Just before 4 p.m. on April 28, 2020, Steven Kraft did as he often did on Tuesday afternoons. He left his job at a deli in Marlboro, N.Y., and headed across the Hudson River to Beacon, where he picked up his two middle-school-aged children from his ex-wife’s house. He caught up with them over a fast-food dinner before returning them to their mother’s home around 7 p.m.
That was the last time anyone saw Mr. Kraft alive.
His disappearance remained a mystery for more than three years. But on Thursday, Mr. Kraft’s ex-wife, Jamie Orsini, and her husband, Nicholas Orsini, were arrested and each charged with one count of carjacking resulting in death and one count of conspiracy.
The Orsinis are accused of concocting and executing an elaborate scheme to murder Mr. Kraft, 34, and dismember and burn his body, according to a criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court in White Plains, N.Y.
The plan involved the use of multiple burner phones, stealing and dumping Mr. Kraft’s car and the Orsinis repeatedly traveling long distances in an attempt to throw the authorities off their scent, the complaint says. Mr. Kraft’s body has not been recovered, according to investigators.
If convicted, the couple could face life in prison or the death penalty.
“The Orsinis denied Kraft’s family — including Kraft’s children with Jamie — the dignity of having a proper burial,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.
Dean Kraft, Mr. Kraft’s father, said in an interview on Friday that his family had been waiting for this moment for three years, but that they were still searching for answers.
“Steven would never have been the type of person to leave his daughters, so we have always assumed the worst, that something terrible happened to him,” the elder Mr. Kraft, who lives in Illinois, said. He added that after the Orsinis’ arrests, “some people have said, ‘Oh, great, now you can have closure.’ That may be true for some people, but I still have a son that is out there missing somewhere. Where is he? Where is his body at? What did they do with him?”
In the days leading up to Mr. Kraft’s death, the Orsinis began preparing to kill him and cover their tracks, according to the complaint.
They made several trips to a Walmart and a Home Depot in Fishkill, N.Y., where they bought burner phones, a 10 foot by 100 foot tarp, duct tape and a Tyvek suit and boots. They paid for it all with cash, the complaint says.
The couple also made a “dry run” of the circuitous route they intended to take to dispose of Mr. Kraft’s car: driving around Beacon, over a bridge across the Hudson River, and into Newburgh, investigators said.
By the time Mr. Kraft got to the Orsinis’ house in Beacon on April 28, the complaint says, the Orsinis had rehearsed and were prepared to follow through on their plan.
They activated the burner phones and followed Mr. Kraft throughout the evening while he spent time with the children. At some point after he brought them to the Orsinis’ home, the authorities believe, the couple killed him.
Just before 9 p.m., Mr. Orsini, 35, drove Mr. Kraft’s car along the same route he had rehearsed just days before and left it on a street corner near the Newburgh waterfront. He then walked about a mile to a gas station, where he used a $100 bill to buy an energy drink and called a taxi back to Beacon from a burner phone.
Over the next several days, the complaint says, the Orsinis bought more burner phones, conducted suspicious Google searches — including “is galvanized steel fire-proof” — and bought materials that could be used to chop up and burn a body, including 31-gallon galvanized steel trash cans, an angle grinder, an ax and 16 bundles of firewood.
On several occasions, according to the complaint, the couple left their personal phones at home and drove more than 120 miles each way to visit Mr. Orsini’s family in Amsterdam, N.Y., north of Albany. On May 2, Mr. Orsini texted his mother to ask if she had told anyone he was visiting her upstate.
Ms. Orsini, 36, also texted her ex-husband’s phone in the days after his disappearance to ask about their children’s report cards — a strange move, the complaint says, because “they did not typically text about their children’s academics.”
She also called the police to ask about Mr. Kraft’s whereabouts.
On May 4, the police discovered Mr. Kraft’s Toyota Camry parked, with tickets, in the same area where authorities believe the Orsinis left it, according to the complaint. The car was impounded that day, the complaint says. On May 7, the authorities believe, the couple returned to Newburgh to check on the vehicle.
During the investigation, the New York State Police, local police departments and the F.B.I. reviewed surveillance footage, store receipts, cellphone GPS data, call and text records, Google search data, evidence found in the Orsinis’ home and more.
“We worked tirelessly for three years to find some kind of closure and justice for Steven Kraft and his family,” Joseph Merla, a New York State Police investigator, said.
When Mr. Kraft and Ms. Orsini got divorced, their relationship was tense and they communicated only through the courts, Mr. Kraft’s father said. In more recent years, he said, the two appeared to be getting along better. Ms. Orsini kept in touch with the elder Mr. Kraft so he could maintain contact with his grandchildren.
“She said I could write them, and I did,” Mr. Kraft said. “Then after Steven went missing — it was about three months — all communication just stopped.”
Mr. Merla said the couple “definitely had their fair share of family court issues.”
A 2016 appeals court decision related to custody of their two children details a yearslong effort by Ms. Orsini to obtain full custody and a similar battle by Mr. Kraft to be awarded unsupervised visitation. The judge in the case denied both requests.
At the time of Mr. Kraft’s disappearance, he had custody of his children on weekends and Tuesdays from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., according to the complaint.
The Orsinis moved from Beacon to Amsterdam in the months after Mr. Kraft’s disappearance, Mr. Merla said. Mr. Orsini most recently worked at a bar, and Ms. Orsini was a stay-at-home mother to her four children, including two with Mr. Orsini.
Child protective services was notified of the Orsinis’ arrest and has opened an investigation into the family, Mr. Merla said.
Mr. Kraft’s father said he did not know where his grandchildren are now, but he said “they still have a grandpa, and they also have family that love them dearly, even if they haven’t met them.”
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
