He was not.
At the time of Kulbicki's arrest, he was living in Highlandtown with his wife, Connie, and their children. Connie Kulbicki has stood by her husband and maintains his innocence.
"You had the most naive girl you had on this earth with the biggest conniver on the planet," Joe Nueslein said of his daughter and her boyfriend. "She would believe anything anyone told her, and he could talk a starving dog off a meat wagon."
Gina Nueslein had a baby boy in September 1991. When Kulbicki balked at providing money for the child, she decided in September 1992 to seek court-ordered child support.
"All she wanted from him was health insurance" for her son, Joe Nueslein recalled recently. "She'd say, `I don't care about his money. I just want to put him on health insurance.'"
The case was scheduled for a Jan. 13, 1993, hearing.
But on Jan. 10, a park ranger found Gina Nueslein's body near the archery range in a remote section of Gunpowder Falls State Park. She had been shot in the head.
Kulbicki, a nine-year police veteran, was convicted in October 1993 of first-degree murder. An appeals court overturned that conviction, however, ruling that the trial judge erred in not allowing Kulbicki to rebut the testimony of two state witnesses.
A jury convicted Kulbicki a second time in 1995, and he was again sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Nuesleins thought their ordeal was over.
Then they found out in 2006 that a new team of lawyers - a group of public defenders assigned to the state's Innocence Project - had taken up Kulbicki's case. The lawyers, who represent defendants who they believe have been wrongfully convicted, were asking for a third trial.
The request was based, in part, on the discovery that a longtime police gun expert had lied at Kulbicki's trials and in courtrooms across Maryland about having college degrees and certifications that he never earned. During a five-day hearing in April, defense expert witnesses told the judge that firearms examiner Joseph Kopera's testimony in the case was inconsistent with his reports and notes, and that his conclusions were incorrect.
Kulbicki's lawyers also attacked the testimony of a woman who said she saw Kulbicki at the park where Gina's body was found; evidence concerning DNA and serology tests on blood and bone fragments; and the results of a comparative lead bullet test that the FBI no longer uses because of its unreliability.
