Judge Revokes Bail for Suspect in Wife Slaying

An Anaheim man who fled to Montana after allegedly killing his wife and then confessed in a letter to a newspaper columnist was ordered held without bail Wednesday by an Orange County judge.

David Lee Schoenecker, 48, is accused of fatally shooting his 40-year-old wife, Gail, at their Anaheim Hills home on May 5.

Municipal Judge Kazuharu Makino in Fullerton revoked the $500,000 bond that had been set after Schoenecker’s return Tuesday night from Missoula, Mont., and ordered the suspect held until a May 31 arraignment.

It was Schoenecker’s first court appearance in Orange County since his capture last week by a posse of sheriff’s deputies in rugged mountains near Superior, Mont.

Bail Reduction

Schoenecker’s court-appointed attorney for the hearing, Jim Appel, said Public Defender Ronald Butler will be in charge of Schoenecker’s defense.

Appel said the defense will seek to have bail set at a later date.

Defense attorneys asked that the arraignment be delayed “to give us a chance to review the police reports and files, which we haven’t seen yet,” he said.

Appel said he had spoken with Schoenecker briefly before the hearing and described the chemical engineer as “calm.”

Schoenecker had initially refused to waive extradition from Montana but after consulting with an attorney, agreed to return to California to face first-degree murder charges.

Gail Schoenecker’s body was found Thursday after Schoenecker mailed a letter to an Orange County newspaper columnist stating that he had killed her.

In the letter, postmarked from Montana, Schoenecker allegedly listed 54 relatives and acquaintances he planned to “punish.”

Many of those named--including his ex-wife and people he knew from grade school--live in Schoenecker’s native Wisconsin and were under police protection until his arrest.

Police also have seized a .357 magnum revolver found in a backpack that Schoenecker was carrying when he was captured.