#81 - Courtney Schulhoff

Just like Romeo and Juliet …

Courtney Schulhoff was a 16-year-old in Altamonte, FL. She had just dropped out of high school, but was making an attempt to earn her GED.

Michael Morin was 5 years older, and on probation for car theft. He met Courtney at a local dog track (not sure what a 16-year-old was doing there), and the two hit it off.

Stephen Schulhoff was Courtney’s dad, who she lived with after her parents got divorced. He  objected to her dating Morin. According to Courtney, he was also physically abusive

Solution? Why not bludgeon dad to death with a baseball bat?

After the dirty deed was done, the couple were discovered by Stephen’s girlfriend, one Elaine Bouck. She also came upon Courtney and Michael as they fled the apartment.

Though it seemed that it was Morin who had actually done the killing, Courtney’s part in it was very much in the air. She initially claimed to have nothing to do with it, but eventually copped to giving Morin the baseball bat, waiting calmly for him to finish the deed, then helping him clean up later. Morin, conveniently, claimed to have blacked out.

Courtney was the first to go to trial, and prosecutors effectively showed her to have been the mastermind. Ineligible for the death penalty because she was only 16, she got life without parole instead.

Morin went next. He admitted he was the one who did it, and expressed some genuine regret. That, and the fact that Courtney gave a deposition where claimed to have been the perpetrator, netted Morin life as well (with that later being reduced to 40 years).

Courtney has been a popular interview subject on TV. The case has also been featured on Snapped.

#82 - Julene Simko *

Perhaps they just needed a safe word …

This one starts with a frantic 911 call from Julene Simko. Turns out her husband, Jeremy, had just been shot by some unknown intruder. Or was he? 

Julene claimed she was sleeping in another room (Jeremy snored) when she was awakened by a loud noise. Going to Jeremy, she found him lying on the bed, covered in blood and unresponsive. Hearing something in the hallway, Julene grabbed a pistol and fired two random shots toward whomever or whatever might be there. 

At the same time, though, police found no sign of forced entry, nothing on the security cameras, no reports of barking dogs (the Simkos had 4), and no foreign DNA. The same issues would resurface days later when Julene claimed the house had been broken into (she had been staying at her mom’s in the interim).

The police, however, moved no further. And that’s the way the case rested for another 4 whole years.

Revisiting the evidence at that time, the cops were struck by the unusual relationship between Julene and Jeremy. Pics, videos and even a 14-page master/slave contract showed that the couple were seriously into BDSM. Julene claimed that the relationship was strictly consensual, but there were, however, hints of abuse. Did Julene snap? She had been sexually abused as a child …

At the same time, a nurse who treated Julene after the shooting came forward claiming she thought she heard Julene say she had shot Jeremy.  The cops also had experts analyze the 911 call, with those experts finding 10 “markers of a guilty caller.”

Though the evidence was still very circumstantial, Julene was finally indicted. Surprisingly, she opted for a bench trial (i.e., before only a judge, and with no jury). The judge would subsequently find Julene guilty, giving her a sentence of 28 years to life.

Would a jury trial have gotten resulted in a guilty verdict as well? Was it Julene who actually pulled the trigger?

#83 - Elisa McNabney & Sarah Dutra *

Our first two-fer … 

Elisa McNabney (r) and Sarah Dutra (l) worked together at a law firm. Elisa was married to the owner, Larry McNabney, and worked as the COO. Sarah was a part-time secretary.

The two hit it off big time. To such an extent, in fact, that they conspired to knock off Larry.

Now, Larry wasn’t the nicest guy in the world. He was a notorious drunk, and may have been abusive as well.

Elisa

At least he seemed to be forgiving though. Elisa, before she was Mrs. McNabney, had embezzled thousands of dollars from him. Not only did he forgive her, he asked her to marry him (his 5th, her 3rd).

