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November 7, 2003BENZIE COUNTY: Charges in death may take monthsAuthorities need to have probable causeByRecord-Eagle staff writer BEULAH - It could be weeks or months before authorities decide whether charges will be brought against the husband of a 37-year-old mother of two found dead last month at a Benzie County resort. Officials are waiting for an autopsy report and crime lab results, Sheriff Robert Blank said Thursday. While some evidence is routine and can be processed quickly, DNA tests on two samples sent to a state police crime lab in East Lansing could take a month or two to complete, said Connie Swander, director of the state police crime lab in Grayling. Florence Unger was found dead on Oct. 25 in Herring Lake near a boathouse at the Watervale Inn. Her husband, Mark Unger, has been called a suspect by Prosecutor Anthony Cicchelli. Florence Unger filed for divorce in August, but the couple and their two children, ages 7 and 10, stayed together at the inn. In a circumstantial case, authorities need to have probable cause in the form of physical evidence connecting Mark Unger to the death before they can bring charges, said David Moran, a criminal law professor at Wayne State University Law School. "Probable cause is a legal standard that's higher than merely calling somebody suspicious," Moran said. "It's not probable cause to say the husband had a motive, the husband had the opportunity. Those are more like hunches." Officials say Florence Unger was pushed or fell from a boathouse about 12 feet to a concrete walk, where she died of blunt-force trauma. Police are trying to determine how her body moved three or four feet to the water's edge. Blank said a railing around the top of the boathouse appeared to have been damaged as if someone or something was pushed or fell against it. He said a structural engineer may be called in to determine what amount of pressure would have caused the damage - a forensic test that could also take months. "A death investigation can be a long and tedious process and I want to be sure we have all the available facts," Cicchelli said in a written statement. Cicchelli also said he transferred to Oakland County a petition he filed to remove the Unger's children from Mark Unger's custody because the family had no ties to Benzie County. Cicchelli said he originally filed a petition to remove the children from Unger "to prevent any possible undue influence on the children prior to them being interviewed."
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