Couple Who Left Children Home Alone Freed on Bail

A couple accused of leaving their two young daughters home alone during a nine-day Christmas vacation to Mexico walked out of jail Thursday after posting cash bail of $5,000 each.

David and Sharon Schoo refused to answer reporters’ questions as they left the Kane County Corrections Center. The husband attempted to hide his face with papers.

Their attorney, Gerard Kepple, has said that, when the facts are known, the case would “turn out quite differently” from people’s impressions.

But at a news conference Thursday afternoon, Kepple declined to say why the children were left alone or whether someone was supposed to have been watching the girls and did not show up. The couple did not attend the briefing.

He said the couple, who were at an undisclosed location, would plead not guilty. Both face felony charges of child abandonment and cruelty to children and misdemeanor charges of child endangerment.

He said the couple were aghast at the worldwide publicity the case has generated, describing them as “lethargic, like they came out of a steam bath. . . . They were in complete shock.”

“Of course they love their daughters,” Kepple said.

At the news conference, Sharon Schoo’s father, Joseph Kuzma, said the Schoos and their daughters likely will need psychiatric help.

“I think there is something wrong somewhere” if the children were left alone, he said.

Kuzma, 72, said he arranged for the couple’s bail even though he had not seen his 35-year-old daughter and granddaughters in eight years because of a conflict between Sharon Schoo and her stepmother.

A preliminary hearing is set for Tuesday.

The couple’s children, 9-year-old Nicole and 4-year-old Diana, were found Dec. 21 by neighbors when they fled their home after a smoke alarm was accidentally triggered.

The girls told authorities their parents had flown to Acapulco the previous day, leaving them with no adult supervision.

Neighbors say the couple kept to themselves.

The Schoos were arrested Tuesday after their plane landed at O’Hare International Airport.

The children were placed in the care of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Under terms of the couple’s release, they are barred from seeing the children.

David Schoo, 45, is an engineer with a smoke-alarm manufacturing company, System Sensor.

He was a registered pharmacist until 1978, when he voluntarily agreed to the revocation of his license, according to a consent decree on file with the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation. According to the decree, Schoo admitted stealing 1,900 Valium pills from an Aurora drugstore.