An Oconto County jury will decide if a rural Shawano man, desperate to save his marriage and anxious over repaying a loan with marijuana he grew illegally, murdered his ex-mistress and her brother.
Daniel Schmidt, 30, is accused of the shotgun slayings of Kimberly Rose, with whom he had a six-month affair, and her brother, Leonard Marsh, on May 19, 2009, in their town of Gillett home.
In opening arguments Monday in Oconto County Circuit Court, Assistant Attorney General Richard Dufour told the jury Schmidt had two motives for the murder. He wanted to keep Rose from telling the police about the marijuana he grew in a shed at his home, Dufour said, and stop her from disrupting his marriage to his wife, Stephanie.
Dufour said Schmidt also had a murder weapon, a .20-gauge shotgun.
Schmidt, arrested in September 2012, faces two counts of first-degree intentional homicide. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Schmidt allegedly initiated an affair with Rose in November 2008 but later ended the relationship and tried to repair his marriage. The relationship between the Schmidts and Rose turned more tense when Rose loaned Schmidt $1,000 to purchase a motorcycle and accepted payment in marijuana, but threatened “payback” when she believed Schmidt shorted her on what was supposed to be a $100 repayment, Dufour said.
The prosecutor also said Schmidt gave conflicting statements of where he was on the morning of the murder. According to witness accounts, he left home at 9:30 a.m. and returned at about 10:30 a.m. Schmidt initially told his wife he went for a drive, then told investigators he went to pick up farm equipment from a friend or return equipment he borrowed, but turned back when he realized he didn’t have enough time to make the trip and be back to pick up his child from preschool.
Defense attorney Eric Maciolek argued Schmidt did not have time to make the 20-minute drive to and from rural Shawano to the victims’ Gillett residence to commit the crimes.
“The evidence is going to show he could not have committed this crime,” Maciolek said.
A phone call between Rose and her mother ended at 10:19 a.m., and a friend called 9-1-1 at 11:13 a.m. after discovering Rose’s body, leading investigators to believe the murders occurred between 10:20 and 11:13 a.m.
“This is simply an unsolved crime,” Maciolek said.
Dufour said there is little physical evidence — no DNA or fingerprints — to tie Schmidt to the crime. There is no eyewitness account of the crime and no confession, he added. The jury would hear of circumstantial evidence instead.
“While it will not be direct evidence that the defendant committed this crime, the circumstantial evidence will build up to the point it will be clear in your mind that the defendant is the one who committed these two murders,” Dufour said.
The trial is scheduled to last the rest of the week and continue Monday and Tuesday, if necessary.
Rose had been shot in the arm — Dufour demonstrated how he believes she shielded her face — and the bullet traveled through her arm and into her face. Marsh had been shot three times in the back through the covers while in bed.
Arguments over marijuana and money were frequent between Schmidt and Rose, Dufour said. Additional tension erupted over a pregnancy scare and a photo sent by Rose to Stephanie Schmidt, which Stephanie could not view but believed it to be a photo of Schmidt and Rose together intimately. Also, Rose kept a journal about her affair with Schmidt, which Stephanie wanted to read. The journal was never found.
The night before the murders, two witnesses overheard Rose arguing with a man and a woman at the Rose home, Dufour said. One of the witnesses was Rose’s son, 11 at the time. The other was a friend of Marsh’s. Dufour said Marsh called a friend, requesting she pick him up because he didn’t “like the people who are here right now.” In the background the friend could hear the voices of Rose and those of a woman and a man arguing, but the friend didn’t know who was at the house, Dufour said.
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