Justice Served to Killer in Rhyme, Meter : Murder: Echoing the style of the man he is sentencing, Judge Robert Fitzgerald delivers it in the form of a poem.

Echoing the literary style of an Anaheim Hills engineer who shot his wife to death and threatened to hunt down and kill 54 others, a Superior Court judge Friday used rhyme and meter to sentence David Lee Schoenecker to life in prison without parole.

“You won’t kill in the night, nor kill in the day. All on your list can go on their merry way,” Judge Robert Fitzgerald recited.

“You killed your sweet wife, who loved you so dear. For that you’re being punished, let me make that fact clear.”

Schoenecker’s lead attorney, Public Defender Ronald Y. Butler, called Fitzgerald’s method of delivering the sentence “unusual.”

Butler’s 50-year-old client sat passively as the poem was read, and later told Butler, “When I wrote my poem, I was sick. When the judge wrote his, he was not.”

Butler also said that Schoenecker was “unsettled” by the sentence, but that he had not been surprised by it.

“He’s very sorry that he committed this crime, that he’ll try to make up for it in his own way, by helping other people, educating them,” he said.

Schoenecker has spent his time in the Orange County Jail reading, reflecting, writing “novel-type manuscripts” and teaching other inmates, Butler said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans said Fitzgerald issued “an appropriate sentence for the crime.”

In August, a jury found Schoenecker guilty of murdering his 40-year-old wife, Gail Mae, as she slept in their Anaheim Hills home on May 6, 1989, and then later found that he was sane when he did so.

The jury also found that a special circumstance allegation that Schoenecker committed the crime while “lying in wait” was true. That last finding meant Schoenecker could be sentenced to life without parole.

On Friday, defense attorneys tried to persuade Fitzgerald to drop the special circumstance finding.

Deputy Public Defender Carol E. Lavacot argued that Schoenecker and his wife had a “very special, loving relationship,” that he was tormented by “scenes in his head,” and that he could not ask for help because he was raised in a strict German family.

Shooting her to death as she slept was not cruel, Lavacot argued. “What more humane way to do it?” she said.

Lavacot said it was unfair to incarcerate him with “other horrible, heinous murderers who killed for greed” or tortured their victims.

Fitzgerald denied the motion, which would have allowed Schoenecker the possibility of parole in 18 years. He also denied the defense request for a new trial.

Prosecutor Evans said he was pleased that the special circumstance ruling was not set aside.

“He (Schoenecker) had a plan to take care of his wife--with a gun.”

The crime was heinous, he said, in that Schoenecker shot his wife after he “lulls (her) into a sense of bliss.”

Schoenecker had compiled a “hit list” of 54 people he intended to kill. Most of them lived in the Milwaukee, Wis., area, where the Schoeneckers had lived most of their married life. However, none of those intended victims were harmed.

It was Schoenecker’s signed confession sent to the Orange County Register that led to the discovery of his wife’s body in their Anaheim Hills home. Investigators also found an envelope marked “The List” that included the names of the 54 intended victims.

The letter to the newspaper bore a Montana postmark. Montana authorities captured Schoenecker several days after he mailed his confession.

At the sentencing, Fitzgerald first read a poem that Schoenecker had written while in jail about his 54 intended victims.

Schoenecker had written: “I’ll come in the night, I’ll come in the day. I’ve chosen for each their own special way. All on the list will go to their grave.”

The last part of Fitzgerald’s poem said: “The sentence I’ve chosen to you may seem cold. You’ll pay and you’ll pay all the while you’ll grow old. One day you will die, a funeral your warden will hold. For you will serve your entire natural life and not be paroled.”

After court was adjourned, the judge said, “If they don’t want a poetic sentence, they shouldn’t have a poetic crime.”