Glendale man pleads no contest to killing grandparents
A 35-year-old man pleaded no contest Thursday to killing his grandparents two years ago in the Glendale home he shared with them.
Nathaniel Scheiern entered the pleas for one count each of first-degree murder and second-degree murder. He faces 41 years to life in prison.
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said that Scheiern first attacked his 82-year-old grandmother, Verna Scheiern, with an ax before striking his 77-year-old grandfather, William Scheiern, with a hammer when William tried to intervene.
According to testimony during a preliminary hearing in 2016, the couple’s bodies were discovered when Nathaniel Scheiern’s sister called for a well-being check. An officer who went to the home found the front door open; the decomposing bodies were discovered on a twin-sized bed, with a blanket covering them.
Police found a bloodied hammer a few feet away from the bodies and an ax embedded in a wall caked with dried blood. Authorities tracked down Nathaniel Scheiern at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia, where he was being treated for injuries he suffered in a car crash the day after the killings.
Glendale Police Det. Jeff Davis testified in 2016 that Scheiern confessed to the killings after his arrest and that he tried to behead the bodies.
He is scheduled to be sentenced June 22.
Nguyen writes for Times Community News
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