Courtney Schulhoff | |
---|---|
Born | Courtney Christine Schulhoff December 27, 1987 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Criminal status | Incarcerated at Lowell Correctional Institution |
Conviction(s) | First degree murder |
Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment; commuted to 40 years imprisonment |
Partner(s) | Michael Morin |
Details | |
Date | February 9, 2004 |
Country | United States |
State(s) | Florida |
Location(s) | Altamonte Springs, Florida |
Target(s) | Stephen Schulhoff |
Killed | 1 |
Weapons | Louisville Slugger |
Date apprehended | February 11, 2004 |
Courtney Christine Schulhoff (born December 27, 1987 [1] in Washington, D.C.) is an American prisoner who was convicted of the bludgeoning death of her father in his Altamonte Springs, Florida apartment when she was 16 years old. [2] She was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in September 2006. [3] In March 2017, Schulhoff was given a reduced sentence of 40 years. [4]
Courtney Schulhoff lived in Altamonte Springs, Florida with her father after her parents divorced. [5] She attended Lyman High School, but had dropped out and was pursuing her GED. [6] Before dropping out of school, 15-year-old Schulhoff began dating Michael Morin, a man whom she had met at a dog race track across the street from her high school. [6] Morin, who was five years Schulhoff's senior, was on probation for car theft after stealing his father's car. [7] Schulhoff's father did not approve of their relationship but the couple continued to date. They would often hang out at a local gas station where Schulhoff reportedly told Morin that her father physically abused her regularly. [8]
On the night of February 9, 2004, Schulhoff's father Stephen was beaten to death inside his apartment. [9] [10] After the murder, Schulhoff and Morin reportedly drove to a McDonald's 20 miles away in Orlando, Florida using Stephen Schulhoff's truck. [11] Later in the afternoon, the couple returned to the apartment. Morin later said that he and Schulhoff had planned to take her father's body to Brevard County and throw it off a bridge. [12]
Schulhoff and Morin were apprehended on February 11 after Stephen Schulhoff's girlfriend, Elaine Bouck, came to the apartment to check on Stephen. Bouck called 911 after seeing the couple flee from the apartment. [12] Schulhoff later told police that she and Morin had decided to kill her father after her father had beaten her on February 9. [8] She initially claimed that while she was out taking her father's dog for a walk, Morin had decided to "take care of the problem" and kill Stephen. Schulhoff claimed that when she returned to the apartment, she discovered Morin covered in blood and saw the baseball bat by the front door. She stated that Morin admitted to killing her father and threatened to kill her if she called authorities. Morin denied that he had initiated the killing, stating that Schulhoff left the Louisville Slugger baseball bat used to kill Stephen Schulhoff outside the bedroom door for him to use. [13] Morin claimed that he had tried to talk Schulhoff out of killing her father, to no avail. He also claimed to have no memory of beating Stephen Schulhoff stating that he "blacked out" as soon as he grabbed the bat and only became lucid when he was washing the blood off his body after the attack. [12] In a second interview with police, Schulhoff admitted that she waited at the apartment's tennis court area while Morin killed her father and intentionally left the baseball bat by the door for Morin. [13]
Courtney Schulhoff was the first of the defendants to stand trial. Her trial began on September 26, 2006. [14] Prosecutors alleged that although Michael Morin had committed the murder, Schulhoff had orchestrated it. [15] She did not testify in her own defense at the trial. The next day, she was found guilty of first-degree murder. [3] Because she was only 16 when the murder was committed, she was ineligible for the death penalty; on September 27, 2006, she was sentenced to life without parole. [3] After the judge handed down the obligatory sentence, Courtney Schulhoff spoke out in open court, stating: "Your Honor, I would like to openly admit in court that Michael Morin is not the person who killed my father. I was. So, I accept full responsibility, and I accept the verdict." [3]
Michael Morin's murder trial began on April 16, 2007. Unlike his former girlfriend, he was facing a death sentence if convicted. [16] During his testimony, he admitted killing Stephen Schulhoff but expressed regret for the action. [16] At the trial, Schulhoff also testified in Morin's defense. She had given a new deposition after her conviction, and stated that she was the one who had bludgeoned Stephen Schulhoff to death with the baseball bat. [17] However, on April 26, 2007, Michael Morin was convicted. [18] He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, and is serving his sentence at the Taylor Correctional Institution. [19]
In 2009, Schulhoff was interviewed at the Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala, Florida by RTL, a German news show, about the punishment of life without parole for juvenile offenders. [20] In 2011, her case appeared on an episode of Snapped on the Oxygen Network. In 2015, Schulhoff was interviewed by former FBI criminal profiler Candice DeLong for the Investigation Discovery program Facing Evil .
