By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
More than two years after Karen Schumacher was killed by her husband, the Ellis County Attorney's office reached an agreement in the case that sends her husband, Jay Schumacher, to prison for almost a decade.
However, her family said the plea agreement does not result in justice for Karen.
After the plea agreement was made public this week, Schumacher’s only son, Jeremiah Schumacher, contacted the Hays Post to express his displeasure and disappointment with the entire process.
Jeremiah Schumacher said he wanted to see the case go to court because he “wanted the truth to come out. ... And this doesn’t get the truth out.”
He called the agreement a “slap in the face” and said it was “asinine.”
“He beat my mom for 40 years, and you're gonna give him this,” Jeremiah Schumacher said. “What he did was not accidental. What he did was quite deliberate. Did he snap? Maybe. Sure. But it wasn't manslaughter.”
Following several hours of mediation Friday, the Ellis County Attorney’s office and Jay Schumacher’s defense attorneys reached a plea agreement. According to the agreement, Jay Schumacher agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter, aggravated battery and mistreatment of an adult.
All three charges are felony counts that carry a total maximum sentence of 148 months in prison if they are run consecutively. However, because of the Kansas sentencing rule, the most time Jay Schumacher can get behind bars is 142 months, 11 years, and 10 months.
The plea agreement allows Jay Schumacher to request the sentence for the third charge, mistreatment of an adult, to be run at the same time as the first two charges for just 114 months or about nine and a half years in prison. He is also asking to be placed at the Larned State Correctional Facility instead of being placed in the Kansas Department of Corrections system.
Jeremiah Schumacher said he does not believe justice has been served, and that’s why he wanted the case to go to trial.
“Between a doctor that didn't do her job, the police department that didn't do their job in Victoria,” he said. “You know, there was, there's a lot of things I wanted to come out in this.
“I wanted to get some of these people on the stand to ask them directly why they didn't do their job,” Jeremiah Schumacher said. “There is so much to this story that we'll never see the light of day that it's hard to put into words.”
The sentencing in the case will be delayed so Jay Schumacher can go through an evaluation that could lead to his placement at the Larned State Correctional Facility. He was earlier found competent to stand trial.
Jeremiah Schumacher said he believes it's just another attempt to game the system.
“I don't think that my father has any mental issues other than the normal things of aging, as far as memory goes,” Jeremiah Schumacher said. “He has been a master manipulator the entire time I've been alive.
“Because nobody was able to put two and two together that he was doing this to me and my mom,” he said.
Ellis County Assistant Attorney Aaron Cunningham prosecuted the case for the state and said this week he was limited by what he could say publicly because the case is still pending and sentencing has not been held.
“I know that cases like these, in general, are very hard for these victims, and what everyone ultimately wants is impossible. We can’t bring Karen back,” Cunningham said. “I can appreciate the emotional difficulty of this.
“I think it's the state's responsibility to review and assess the strengths of the case, not only from a factual perspective but also to assess any potential legal arguments that could become problematic,” Cunningham said.
Cuningham added, “In reviewing this case, and knowing the potential factual disputes and the potential legal issues that could exist on a trial level or the appellate level, we believe that the resolution in this case avoids those issues.”