A (2:15)

We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet and this is

B (2:24)

the Murder of Donna A Conversation with Stacy Deener.

C (2:38)

Sam.

B (3:13)

Stacy, thank you so much for coming on the Murder Sheet again to to talk about this really interesting case. We really appreciate it.

C (3:20)

I appreciate the opportunity.

B (3:21)

So we're talking about the case of Brian Schultz today. Can you tell us, I guess maybe backing up a little bit. Can you tell us about, you know, what office you were in, what your role was when this case happened? Just kind of set the scene for where you were in your career at that point?

C (3:37)

Sure, I think that is helpful to know. So, you know, when you're elected a prosecutor, you never know when the tough cases are going to come along. And that's why I think it's important that elected prosecutors have prosecutor experience. And in this particular situation, I had been the chief deputy in county for eight years, so I had been elected in the election cycle of 2002, and I took office as the elected prosecutor in 2003. And this particular murder happened in 2005. So it was what I would say early in my 12 year tenure as the elected prosecutor. So certainly it was on my mind that this is really important that I make sure my community knows that I'm prepared for this and that I'm going to, you know, appropriately serve their interests. It was a man, Brian Schultz, who shot his wife in the face. And the call came in for a murder investigation. And it was right at the end of the day, and I was leaving the office with my investigator. We were having a conversation and we got in his car and we drove directly to the scene. And it would be the first murder scene that I had been to as it was unfolding. So we go and the first question was jurisdiction. It was just on our side of the county line for defense, Park County. And so we didn't know until we actually got there and checked. Lucky me, it was our case. So the case involved he and his wife. They were in a mobile home trailer by themselves. So there were no eyewitnesses. And so physical evidence was very important. And we were very fortunate in Pulaski county that we had a lot of state police officers that were in our proximity. And in hearing this dispatch, there were several that came to this scene to assess. So for a rural area murder, we had a lot of good talent show up to this particular scene. So one of the really fortunate things was all of the recorded statements of people in the vicinity, even though they weren't eyewitnesses to the murder, it was really important to this case later that we had so many recorded statements of people, people in what I would call the little neighborhood of this trailer. And the challenge became that Mr. Schultz, his defense was that the gun went off accidentally. And so they were seated based on the evidence, they were seated on what Would be a love seat type couch next to one another. And she was shot in the face. The bullet entered by her eye, like almost at the corner of her eye, and exited the backside at an angle. And he indicated that he threw the gun, a handgun, it was a revolver headgun, onto the bed and that it accidentally discharged, hitting her in the face. So this case, like many murder cases, is pending for quite some time, and he's incarcerated while it's being prepared and investigated. And he did not have resources to hire his own attorney. And so again, there was a long period of time before we went to trial. So we had lots of experts that were unusual, I thought, based on cases I had had experience with previous to this, in that we needed to find out whether this gun could misfire or did misfire. And we also needed to try and tie that in with other evidence, physical evidence from the autopsy and the scene that would help direct us to be able to conclude that it was not an accidental shooting. We had an excellent firearms expert from the state police, his name is Paul Fertilla, and he had been a firearms examiner and then had become a supervisor. But he did the examination of this firearm and test fired it, dropped it, did an extensive examination of this gun, and he was truly one of the star witnesses. And then our coroner was exceptional also, Again, very important to drawing the conclusion that this was not an accidental shooting based on where the wound was. And also we had an excerpt for blood spatter and trajectory, which is unusual. So in this particular case, we. We had the state. I found an expert for that kind of testimony, and he happened to be in Oregon. So it was unique that we would be traveling so far away and spending, you know, money on an expert so far away from, you know, Indiana. But it. It paid off. And we had a three week trial. It was a trial that I did with my chief deputy. Because of the volume of witnesses, it's always a good idea to divide and conquer, like we did in the Richard Allen case. That way you could be fresh when you, you know, do witness presentation and share the load, you know, with another qualified past year. So it's one. One of the cases I'm most proud of because it had plenty of challenges, but we were able to overcome them and present a cohesive case and, you know, do justice for the victim and her family.

B (9:52)

And that was. Her name was Donna Schultz, right?

C (9:55)

Yes. Yes, it was.

A (9:57)

One thing about that case that I find interesting is that some of the statements that Brian Schulz made were not recorded, and some of those Unrecorded statements were quite damning. How did you deal with that?

