TRAVERSE CITY -- Those with a stake in Alan Hihnala's violent death still await answers and clarity more than five months after the electrician was killed during a domestic dispute.
Hihnala, 27, died of a stab wound inflicted by his wife Michelle during a fight at the couple's East Bay Township home July 8, police said. Michelle Hihnala said it was self-defense, but authorities are still determining if she should be charged.
"We're still waiting for some issues to get resolved by the crime lab and the pathologist," Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Alan Schneider said.
Schneider wouldn't give further details. He won't know if Hihnala will be charged until he sees the crime lab and pathology reports, he said, but he expects to figure things out soon.
"I was hoping we'd have it resolved by now," he said. "I'm looking for something shortly after the holiday season."
Hihnala told Grand Traverse County sheriff's investigators she stabbed her husband once in the upper chest with a large knife in the kitchen of their 741 George St. home. He had physically abused her and ignored her warning to stay away, she said.
Hihnala has been in counseling since the incident and is trying to "rebuild her life," said her attorney, Clarence Gomery. She is splitting time between the Traverse City area and Tennessee, where she has family.
"The waiting has been very trying for my client," Gomery said. "It's kind of frozen her in place."
Gomery believes the crime lab and pathology reports will vindicate Hihnala.
"I'm very confident whatever results they get will be very clear evidence that (she) is not criminally liable for the death," he said.
Alan Hihnala allegedly had a history of abusing his wife, Gomery previously told the Record-Eagle.
The Hihnalas were high school sweethearts who graduated together from Forest Area High School in Fife Lake in 1998, according to past Record-Eagle reports. They married in Elk Rapids in June 2000 and purchased their George Street home in October of that year.
Alan Hihnala attended a trade school after high school and later worked as a journeyman electrician. Michelle is a licensed practical nurse.
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