Clear Motive

It was two days after Christmas and 18 days after the ink barely dry on the divorce papers when, Mathew Schneider stormed into the home of his ex-wife as their 8year-old watched when "daddy" shot Mom and her new boyfriend multiple times before turning the gun on himself.

Brandy Schneider filed for divorce in Stark County Ohio, April 2009. She informed the courts and others "he is going to kill me."

According to the police chief “we need to see who else we need to interview and start working backward from the crime to see what his (Schneider’s) state of mind was and his motives.”  The shooter’s state of mind is clear as is the motive. The police chief might want to start with the court records from the divorce.

Also the weapons: how did a criminal gain access to firearms?

Then I suggest family and friends personally visit the prosecutors who might want to remove the cob webs from beneath their desk and investigate how a dangerous sexual predator and felon on house arrest threatening to kill his soon to be ex-wife had access to weapons? And why was he not placed on a monitoring device?

In 2008, he plead guilty on a sexual case involving a 15- year old girl and only received 12 days in jail, and was placed on three years probation and classified a Tier II sex offender, which required him to register his address with authorities every 180 days for 25 years. Where the heck was his probation officer on vacation?


When the prosecutor obtains those answers perhaps they can see precisely how the legal system failed Brandy Schneider and implement a protocol within the domestic relations courthouse so others can have a fighting opportunity to remain alive. Then the family should, in my opinion. hire an attorney as they probably have an excellent case for a wrongful death lawsuit.

Divorce is often connected to repeated threats, stalking, harassment and yes, murder. A victim of abuse whether it be a man or a woman faces obstacles in the courts when judge’s fail to take accusations of threats seriously. This case is a classic example.

My least favorite example is when the courts reward the abusive parent, by granting access to not only the children, but, the victim. An abuser could care less about the kids often using them as a point of negotiation to either torment their victim further or stop the divorce procedings all together and return as a family under the same roof. Once the abuser has lost control they will play whatever hand is dealt them in order to win at any and all costs.

This is no longer an isolated war . The more law enforcement and the legal system ignore issues of abuse within cases of divorce expect a higher number of murdered children, mothers and fathers to increase in the years ahead.