C (10:15)

So that's where the witness statements became so important, because this, I would loosely say neighborhood. It did have people who lived in proximity and that had had contact with Brian Schultz and Donna Schultz. They just weren't there inside the trailer, you know, to observe what had happened. But Brian Schulz, after he shot her, he came out and got onto his mower, which he used as a mode of transportation around this area where he lived, and he actually spoke to people about being angry with his wife and that she got in, and she got in my head, and I shot her. So he made some confessions, not to law enforcement, but he did to, you know, his neighbors.

B (11:08)

Wow. I mean, other than this. This kind of, like, momentary anger, I mean, was there. Did you ever get a sense of, like, why this happened? I mean, obviously, a case like this is pretty senseless, but was there any indication of motive beyond just being mad and drunk?

C (11:24)

Yeah. One of the things that people typically think we can talk about is if people have, you know, a tumultuous relationship or if, you know, they fight all the time. But in this situation, you know, the two of them lived there, and the children had. The children were the children of Donna. They were not Brian's children. And certainly they had an opinion about his attitude and his treatment of their mother. But we have something, you know, called 404B evidence. And you have to give notice if you want to bring in other bad acts of the defendant in order to relate to, you know, motive or intent. And because none of those things really directly related to him spontaneously shooting her, we really had to rely on the events of that day.

B (12:09)

Absolutely. In terms of, I guess, the, you know, working with law enforcement kind of looked over the decision in the appeal, and it seems like Indiana State Police worked this case, you know, and you mentioned the jurisdiction issues in the beginning, predominantly. Who in law enforcement were you working with on this case, and what was that experience like?

C (12:33)

It was a unique situation where, because this area was not within a community, you know, it was not within a city or a town, and it was so close to the border that most of the witnesses that would be considered law enforcement witnesses were the state police. Right.

B (12:56)

Okay. That makes sense.

A (12:57)

Yeah. Was this the case. I may be confusing it, but was this the case where, when 1. When the pathologist was on the stand, it came out that he had taken an autopsy photograph that was unknown? I'm skimming in appeals for this case, and it said that the pathologist Dr. Prahlo had taken autopsy photographs independently of the crime scene investigator. And that was not known until Schultz elicited this information from pro on cross examination.

C (13:33)

I know that when his testimony was done, we felt like it went really well. And I believe we did a lot of depositions in that case. So I would have a hard time believing that that had not happened. But a lot of times where there's a. A picture that would be maybe in addition to other photographs that are available. For example, typically a long law enforcement officer is at an autopsy for something like this and is taking photographs as well. That the remedy would be a continuance or the opportunity for a recess in order to depose. But when there's not a question about whether that particular photograph would be inadmissible, you know, if there's some concern that it's not accurate or doesn't belong with this case or is prejudicial to the defendant from the standpoint of lack of prior knowledge of it, I don't think it derails the case in the way that an appeal filed by the defense might hope.

A (14:44)

Yeah, the appeal was not successful. It was a photograph, apparently of Donna's right hand, and it did not show a dark area at the base of her thumb. So the State U wanted to use it to rebut the idea that there was gunshot residue on her hand.

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C (18:47)

I do recall that gunshot residue was a big issue for us. Like for those sides know in this case and that I, I, my recollection of how we handled that situation was that the skirt that Mr. Schultz was wearing, which had been submitted to evidence, was much more compelling as a piece of evidence than what may or may not have been on, on Donna's hand, because there was debris or residue and blood spatter on his shirt that had more to do with the direction from where the shot came, meaning next to her instead of in front of her from the bed. So this loveseat was positioned next to a bed. So if you were lying in bed and you reached out with your left hand, you'd be able to touch the flossy. So it was very, in very close proximity, and the bed was lying on the floor and was very low, so it would be like at their knees. And so my recollection about discussion about residue and those kinds of things was really more answered by other evidence around them. And the closeness of the firing of the gun on her face. Because when somebody is shot in close proximity, there's, like, burning of the skin that happens when it's really close, whereas if it were several feet away, you would not have that kind of injury because the explosion part of the, of the bullet leaving the gun is happening away from the person's skin. Is that making sense?

A (20:48)

So it does make sense.

C (20:49)

Yes. And so they were seated on a love seat facing the bed, and his, his statement was that he threw the gun onto the bed and that it accidentally fired at her, which would put it a significant distance away from her face, which was not consistent with the injury to her face, nor the evidence, the physical evidence that was found on his shirt as he was seated next to her.

