Detective Lindsay (8:08)
Yeah. Mary says that the suspect opens up this backpack and proceeds to duct tape her arms behind her back, pulls out a knife and cuts her clothing off. And over the course of several hours, he sexually assaults her in various ways with multiple objects. He had a bottle of oxiclean, and he was basically spraying that on her after each sexual assault, I guess in his mind, thinking he was going to somehow eliminate his DNA. And then after a while, the suspect tried to force her to take some of his prescription medications and basically gave her a handful of these pills and told her to take the pills. Mary had the presence of mind to spit him out when he turned his head. And then she kind of rubbed some dirt over the top of him and scooted on top of the pills so he didn't see that she spit them out. And the suspect, he actually tied her wrist to his wrist with, I think it was a shoelace. And then eventually. This is going to sound really bizarre, but he fell asleep. And then at some point wakes up and tells her, you know, be lucky that I'm not Bundy and don't work as a prostitute anymore. And then he basically stands her up and walks her back out to the car and drops her off on the street corner, still covered in duct tape. And Mary was not going to report this to law enforcement. So when she got home, she was just going to deal with it herself. Her roommate was like, oh, hell no, we're calling the police. This is insane. So Mary reluctantly did go to the police, then ultimately was able to lead the responding officers to the crime scene. And then she went to the hospital and had a sexual assault kit taken. Her injuries were very significant. The sexual assault nurse examiner told me that she normally would not take photographs of genital injuries, but because this victim, Mary, because her injuries were so significant, she actually took a polaroid photo of her injuries. And so Mary, as she's being interviewed by law enforcement, she describes how the suspect was opening up to her and telling her things about himself. You know, such as, I just got out of prison. I go to this particular clinic for my mental health treatment. Just, you know, kind of bizarre things, but things that the responding officer, Officer Beverly, was able to use. So based on figuring out what the name of the medication was that Mary was given, and then cross referencing that with medication that was prescribed to registered sex offenders, Officer Beverly came up with a potential suspect. His name is Donald Schneider. And Donald was a Level 3 registered sex offender, which is the most dangerous, highest likelihood of reoffending, and early investigation into the case. The original detective who was assigned this interviews Mary and actually shows her a photo montage of several individuals, including a photo of Donald Schneider. The photo of Donald Schneider that Mary was shown was an older photo. And when I get into this case later, I'm going to explain how much of a chameleon this man was. He probably had. I don't know, 20 plus booking photos that I could find of him over time. And in every photo, he looks like a completely different person. So Mary did not pick him out of the photo montage at that point. So the case really went nowhere initially. And then when I got it the following year, I reached out to the crime lab, and the sexual assault kit had been sent out there, but it hadn't been tested yet. And so I talked to the DNA supervisor, explained to him what I had asked him to go ahead and test the sexual assault kit and also test another piece of evidence that was collected from the crime scene, which was a piece of cloth. It was like a scarf that at the crime scene, Mary was told to lay on top of it. So those two items were submitted, and just for our listeners, because it's not like csi, and I know they all know this by now, but back in 2004, like, the crime lab didn't test evidence unless the case was gonna be charged or there was gonna be an arrest made or, you know, it wasn't just like, you submit all your evidence to the lab and they'll test it. That's not really how things worked. So I don't know that the kit ever would have been tested. So a few months later, the sexual assault kit was tested, it went through completion, and I get a call from the lab letting me know that they did get a hit. And the hit matches Donald Schneider, even though our victim didn't pick him out of the photo montage, which, you know, can create problems later at trial, especially in a case where you've got an adult victim and especially an adult victim who's a sex worker. Right, because all Donald has to say is, yeah, I had consensual sex with Mary, but I'm not the one that did all those bad things to her. You know, she's a sex worker. She probably had sex with lots of other people. But regardless of that, because of Donald's criminal history, and when I started looking into why he was a registered sex offender to begin with, it was very clear to me that he was really dangerous, and he was a predator. He was a serial predator, and he preyed on all different kinds of victims. I think he's what you might call, like, a crossover predator, where they prey on not only strangers, but, you know, people that are known to them. Age ranges vary widely with their victim preference. And really, I think it comes down to opportunity for somebody like this particular offender. So Donald, obviously, I knew where he was because he was a registered sex offender, and he had to Report. And so we knew what his registration address was. It was pretty easy to track him down. And we ended up actually just using a ruse and calling him in rather than going to his house under the guise of some kind of registration appointment. Our office was a couple floors up in the same building. And so we just took him into custody and brought him upstairs for an interview. Normally, when I would interview rape suspects, you know, I would try to establish a rapport, and I would, you know, take the handcuffs off and really try to get comfortable with them in the interview room. Donald Schneider was not one of those people. We actually left at least one handcuff on him during the interview. He had this animalistic aura about him that was really frightening. You know, just when you hear that term, the hair on the back of your neck stands up. He was kind of that kind of individual. And during the interview, Donald denied any kind of sexual assault. He basically said, well, you know, I did meet a quote, unquote, hooker, and we had sex. We basically did everything. You know, if there were, like, bindings involved or tape involved, well, she must have brought him to the scene. And I'm pretty sure she wanted it rough. I mean, it was just, like complete minimization of. Of everything. So we ended up booking him into the jail, and he was ultimately charged, and we went to trial because in Washington, we have a two strikes, you're out law for violent sex offenses. And he already had one sex strike against him, so he was going to trial on this one. And it was a challenge even trying to, you know, keep track of Mary during this process, because, you know, as we all know, it can take years for cases to go to trial. So I'm trying to keep track of her because she was pretty transient, not the easiest person to find and locate, and, you know, get in for interviews and things like that. But we ultimately did prevail. The trial was pretty grueling, and some of the things that really stood out to me were the fact that we had this photograph taken by the sexual assault nurse. Not to say that we wouldn't have gotten the conviction without it, but I think it just really put an underscore, you know, like, this is not consensual. No one would ask for this type of violence to occur to them. So Donald was convicted. He got sentenced to a second sex strike. So he got life without the possibility of parole. And honestly, I thought that was the last time I was ever going to hear that guy's name, but that wasn't the case.
