By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
A man who was charged with beating his wife to death in March 2o22 was sentenced Thursday in Ellis County District Court to 10 years in prison.
Jay Schumacher of Hays was initially charged with murder in connection with the death of his wife, Karen.
He accepted a plea agreement that reduced his charges to voluntary manslaughter, aggravated battery and mistreatment of a dependent adult.
23rd District Judge Glenn Braun sentenced Schumacher to 61 months in prison on the voluntary manslaughter charge and 43 months on the aggravated battery charge with the sentences to run consecutively.
He was also sentenced to 18 months and 16 months on the mistreatment of a dependent adult charge. Those two sentences will run concurrent to each other but together will run consecutively to the previous 104 months, for a total of 122 months in prison.
Schumacher has been in custody since his wife's death in March 2o22. He was evaluated twice for competency. Once for competency to stand trial and again to see if he qualified to be placed for treatment at Larned Correctional Facility.
In both cases, he was found competent.
Braun said he was required by law to give Schumacher credit for the 1,026 days he has served. This will reduce his prison sentence by almost three years.
Jeremiah Schumacher, Jay and Karen Schumacher's son; Kayci Schumacher, Jeremiah's wife; Sue Rohr, Karen's sister; and Scarlett Deutscher, Karen's long-time friend, all gave emotional victim statements prior to sentencing.
The family members and Deutscher chronicled how Karen had suffered domestic abuse for four decades at the hands of Jay Schumacher.
Jeremiah related how his mother told him Jay had threatened to kill both Jeremiah and Karen.
He also read a letter written by his mother about a beating she had received from Jay and how she feared that Jay would kill her.
Prosecutor Aaron Cunninghan, Ellis County attorney elect, called Karen's story a "cautionary tale" and that she was a "poster child for the worst-case scenario" of domestic abuse.
Judge Braun noted this was his last sentencing before he is set to retire on Monday.
He knew Karen Schumacher personally from when Karen worked as a dispatcher for the Hays Police Department and Braun was the city prosecutor.
He said everyone failed Karen—her friends, her family, law enforcement, the local community and our greater society.
He said despite the brutality indicated in the case and pleas from family and friends for a longer sentence, he sentenced Schumacher to the maximum sentence allowed by law based on the charges that he pled to.
Karen Schumacher's death prompted the passage of a new law named for her.
The Kansas Slayer Law prohibits people convicted of feloniously killing another person from inheriting or taking any part of the deceased's estate.
“Karen’s Law,” which was signed into law in spring 2023, closed the loophole in the Kansas probate law, making it unlawful for anyone charged with killing someone to benefit from their estate.
Read more on this story in the coming days on Hays Post Dot Com.
Editor's note: Scarlett Deutscher is an employee of Eagle Media, which is the parent company of the Hays Post.
How to get help
If you are a survivor of domestic or sexual violence, you can receive help in a variety of ways from Options Domestic and Sexual Violence Services. The agency serves 18 counties in northwest Kansas.
You can walk into an Options office at 2716 Plaza, Hays, or 1480 W. Fourth, Colby. You can call Options' 24-hour helpline at 1-800-794-4624 or text HOPE to 847411.
The Options website, https://help4abuse.org/, offers a live chat option or video conference with an advocate.
The website has a safe escape button that allows you to close out of the website and erase your cookies quickly, so anyone on the computer after you cannot see that you have been on the website.
Options has a free app for Android and Apple devices called "My Mobile Options."