Turns out Elisa, though, was hiding a pretty checkered past from her new hubby. In fact, she had a 113-page criminal record, had used 38 different aliases (her birth name was Laren Sims), and had actually met Larry when she cut off an ankle monitor & fled to Vegas. (They would move to Sacramento after Elisa’s little embezzling to-do.)

Purely for monetary needs, Elisa and Sarah decided to do Larry in. In particular, they injected him with some horse tranquilizer (Larry was one of those horsey types). Elisa did the injecting, and Sarah just kind of helped out.

Not knowing quite what to do with him, they put him on ice (literally) for a few months. While Larry cooled, they made up all sort of stories about where he was – he was in rehab, he had moved to Costa Rica, he had joined a cult … At the same time, they helped themselves to half a million of the law firm’s assets.

Finally, they buried him in a vineyard. Not too soon after, though, he was discovered by some workers. 

And that was Elisa’s cue to take her teen-aged daughter, a little more money, and go on the lam. On the other side of the country, in Florida, her daughter eventually turned her in. In prison there, Elisa hung herself, confessing to everything in a suicide note, implicating Sarah as well. 

Sarah

Sarah would get 12 years for voluntary manslaughter and being an accessory to murder. She’s out now, but keeping a very low profile. God only knows what she’s up to.

The case has appeared on Snapped, Dateline, Deadly Wives & Evil Stepmothers. It also inspired a TV movie, Lies My Mother Told Me.

#84 - Shanna Gardner *

It sounded like she had everything …

Shanna Gardner was the daughter of multi-millionaire Mormons. She then married Jared Bridegan, an exec at Microsoft, and had two children with him.

Unfortunately, she was caught cheating with her personal trainer, and she and Jared divorced. This presented Shanna with two problems. First, there were the kids. Second was a trust fund that was somehow tied up with Jared.

Cue Mario Fernandez, an ex-military type (with a dishonorable discharge for assault.) He and Shannan would marry, then plan a hit together on poor Jared.

The hit was an ambush, with someone placing a tire in the middle of the road right before Jared arrived on the scene. When he got out of his car to remove it, someone jumped out and plugged him.

Evidence pointed to one Henry Tenon, a renter at one of Fernandez’s properties, who had a long list of arrests. When brought in for questioning, Tenon would sing like a bird. 

The trial is set for August of this year, with Jose Baez, who got Casey Anthony her acquittal, representing Shanna. Stay tuned.

#85 - Carter Cervantes *

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mug shot quite like that one. Carter Cervantes is obviously a very attractive young lady. At the same time, though, I don’t think I have ever seen such a stone-cold expression like that on anyone before.

It all started in 2014. Carter was an assistant manager at an American Eagle store in Amarillo, TX. There, she began a relationship with one of her subordinates, the much younger David Mallory.

Since that was against corporate policy, the company offered her two choices, quit or get transferred. She opted for the latter, moving to Ft Worth. David would in turn get fired – not for the relationship, but for simply not showing up at work.

A little different look

In Ft Worth, Carter managed to rehire David by fudging his Social Security number. That was really just a setup, though, for the two to rob the store of $18K after the tax-free Memorial Day weekend.

In response, another assistant manager, Ashlea Harris, took a gander at some security tape. There, she thought she saw Carter leave a back door unlocked and a hooded figure looking like David go straight to the store safe and quickly empty it of its contents. Though there wasn’t enough evidence to charge them, there was enough to get both fired. 

The victim

Carter didn’t take too well to that. Her next move was to combine a little revenge with another burglary. 

The first step was to confront Ashlea at her apartment. After beating, stabbing, strangling, and binding her, the couple then set fire to her apartment. On the way out, they made sure to take her keys.

The next step was to show up at the store super early on the morning after Black Friday. Fortunately, though, the locks had been changed. Security tapes did show someone looking very like Carter trying to get into the store, but coming up empty & briskly walking away.

And another look for the trial

The cops were able to nab David in the parking lot, then hold him for not having his drivers license. They found Carter at home, then had her come in for an interview. They would have to let both of them walk away though.

