At 11:30 pm on the evening of Sep 21, 1991, police get a 911 call to Nevada Avenue where a fight has taken place. The ambulance has already arrived and taken the victim to the hospital but he has died en route, so it is now a homicide.
Police arrive and apprehend two teens who are fleeing. They are 18 yo Kevin Moore and 18 yo Anthony Phenix. They find a third suspect covered in blood at the scene and arrest him too. He is 16 yo Shawn Stansel.
Police quickly learn from witnesses that this was “extreme violence without provocation”. Schmidtke was violently beaten and kicked to death. He was simply walking down the street with his friend looking for a place to get dinner. He has multiple blows to the skull, a lacerated liver, every single rib is broken, and a punctured lung. He was punched, kicked, and stomped on by several large people. The suspects in custody are high school football players. They are big.
Schmidtke’s friend, 23 yo Joseph Reeves is sitting on the curb with bleeding from his skull. He says Schmidtke and him were just walking down the street looking for a place to get takeout. They don’t even know the kids who attacked them. They were “jumped” by several of the young men and beaten in the head. Schmidtke can’t identify them because he too has suffered several serious blows to the head. But he does tell police that Schmidtke and him are soldiers at Fort Carson, officers who are well liked. Schmidtke is married with two little girls who will be devastated.
Meanwhile 20 yo Dan Davis approaches police pretending he is a witness. He is actually one of the thugs who jumped these two. But he tells the police several lies trying to insinuate that Schmidtke and Reeves started the fight. They didn’t which is quickly proven by other witnesses. He also tells police that they are all from Fountain-Fort Carson High School and that he tried breaking up the fight, another lie.
Blood evidence is collected at the scene and since the kids don’t want to say who actually did the hitting and kicking, they take the three suspects in for questiioning.
All three men claim they tried stopping the fight and were not involved. Then a woman calls the police telling them her daughter has been threatened by one of the killers. So they go take a statement from witness Tanya Starr, another student at the high school. Tanya didn’t actually see the fight. But she was driven home with one of the killers, 17 yo Dominic Parea, who said, “So we killed that dude, so what?” Then he called her afterward and told her he’d kill her if she told anyone.
Police immediately go to Dominic Parea’s home. His mother is proud of her thug son and has already washed his clothes. But Dominic’s shoes are covered in blood. Not the brightest crayons in the box. So police arrest Dominic and take his shoes into evidence.
Kenda tells the high school teachers to keep their ears open for students talking about the crime. Very quickly the principal calls Kenda and says there are several female students who witnessed the entire event. So Kenda comes and questions them. They all have the same story. Ten minutes before Schmidtke and Reeves came down Nevada Avenue, two other soldiers had driven up in a car and flirted with the girls. The boys got jealous, kicked their car, and they drove off. But they were still angry, so when Schmidtke and Reeves came down the street, they rushed out and attacked them. It was Anthony Phenix who punched Schmidtke in the back of the head. Schmidtke dropped to the ground and never had a chance to defend himself. Then Kevin Moore, Dominic Parea, and Shawn Stansel joined the fight, punching and kicking. A few minutes later, 14 yo Robert Dean and Dan Davis joined in. By then they were stomping on Schmidtke even though he was unconscious. The only reason Reeves survived was because he kept backing away with his legs so eventually they all turned to Schmidtke. One of the girls says she told Schmidtke and Reeves to turn around because the guys were looking for a fight. But they didn’t do anything, so they didn’t think anyone would actually hit them. They were wrong.
Police arrest Dan Davis, who was no an innocent bystander, and 14 yo Robert Dean who is 6′ and 160 lbs. These were all football players and their groupies. Schmidtke and Reeves never stood a chance.
Dean also has blood on his shoes. So do Stansel and Moore.
Dan Davis and Robert Dean are given several years probation. Dean violates his probation and is sentenced to three years.
Kevin Moore is sentenced to 12 years.
Shawn Stansel and Dominic Parea (who has a criminal record) are sentenced to 16 years.
Anthony Phenix, who started the fight and probably cracked Schmidtke’s skull with that first blow, is sentenced to 24 years.
Bibliography
Homicide Hunter, Season 2 Episode 5 Slaughterhouse Six, air date: Nov 5, 2012.
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