that days after Cammisano’s body was discovered a 51-year-old man and a 46-year-old woman were arrested for questioning after a brief standoff with police.
The couple barricaded themselves inside a home at Highway 45 and Blair Road in unincorporated Platte County when police attempted to serve a search warrant. They later surrendered to Kansas City Police Department tactical officers and were released from custody with no charges filed against them.
The age of the suspects at the time would match that of the Straits.