Northern Iowa man dies in prison after conviction connected to knife attack

CORALVILLE – A Northern Iowa man died in prison Sunday after a conviction connected to a sneak attack with a knife.

Roni Kachanes was pronounced dead due to what is believed to be natural causes at 10:25 a.m. today in a hospice room of the Iowa Medical and Classification Center where he had been housed due to chronic illness. Kachanes was 61 years old at the time of his death.

Kachanes had been serving a 25-year maximum term for the crime of Attempted Murder (707.11) from Allamakee County. His incarceration began on April 9, 2002.

According to documents, while at the synagogue in Postville, Iowa, Ronni Kachanes sought an invitation to dinner from teacher Avraham Holtzberg and his family. Holtzberg agreed Kachanes could come to dinner, and the two walked to Holtzberg’s house together. Before dinner was served, Kachanes complained he was not feeling well and went downstairs to rest. He remained downstairs for the rest of the night, not coming up for dinner. The Holtzberg family went to bed about 9:00 p.m. after checking on Kachanes a couple of times.

At about 8:00 a.m. the next morning, Holtzberg found Kachanes awake in the living room. The two went into the kitchen to have coffee. As Holtzberg prepared the coffee, he was attacked from behind and stabbed repeatedly in the neck, chest and back. Holtzberg’s screams woke up his wife, who found her husband lying on the kitchen floor bleeding with Kachanes standing next to him. She pushed Kachanes from the room and called 911. Kachanes was arrested later that morning and was charged with attempted murder and willful injury. After a trial, a jury found Kachanes guilty of both charges, and the district court sentenced him to twenty-five years for the attempted murder conviction and ten years for the willful injury conviction.