In 2017, Schulhoff was given a reduced sentence of 40 years. [4]
Susan Leigh Smith is an American woman who was convicted of murdering her two sons, three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander, in 1994 by drowning them in a South Carolina lake.
Reena Virk was a 14-year-old Canadian girl who was beaten and killed by a group of teenagers in Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. Her status as a victim of bullying prior to her murder attracted substantial media scrutiny in Canada. Six teenagers were tried and convicted for their participation in her death. The Globe and Mail commented at the time that her case was "elevated into a national tragedy". A pair of Canadian sociologists have described the case as a watershed moment for a "moral panic" over girl violence by the Canadian public in the late 1990s.
Herbert William Mullin was an American serial killer who killed 13 people in California in the early 1970s. He confessed to the killings, which he claimed prevented earthquakes. In 1973, after a trial to determine whether he was legally insane or culpable, he was convicted of two murders in the first-degree and nine in the second-degree and sentenced to life imprisonment. During his imprisonment, he was denied parole eight times.
Ronald Joseph DeFeo Jr. was an American mass murderer who was tried and convicted for the 1974 killings of his father, mother, two brothers, and two sisters in Amityville, New York. Sentenced to six counts of 25 years to life, DeFeo died in prison on March 12, 2021. The case inspired the book and film versions of The Amityville Horror.
Joel Barnet Steinberg is a disbarred New York City criminal defense attorney who attracted international media attention when he was accused of rape and murder, and was convicted of manslaughter, in the November 1, 1987, beating and subsequent death of a six-year-old girl, Elizabeth ("Lisa") Launders, whom he and his live-in partner, Hedda Nussbaum, had illegally adopted.
The Murders of Diane and Alan Scott Johnson occurred on September 2, 2003. They were shot to death in their Bellevue, Idaho, home by their 16-year-old daughter, Sarah Marie Johnson.
Roderrick Justin "Rod" Ferrell is an American murderer and cult leader. He was a member of a loose-knit gang of teenagers from Murray, Kentucky, known as the "Vampire Clan". Ferrell claimed to be a 500-year-old vampire named Vesago, a character he created for himself after becoming obsessed with the role playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. It was his mother, Sondra Gibson, who first introduced this game to Rod. In 1998, Ferrell pleaded guilty to the double slaying of a couple from Eustis, Florida, becoming the youngest person in Florida on Death Row at that time. Originally sentenced to death, Ferrell's penalty has since been reduced to life imprisonment.
Mark Goudeau is an American serial killer, kidnapper, thief and rapist. Goudeau terrorized victims in the Phoenix metro area between August 2005 and June 2006; coincidentally, Goudeau was active at the same time as two other Phoenix serial killers, jointly known as the "Serial Shooters.”
Theresa Jimmie Francine Knorr is an American woman convicted of torturing and murdering two of her six children while using the others to facilitate and cover up her crimes. She was acquitted of murdering her first husband and was also considered a suspect in the unsolved murder of her sister. She is currently serving two consecutive life sentences at the California Institution for Women in Chino, California.
Channon Gail Christian, aged 21, and Hugh Christopher Newsom Jr., aged 23, were from Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. They were kidnapped on the evening of January 6, 2007, when Christian's vehicle was carjacked. The couple were taken to a rental house. Both of them were raped, tortured, and murdered. Four males and one female were arrested, charged, and convicted in the case. In 2007, a grand jury indicted Letalvis Darnell Cobbins, Lemaricus Devall Davidson, George Geovonni Thomas, and Vanessa Lynn Coleman on counts of kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder. Also in 2007, Eric DeWayne Boyd was indicted by a federal grand jury of being an accessory to a carjacking, resulting in serious bodily injury to another person and misprision of a felony. In 2018, Boyd was indicted on state-level charges of kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder.
