Suspect in Slaying of Wife to Be Returned by Anaheim Police

An Anaheim Hills chemical engineer accused of murdering his wife, threatening 54 other people and then leading authorities on a manhunt through the wilds of Montana, agreed Monday to waive extradition and is scheduled to be returned to Orange County late today.

After consulting with a court-appointed lawyer here, David Lee Schoenecker, 48, agreed to sign an extradition waiver before Montana’s 4th Judicial District Court, according to the attorney, Larry Mansch.

Anaheim police detectives who came here last weekend to take charge of the case are scheduled to accompany Schoenecker on an Orange County-bound flight from the Missoula County International Airport this afternoon.

Later this week, the fugitive is expected to be arraigned in Orange County on charges of shooting and killing his wife, Gail Schoenecker, a 40-year-old elementary school teacher, at the couple’s home on May 5.

Steve Biskar, an Orange County deputy public defender with whom Mansch consulted, said Schoenecker has indicated that he cannot afford to hire a private attorney and will ask at his arraignment that a lawyer be appointed to represent him at taxpayers’ expense.

In a hearing earlier Monday, Missoula County Justice of the Peace Michael D. Morris charged Schoenecker with being a fugitive in the state of Montana and ordered that his bail stand at $500,000. The bail was originally set Friday in the Mineral County Court, in Superior, near where the fugitive was tracked down in deep snow by a specially deputized posse.

Judge Morris also appointed a member of the local public defender’s office to represent Schoenecker in his extradition proceedings, after the fugitive, wearing an orange-colored jumpsuit and leaning casually against a podium in the small courtroom, said he did not know if he had money for a private lawyer.

“I have to check my private property and assets,” Schoenecker said to the judge.

Schoenecker, who had refused to sign an extradition waiver following his arraignment Friday, told the judge that one reason he wanted a lawyer was so he could have the extradition process explained to him.

When the brief hearing ended and Schoenecker was being led back to the Missoula County Jail where he had been held since Saturday, he ignored a reporter’s shouted request for comment.

Mineral County Sheriff Wade VanGilder, who arrested Schoenecker at gunpoint, said the suspect has adamantly refused to be interviewed by newspapers. However, Schoenecker on Saturday did answer questions from a California newspaper columnist to whom he had written last week assertedly admitting that he killed his wife and planned to “punish” 54 relatives and acquaintances, most of whom live in Wisconsin. Schoenecker and his wife moved to California from the Milwaukee area about 2 years ago.

After the Friday morning hearing before Judge Morris, Mansch spent the better part of the day explaining the extradition process to Schoenecker. At one point during the more than 4 hours that the two consulted in jail, Schoenecker asked Mansch to telephone the public defender’s office in Orange County for elaboration on some of the technical points of extradition.

“He wanted to make sure the process worked the way it is supposed to work,” Mansch said. “We didn’t talk at all about the case. We just talked about the extradition process.”

Mansch declined to elaborate on Schoenecker’s concerns or on why he finally decided to waive extradition. Biskar, in a telephone interview from Santa Ana, said Schoenecker was mostly concerned “about the procedures of extradition and what it means.”

The extradition process in Montana is relatively simple, according to Missoula County Atty. Robert L. Deschamps III. The suspect has either to waive extradition, in which case he is immediately returned to the jurisdiction where he is charged, or he can try to fight it.

If the suspect refuses to sign extradition papers, Deschamps said the police officers who want him must obtain a governor’s warrant for his return. That can take up to 30 days, although Anaheim police officials say they could have obtained one for Schoenecker in only a few days.

When the warrant is returned to Montana, Deschamps said there are only two issues the state must decide before agreeing to an extradition request: Does an outside law enforcement agency, such as Anaheim police, have jurisdiction over the crime, and has the suspect been properly identified.

“If he (Schoenecker) could prove he was in Montana at the time of the crime, that would be another matter,” Dechamps said.

Had Schoenecker chosen to do so, he could have delayed extradition by as long as 60 days.

“But in the end he would lose,” Deschamps added.

Although fugitives being held in Montana are subject to automatic release if they are not extradited within 90 days, Montana officials said that never happens.

Schoenecker’s extradition proceedings Monday created great confusion in the Missoula County Courthouse, where county judicial employees said they learned through the local Missoulian newspaper that the fugitive would be making an appearance in court that day.

Betty Wing, a deputy county attorney assigned to the case, spent the entire morning rushing from one office to another and telephoning Mineral County authorities on when Schoenecker was supposed to appear. Even the Missoula County Jail officials said they had been given no warning.

Wing had so little time to prepare for her court appearance on the state’s behalf that she misquoted the charge against Schoenecker, referring to it as “robbery and homicide.” Schoenecker promptly corrected her, when the judge asked if he understood the charges.

“Robbery I don’t understand,” Schoenecker said.

Wing subsequently realized that she had referred to the robbery-homicide classification of the Anaheim detectives who are investigating the case and sheepishly corrected herself.