By Scott North
Herald Writer
When Rick Jordan last saw Juliana Schubert 12 years ago, the Arlington woman was visibly shaken, and claiming that her husband, David, had just threatened her life.
"She was upset. She was crying," Jordan testified Wednesday. "She came to talk to me. She said David had threatened her and the kids with a gun."
Jordan, a building contractor and Schubert family friend, said he told the 30-year-old mother of two young boys that she needed to take her children to a safe place and obtain a restraining order.
Juliana Schubert drove away from the job site where Jordan was working that day in late June 1989. He hasn’t seen or heard from her since.
The testimony came as Snohomish County prosecutors continued to try to build an entirely circumstantial case that David Schubert, 62, killed his wife and hid her body. No trace of the missing woman has ever been found.
Schubert has pleaded innocent to the first-degree murder charge and insists his wife simply walked away from their home, leaving behind her car, cash and sons, who were then ages 6 and 8.
Jordan said he couldn’t be sure what day the missing woman told him about the incident with the gun and her husband, but he thought it likely was on June 30, 1989.
That’s the day prosecutors allege Schubert killed his wife after she returned from her job at an Everett office.
That also is the day Myron "Fritz" Wenrich testified he received an early morning phone call from Juliana Schubert, with whom he’d earlier had a brief affair. She was crying and "very upset," but wouldn’t tell him why, he told jurors earlier this week.
Jurors on Wednesday also listened to witnesses describe how Juliana Schubert was a devoted mother who spent most school days volunteering time in her children’s classrooms.
Among those testifying was her younger sister, Myra Faulconer, who said the missing woman had been close with her siblings and mother.
After his wife disappeared, Schubert told investigators his wife was estranged from her family, jurors have been told.
The trial is expected to last up to two weeks.
You can call Herald Writer Scott North at 425-339-3431
or send e-mail to north@heraldnet.com.
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