After deliberating for five days, the panel can’t reach a verdict in the case of the Arlington man accused of killing his wife, whose body has never been found.
By Scott North
Herald Writer
After 12 years of investigation, two weeks of trial and more than 33 hours of jury deliberations, there still is no legal answer to whether an Arlington man murdered his missing wife.
A Snohomish County jury on Wednesday said it was hopelessly deadlocked in the case of David C. Schubert, 62. They’d been deliberating for five days.
Jurors split 9-3 in favor of convicting Schubert of second-degree murder in the June 1989 disappearance of his wife, Juliana, 30. The jury also divided 3-9 in favor of acquittal on the more serious charge of first-degree murder, which was the crime prosecutors had been attempting to prove.
The bottom line is that Schubert came within three votes of going to prison for killing his wife, in a circumstantial case without the victim’s body.
"I expect 100 percent that we will have to retry this case," said Rick Leo, one of two public defenders who represented Schubert.
Jurors declined to speak with reporters. They did meet privately with the lawyers. All were convinced Juliana Schubert is dead, although no trace of her has been found, deputy prosecutor Ed Stemler said.
| What’s next?
Now that David C. Schubert’s trial for allegedly murdering his wife ended in a mistrial, prosecutors must decide whether to pursue the charges. Judge Ronald Castleberry has set a hearing for Tuesday on the matter. A new trial must start within 90 days.
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"I think it was a positive thing for the state that we convinced 12 people she is dead even though we didn’t have a body to produce," Stemler said.
"Several of them urged us to retry this case," deputy prosecutor Paul Stern said.
Schubert, a former Arlington police officer and insurance broker, has long insisted his wife simply walked away from him and their two sons, then ages 6 and 8. He showed no reaction when the jury announced its inability to reach a verdict, and soon left the courtroom without speaking with reporters.
Schubert is in mourning following the death Sunday of his youngest son, Nickolas, 18. The teen was found dead in his college dorm room in California. No cause has been determined.
Judge Ronald Castleberry declared a mistrial and set a hearing for Tuesday to determine what happens next.
If there is a new trial, it must be occur within 90 days.
Jim Townsend, the county’s chief criminal deputy prosecutor, said lawyers in his office will discuss the case before committing to another trial. Nickolas Schubert’s death will not figure into the decision because it is not a factor "in determining the responsibility for Juliana Schubert’s death," he said.
That a majority of jurors felt Schubert was guilty "demonstrates the extra effort on this case by the sheriff’s office and this office was justified," Townsend said.
Juliana Schubert’s family hopes prosecutors will retry the case, said her sister, Myra Faulconer. She said she wasn’t disappointed with the results "because I thought this would happen. It was a hard case to try."
The missing woman’s mother, Karil Nelson, dabbed tears from her eyes after the jury was sent home for good.
"I’m going to fight," she said.
Prosecutors spent most of two weeks trying to piece together circumstances to prove that Schubert killed his wife and hid her body.
The defense called no witnesses and argued vigorously that prosecutors simply didn’t have enough hard evidence to show Juliana Schubert was dead, let alone that she was killed by her husband.
The investigation was started by former sheriff’s detective Rick Blake, who convinced prosecutors to file a missing-body murder case. But he died of leukemia while waiting for the case to come to trial in 1995.
Nearly seven years later, jurors saw Blake’s handiwork. They heard from witnesses he’d found who said David Schubert allegedly had talked about killing his wife to get some "peace." Another said Juliana Schubert reported being threatened with a handgun.
In the weeks before her disappearance, she’d gotten a job outside the home and begun taking steps to divorce her husband and gain custody of their children. Witnesses repeatedly described her as a devoted mother, a trait that prosecutors argued made it extremely unlikely she would simply abandon her family.
The trial revisited history already probed in a 1998 civil wrongful death case against Schubert brought by the missing woman’s mother. Jurors in the civil trial unanimously found Schubert liable for his wife’s death. Testimony in that case was used in this trial, although jurors weren’t told about the result.
Ironically, the jury in the murder case finished its deliberations in the same courtroom where the civil jury had earlier met.
Richard Tassano, another public defender representing Schubert, said the outcome was a tremendous disappointment .
"Nobody won here and nobody lost," he said. "It is just a tragedy. It’s like Dante’s inferno: Nobody gets out."
You can call Herald Writer Scott North at 425-339-3431
or send e-mail to north@heraldnet.com.
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