Killer’s Jury Told of Abuse

Attorneys for convicted murderer Michael Schultz set out to spare his life Thursday by presenting evidence of his horrific childhood and how it led to a life of crime.

Opening the defense portion of the trial’s penalty phase, Schultz’s brother and stepsister told jurors about being raised by a father prone to violence and drug abuse.

“The only way I can describe living with my father is if you were living in a hostage situation with a terrorist,” said Schultz’s stepsister, Britta Anderson. “You just never knew what was going to set him off.”

Like his siblings, Anthony Schultz III said he too was scared of his father. “My father would whip us, lock us in our room, make us kneel down before him.”

Jurors will recommend either death or life in prison without parole for Schultz, 33, who was convicted last month of raping and strangling Cynthia Burger, 44, in her Port Hueneme condominium a decade ago.

In an effort to keep Schultz off death row, Anderson told jurors how her father beat his three children with belts and fists, and how he tormented them by making them kneel on the floor when they misbehaved.

She said her mother got slapped around and was unable to protect her children. And she told jurors about her father’s drug use, and how her baby brother started smoking pot and snorting speed by age 9.

Anderson said Schultz was anything but aggressive as a boy, that he was a sensitive child hardened and twisted over the years by his father’s cruel hand.

“I was basically in charge of taking care of my brother; I was sort of his mother figure at the time,” said Anderson, who fled the household at 16. “That has traumatized me for years, abandoning my brothers like that.”

Burger, a car dealership manager, was found dead in her condominium by firefighters responding to a fire. They found her body in a bathtub and thought she had died of smoke inhalation.

Evidence later revealed she had been raped and strangled, and that the condominium had been set ablaze to destroy DNA. Semen collected by the coroner was kept in storage for years while investigators waited for a break in the case.

It came in August 2000 when police received a call from an anonymous tipster who suggested a DNA test would link Schultz to Burger’s slaying.

Prosecutors ended their portion of the penalty phase Thursday by calling Burger’s sister, Sandra Woodward.

Six years older than Burger, Woodward also talked about being a caretaker to her younger sibling. And she told jurors about the trauma of learning that her baby sister -- the woman who had been the maid of honor at her wedding -- was dead.

“I just always thought we would grow old together,” Woodward said, describing her heartache. “I didn’t really know there was so much physical pain when someone dies.”