Elizabeth Diane Downs is an American woman who murdered her daughter and attempted to murder her other two children near Springfield, Oregon, on May 19, 1983. Following the crimes, she made claims to police that a man had attempted to carjack her and had shot the children. She was convicted in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. She briefly escaped in 1987, but was quickly recaptured. Downs has been repeatedly denied parole and psychiatrists have diagnosed her with narcissistic, histrionic, and antisocial personality disorders, with one labelling her as a "deviant sociopath".
Celeste BeardJohnson, more commonly known as Celeste Beard, is an American convicted murderer who is serving a life sentence at the Christina Melton Crain Unit in Gatesville, Texas, for the 1999 murder of her millionaire husband, Steven Beard.
Jennifer Lee Daugherty was an American woman who was torture-murdered in Greensburg, Pennsylvania as an act of revenge in February 2010. Daugherty, who was mentally disabled, was tortured and murdered before being wrapped in Christmas decorations, put inside a garbage can, and dumped in the parking lot of Greensburg-Salem Middle School.
Michael Thomas Gargiulo is a convicted American serial killer. He moved to Southern California in the 1990s and gained the nickname The Hollywood Ripper. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death on July 16, 2021. He is currently incarcerated in California Health Care Facility.
Larissa Schuster is an American convicted murderer who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2008 for committing the July 2003 murder of her estranged husband Timothy Schuster by submerging his body in hydrochloric acid. Due to the unusual manner in which she committed the murder, Larissa's case made national headlines. She has been dubbed "the Acid Lady" by various media outlets.
Glen Edward Rogers, is an American convicted serial killer. He was also convicted of related crimes in Florida and California, such as armed robbery, grand theft auto, and arson.
The murder of Jennifer Cave occurred in the West Campus area of Austin, Texas. On August 18, 2005, Cave's body was discovered. In 2009, Chuck Lindell of the Austin American-Statesman called it the "most infamous West Campus crime".
Alice Crimmins is an American woman who was charged with killing her two children, 5-year-old Eddie Jr. and 4-year-old Alice Marie, both of whom went missing on July 14, 1965. Alice Marie's body was found that day, and Eddie Jr.'s was found five days later. After numerous criminal trials and appeals, Crimmins was convicted of manslaughter for Missy's death.
Corey Miller, better known by his stage name C-Murder, is an American rapper. He initially gained fame in the mid-1990s as a part of his brother Master P's label No Limit Records, primarily as a member of the label's supergroup, TRU. Miller went on to release several solo albums of his own through the label, including 1998's platinum Life or Death. C-Murder has released nine albums altogether on six different labels, No Limit Records, TRU Records, Koch Records, Asylum Records, RBC Records, and Venti Uno.
Emani Gabrielle Moss was a ten-year-old American girl who was starved to death by her stepmother in Lawrenceville, Georgia, in 2013, in what became a prominent case leading to reforms in Georgia's child welfare system. Tiffany Nicole Moss was convicted of murdering Emani in 2019 and was subsequently sentenced to death. The murder received national as well as international attention. The attention was largely due to the crime's severe nature; Moss physically abused Emani for several years before her death. In 2013, Moss began starving Emani. Emani's father, Eman, who was rarely home, failed to stop the abuse. Emani died of starvation on October 28, 2013. At the time of her death, she weighed 32 pounds, the weight of an average toddler. The murder led to several systemic changes in the Georgia Division of Family and Child Services (GDFCS). Eman pled guilty in 2015 for his role in the crime. The case against Moss went to trial, and in April 2019, Moss, who represented herself, was convicted of all counts. She was sentenced to death on May 1, 2019. She is currently incarcerated at the Arrendale State Prison and is Georgia's only female death row inmate.