Parole nears for woman in 1982 Olathe love-triangle murder of David Harmon

Decades after committing a terrible crime, Melinda Raisch was plucked from a comfortable life and sent to prison. Now, after less than 10 years behind bars, she soon will walk free.

Though another hand clutched the crowbar that bludgeoned the life out of her husband, David Harmon, as he slept, it was her scheming that brought the killer into the couple’s bedroom that night.

Her role in the 1982 killing, which shocked the Olathe community with its inexplicable brutality, went unrevealed for nearly 20 years.

The widow moved on, remarried and made a life for herself as a mother of two daughters and wife of a dentist in suburban Columbus, Ohio.

Then one day in 2001, two Olathe police detectives knocked on her door. Soon, her sordid secret was known.

The case proved salacious fodder for true crime book authors and network television news magazines. It also led to murder convictions for Raisch and her once-upon-a-time paramour who killed David Harmon.

For Harmon’s family, the long-delayed attainment of justice felt tempered by the brevity of Raisch’s sentence — a sentence set to end Wednesday with her release from a Topeka prison almost nine years to the day after she walked inside.

“The punishment did not fit the crime,” said Regina Harmon, who now is married to Harmon’s father, John Harmon.

David was John Harmon’s only child. His good nature and commitment to help others led the Johnson County judge who presided over Raisch’s case to compare him to the lead character in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“David Harmon was a kind, giving and talented young man,” said Steve Leben, now a judge on the Kansas Court of Appeals. “David Harmon was a George Bailey type; his loss had ripple effects that cannot be measured, but are quite real.”

In early 1982, the 25-year-old David Harmon worked at an Olathe bank. His 24-year-old wife served as secretary for the dean of students at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe.

There she struck up a friendship with a student and campus leader, Mark Mangelsdorf.

The friendship evolved into intimacy and talk of what their lives would be like if she weren’t married.

That Feb. 28, the marriage ended violently.

Raisch told police that two intruders entered the couple’s duplex and demanded keys to the bank where David Harmon worked. She claimed that they knocked her unconscious, and when she awoke her husband was dead.

Police considered her story dubious from the onset but could not gather enough evidence to file charges.

Raisch and Mangelsdorf went their separate ways. She ultimately married and settled in Ohio. He earned a master of business administration from Harvard University, got married, and was working as a New York marketing executive when Olathe police reopened the investigation in 2000.

The break in the case came after two detectives traveled to Ohio to talk to Raisch.

She changed her original story, telling them only one intruder had existed. Although she didn’t see his face, she believed he was Mangelsdorf.

In 2003, Johnson County prosecutors charged her with murder. They later charged Mangelsdorf.

After a jury convicted her of first-degree murder, prosecutors worked out a deal for her to testify against Mangelsdorf in exchange for a plea to second-degree murder.

Mangelsdorf followed suit and also pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

In 2006, each was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.

John Harmon never liked the deal, which under Kansas law at the time meant that the killers would be eligible for parole in as little as 51/2 years.

As part of the plea deals, prosecutors agreed to not oppose their parole.

“We were really upset about that,” Regina Harmon said. “It seemed like just a slap on the hand.”

Though he knows that prosecutors needed Raisch’s testimony to convict Mangelsdorf, John Harmon feels that she was not sufficiently punished.

“In a real sense, she destroyed my family,” he said in a recent phone interview from his New York home.

Not only did he lose his only child, but he lost the chance to be a grandfather. He also believes that the stress and emotional trauma of the case led to the premature death of his first wife, David’s mother.

“It took a big toll on everybody,” he said.

During her incarceration, Raisch wrote a letter of apology to John Harmon, although he remains dubious of its sincerity.

“It’s hard to believe because she lied so much,” he said.

Both Mangelsdorf and Raisch were denied parole when they first became eligible. Mangelsdorf, now 55, next becomes eligible in May 2016.

In 2013, the Kansas Prisoner Review Board set Raisch’s release for April 29, 2015.

Though Raisch did not wield the murder weapon, the Harmons feel like she is in some ways more culpable than Mangelsdorf.

“She could have stopped it,” Regina Harmon said.

Asked if he would ever forgive her, John Harmon said, “I have a hard time with that.”

Tom Bath, the attorney who represented Raisch, said he has had no contact with her and doesn’t know her plans once she leaves prison.

Raisch, now 57, did not respond to a letter from The Star seeking comment for this story. Her husband did not respond to an interview request.

She intends to return to Ohio when released, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections. But that plan needs to be approved by Kansas and Ohio officials.

If she is not allowed to return to Ohio, she told corrections officials that she would live in Johnson County.

John Harmon, now 83, is having memory problems.

But the pain of losing his son has never left him, he said.

“That will always be with him,” his wife said.

This story was originally published April 25, 2015 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Parole nears for woman in 1982 Olathe love-triangle murder of David Harmon."