A (21:22)

Yeah. And you won the case, and obviously it was upheld on appeal, including his 63 year sentence. What does it feel like to go through that process and come out on the other side knowing that you have taken someone dangerous off of the street?

C (21:42)

It's a sense of satisfaction that's hard to compare to really much of anything else that I've experienced when, in a trial like this, when it spans such a long period of time. You know, in the Delphi murder case was another example of that, where we were in trial mode from the time you start selecting a jury and even days before that until it's over with. And I specifically recall that this particular trial took three weeks, but, you know, for a month prior to that, we are focusing solely on this case. And so you begin to, like, live, breathe, sleep, eat. Constantly thinking about one case, one, one presentation of, you know, this voluminous evidence and you just can't get away from it, you know, and you don't want to because you want to be prepared. And I remember after the trial, certainly, of course we're elated with the outcome because we feel like we've done our job. And the other feeling is I forgot what life looks like before I was preparing this trial. I forgot what it's like to have a regular work schedule, to sleep, sleep at night. I typically, you know, stay up till 12 or 1 in the morning, and then I wake up at 4, 4:30, and you're running on very little rest and adrenaline for a long, long time. And, and then when it's done, you almost don't know what to do with yourself, especially when you're waiting for a verdict.

B (23:12)

How did you cope with that in this case? Like, how did you wait for the verdict to come down in this case?

C (23:18)

Well, I have to think that other people experience it somewhat the same way that I do because it in the Brian Schultz case, likewise in the Richard Allen case, it's almost like we've sent, we the prosecutors and the key witnesses, you know, law enforcement and the families have spent so much time together getting ready. It's almost like we don't want to separate, like it would jinx it. So we tend to, you know, gather together in the courthouse, in the prosecutor's office, you know, waiting, waiting, waiting and discussing the case and then trying to distract ourselves with something else, but yet keep coming back to the case and what went well, what didn't go well, you know, what do you think's going to happen? And you just have trouble letting go of it all and when, and so you form kind of like lifelong bonds and memories with these, these people, your people on this case, that I really never forget. And I think it's kind of that way for other people as well. You know, when we see each other again on the Richard Allen case, you know, there's that, that bond, that camaraderie that comes from being in such an intense situation together that I think supersedes just other working relationships.

B (24:43)

Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. It's like you went through a war together.

C (24:47)

Yes, I think it's very much like that. You know, you see how people who, who are war veterans, you know, have a bond with someone that lives across the country, but there's something inseparable about that experience.

B (24:59)

Yeah, you go through a bad situation, I mean, because ultimately it's very intense and maybe the results are certain, certainly necessary and satisfying, but it's, it's an intense and pretty heavy, maybe negative situation to be through. But when you're doing it with other people that you come to trust and whatnot, it kind of, it can kind of shape those bonds. I can imagine. Do you have any memories of, like, what your reaction was and like what happened when you got the Schultz verdict?

C (25:28)

Certainly I was happy to have been successful in doing what I thought needed to be done. You know, it's not just a lot of people will say, oh, well, you're a prosecutor. You just want another notch in your belt. I have never looked at my job as keeping score. I look at the Brian Schultz case and as a very fine example of, you know, the goal of, you know, it sounds corny, but it is seeking justice and it is presenting the truth. And no one wants to present a non truth or, you know, charge someone with something and make a mistake. And so when a jury that's selected by both sides, that's brought in to hear this, you know, without having any background, that's the goal, supports your decision, your charging decision. That's like the ultimate gold star on your exercise of discretion as prosecutor. Because it's a big deal to charge someone with murder. And certainly there are other options. You know, when you're going through a case and making a charging decision. And just because a person is found not guilty doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't do something wrong or that they didn't do what they were charged with. But it does mean that either your presentation of evidence wasn't what it needed to be, or there was evidence missing that maybe you can control and maybe you can't. So those are the quandaries and the, you know, frustrations of being a prosecutor when things don't work out.

B (27:02)

Right. I do want to ask you, you know, in terms of Donna Schultz's family and surviving family, what was the reaction from them on this outcome?

