Placer man gets 26 years to life for killing his mom
Repo...@school.com
The following appears courtesy of the 3/17/99 online edition of The
Sacramento Bee newspaper:
Placer man gets 26 years to life for killing his mom
By Wayne Wilson
Bee Staff Writer
(Published March 17, 1999)
What turns an 11-year-old vandal into a 17-year-old murderer?
The answer isn't evident in the history of Steven Matthew "Matt"
Schultz, the
former Rocklin High School student sentenced Tuesday to 26 years to life
in
state prison for the July 21, 1997, strangulation slaying of his mother.
Although Schultz had been criminally active since his first arrest in
1991 for
stealing a purse and vandalizing a church, there was never a hint until
the
homicide that his actions would become lethal.
Schultz, now 19, was convicted last month in Placer County Superior
Court in
Auburn of the first-degree murder of Barbara Masako Schultz, 40, whose
weighted
body was found floating in a water-filled rock quarry a few days after
she
failed to show up for work.
Matt Schultz, who initially told police his mother had gone on vacation
with a
friend, ultimately confessed that he took her life, but the reasons for
his
actions remain clouded.
Prosecutor Daniel L. Gong doesn't buy the defense attorney's contention
that
the attack on Barbara Schultz was a response to a lifetime of verbal and
emotional abuse she'd inflicted on her son.
And even Matt Schultz, in statements to the Probation Department after
his
conviction, downplayed the role his mother's belittling of him played in
the
assault that ended her life.
Schultz said he had "no memory of emotions" as he wrapped an electrical
cord
around his mother's neck and pulled until her last breath had left her
body,
the probation report stated.
And it wasn't because he was "out of control" or under the influence of
drugs
or alcohol, he insisted.
"There was no excuse for his actions in this offense and he did not
understand
why he took the actions he did," the report said.
Schultz "claims he is remorseful, stating he was 'very, very, very
sorry' for
the pain (he has) caused everybody, including (his) father and
grandparents,"
the report concluded.
According to court records, Schultz started his criminal career by
breaking
windows and stealing a purse from a church at age 11 and two years later
was
caught fleeing from a vacant house he had attacked with hammers and
fire,
breaking toilets and mirrors and destroying Sheetrock.
In 1995, at the age of 14, he called in a bomb threat to Rocklin High
School,
causing it to be evacuated, and later in the school year he battered a
fellow
student, punching him in the face and then hitting him when he was on
the
ground, the documents showed.
His punishment ranged from informal probation and juvenile work projects
to a
short-term commitment to a juvenile center.
Jody Z. Feldman, Schultz's trial attorney, told the court Tuesday that
she has
already prepared and was about to file an appeal of Schultz's
conviction.
Four teenage friends who helped Schultz dispose of his mother's body
pleaded
guilty to being accessories after the fact and have all been sentenced.
Danny Chavez is serving three years in state prison after his grant of
probation was revoked in November. Jarrod Sharp was placed on five years
of
probation and ordered to serve 365 days in the Placer County jail.
Daniel
McGill received a 16-month prison sentence. And a minor whose named is
being
withheld by The Bee because he was never prosecuted as an adult was
ordered to
serve 150 days in juvenile hall.