The next break came when Carter’s Infiniti was identified as being at the scene of Ashlea’s murder. Getting a search warrant, the police found a treasure trove of evidence at the couple’s apartment – the gun used to pistol whip the victim, a murder kit, blood in the vehicle, and phone chats planning everything.

The evidence was pretty overwhelming. Both would get life without parole. The case has been covered on Snapped and Dateline (as well as True Detective).

#86 - Angelika Graswald †*

Female killers don’t usually get their own nicknames. You know, the Boston Strangler, the Green River Killer, Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer, BTK …

Angelika Graswald, however, will forever be known as the “Kayak Killer.“ Here’s how it all came about … 

Angelika, who was born in Latvia, came to the US to work as a nanny. Here for 13 years, she married and divorced twice, then met Vince Viafore. She moved in with him a couple of weeks later and the two were engaged 5 months after their initial meeting.

One thing both shared was a love of the outdoors. So, one warm Spring weekend, they decided to go kayaking, on the Hudson, near where they lived in Poughkeepsie, NY. The weather turned, though, on their way back, and Vince’s kayak overturned.

The water temperature was 48 degrees, and Vince had no life vest and was lightly dressed. Angelika could not reach him, he floated away, and she called 911.

After the event, the police noted some suspicious behavior. For one, Angelika seemed to have flipped her own kayak just moments before the 911 crowd arrived. She also seemed oddly unemotional. Later, there was a raucous memorial night at a local bar, as well as bubbly FB posts (including her turning cartwheels, no less).

Meeting the cops at the site of the drowning, she was subsequently taken in for questioning. After an 11-hour interview, she admitted to pulling the plug on his kayak (though months before), taking a safety ring from his paddle, keeping his paddle from him, waiting 20 minutes to call 911, and stating, "I wanted him dead and now he's gone and I'm OK with it."

As for motive, she claimed he wanted sex all the time, and wanted her to engage in threesomes and BDSM, all of which she resisted. Oh, there was also a little matter of a half-a-million insurance policy.

Avoiding trial, Angelika pled guilty to 2nd degree manslaughter, getting a sentence of two and a half years. She would actually get out 6 weeks after the verdict, having spent the rest of the time awaiting trial. Upon release, she celebrated with a multi-hour steak and martini lunch.

Subsequently, Angelika became a born-again Christian, has been fighting to get some of the insurance settlement (she ended up getting half), and is living and working a church-sponsored camp for kids. There's a chance she'll face deportation after her parole is up this year. Stay tuned.

#87 - Shannon Crawley *

Hell hath no fury …

Denita Smith was a beautiful, popular and talented graduate student at North Carolina Central University, an HBCU in Durham NC.

On the morning of January 4, 2007, she was found at the foot of some stairs leading up to her off-campus apartment. She had been shot in the head.

The victim

Police on the scene found a witness who saw a woman who looked like Shannon and who had fled the scene in a burgundy Ford Explorer.  

They next talked to Denita's fiancée, Jermeir Stroud, a cop in Greensboro, about an hour away. Though he had an alibi, he did mention that a girl he had been cheating with Denita on, Shannon Crawley, did just happen to own a burgundy Ford Explorer. 

Shannon, a 911 dispatcher, had hooked up with Stroud at the Greensboro PD. When he got her pregnant, she got an abortion, and the two broke up. Or did they? 

Crawley tried to pin the crime on Stroud. She called him abusive and jealous; claimed he raped her after the murder; fashioned fake phone conversations and – when finally pinned down – came up with some crazy story about Jermeir forcing her to drive to Durham, where he shot Denita, then hid in the back of the Explorer while she drove away. In addition, Shannon was caught lying about a .38 she bought, a doctor’s appointment she supposedly had on the morning of the murder, and never having been to Durham before.

At trial, she was found guilty of first-degree murder and given a sentence of life.  Two-timing Jermeir got off scot-free.  

The story has been featured on Snapped, Hear No Evil & Dateline.