C (27:15)

They were adult children of Donna and never really felt good about the way that their mother was being treated. As I recall, their mother was a hard worker and Brian Schultz did not work. And she was put in a position of kind of, you know, needing to do everything to support their, their little household. And the children didn't like that. They felt like it was unfair. And then for her to be murdered, you know, was devastating for them. They did have a close relationship with their mother, and so they were, you know, understandably grateful, but their mother was still gone. And I did take a look at the chronological case summary before having the opportunity to talk to you about this. Case and saw that there was an appeal and that the Supreme Court denied transfer and that the family actually attended the hearing to present testimony about why they didn't feel that post conviction relief would be appropriate. So I was glad to see that even though I'm not in place county anymore, that the prosecutor's office was able to locate those family members and that they had the opportunity to come back and say, look, this is a just result and Brian Schultz needs to stay where he is, which is in prison.

B (28:35)

Absolutely. I guess, in terms of this case, is there anything else that. That we didn't ask you about that are. Or, you know, just maybe like standout memories from the case? I mean, you mentioned the kind of just being there from the beginning in this early chaos of the crime scene. Anything that when you look back on this case, you kind of like, stands out as a significant memory for you.

C (28:56)

I just remember that this case contained a lot of unique evidentiary challenges from some of the other cases involving death that I had previously dealt with. And so I remember trying to be, you know, very careful and very thorough about running down good witnesses to explain things that. That might seem unexplainable. So things about the gun, things about the trajectory of the shooting and the physical evidence, because in the end, you always want to come back to something people can rely on, and that's the physical evidence. And so I felt particularly good about this case where it might be hard for jurors to sort out was it an accident or was it intentional? And I was happy to see that. I was able to know, as a team, present evidence that convinced a jury that they could rely on the physical evidence, even though there were no eyewitnesses.

B (30:11)

And. And, you know, we talked a little bit about this and we touched upon it, but you have such experience with these, you know, big cases, cases like murder, cases like someone has been killed and there needs to be justice. And these cases can be extremely important for a community. You did that with the Schultz case. You did that with the Delphi murders case in Carroll County. In your view, how does having a prosecutor who has a lot of experience with such cases, how is that a benefit in terms of, you know, leading a prosecutor's office now that you're obviously running for White county prosecutor?

C (30:46)

A prosecutor's job is unique in that we have the burden of proof and the defense side doesn't need to present anything. And that's fine. That's how the law is designed. But when you apply that to cases like murder or child molesting, or rape. And there is so much at stake, and there's been such grave danger, you know, to a victim, a direct victim or indirect victim, secondary victims. I don't think that that kind of responsibility should be given to someone who hasn't prosecuted the case and, and doesn't have the groundwork and the basic knowledge to build upon in order to present the kind of case these. These situations deserve. So I have always been an advocate for or spoken out about how important experience is. When I first went to the county prosecutor's office and I was, you know, fresh out of law school or had never prosecuted a case, it didn't matter whether I would have come from, you know, the defense side. It's a totally different responsibility. And a prosecutor also has other responsibilities that are part of being the elected official that draw attention away from the caseload. And so you have to be able to do all of them and still serve your community. So I would never have run for prosecutor in Pulaski county if I had not had, you know, the eight years of opportunity to do the job at a lower level and to understand the role and to have the resources and the relationship in order to meet the expectations of my community, to handle murder or rape or child molest in an appropriate way.

B (32:54)

Right, because you're going to have that experience to do so and not. And not bungle those cases because, you know, I mean, they're so important and it's not. The stakes couldn't be higher for a community.

C (33:06)

Certainly those cases should not be a training ground for a new prosecutor.

B (33:10)

No, definitely not.

C (33:12)

And I was just going to say, and if you're an elected prosecutor and you don't have the experience, then what do you do for your community? Do you call someone else in to do that very, very important job that you've been elected to do because you haven't had the opportunity to have the experience? I don't think that speaks well of taking on the responsibility for such an important position without having the background, the experience, and the tools that it requires.

B (33:39)

Well, Stacy, this has been great. We really enjoyed hearing about this really interesting case, the Schultz case. Is there anything that we didn't ask you about with this case that think it's important for people to understand it, or does that stands out to you in any way?

C (33:55)

No, I think we covered all of the. On issues that relate to the case, and it's just. It's been a pleasure to revisit it.

B (34:04)

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much and great talking to you, as always.

C (34:08)

Great talking to you too.

B (34:10)

Thanks so much to Stacey for taking the time to talk with us about this case. We really appreciated it.

A (34:15)

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B (34:35)

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