ATHENS, Ala. ( WHNT ) — 44 years after a Washington man assisted in the murder of an Athens mother and the kidnapping of her 16-day-old baby, could be formally sentenced for his crimes this month.
Harold Lee Schut, 80, has been in a Texas prison for the last few decades serving a life sentence for committing a similar crime with his wife, Jackie Sue Schut.
Huntsville Hospital Health System terminates contract with United Healthcare In 1987, Harold Schut pleaded guilty to the 1980 murder of Geneva Clemons and the kidnapping of James Clemons in Athens. Reporting on the case from the Associated Press says Schut was brought to Athens on the murder charge after he was arrested in Reno, Nev., in 1985 on child molestation charges.
Following his guilty plea, he was transferred to Texas to face criminal charges for another murder-kidnapping in Houston and sent to a prison in Huntsville, Texas, where he has been held ever since.
He has a hearing set for October regarding the Athens murder-kidnapping case.
The sentencing, if it takes place at the October hearing, would mark the end of a long legal process. Schut has been set to be formally sentenced numerous times over the last 37 years, each time, for one reason or another, it never came to fruition.
The original crime took place on January 20, 1989, when the Schuts shot and killed Geneva. Court documents show they took James before leaving him in a pasture. James was found in the field and survived.
Madison County man charged after child dies from meth overdose The AP reported that an assistant district attorney handling the case in Houston told them the Schuts used a “Beautiful Baby” magazine contest and posed as magazine photographers as part of their scheme to approach the mothers and their children.
According to that AP report, Jackie Schut was serving a sentence for child abuse in Washington State and fought extradition to Athens for the murder-kidnapping.
“She was brought to Alabama only after the Limestone County district attorney agreed to reduce the capital murder charge to a charge that would not carry a possible death penalty,” AP reported.
Jackie Schut was convicted and has been in Julia Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka since 1985. She has been up for parole numerous times over the years, but each time her parole was denied.
Schut has argued over the years that his original plea agreement would allow for his Alabama sentence to run concurrently with his sentence in Texas. However, the Limestone County District Attorney’s Office denied that stipulation was part of the original agreement.
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In a 1991 letter to Schut, then-District Attorney James Fry told Schut his time in the Texas prison was void as far as Alabama was concerned.
“As far as the State of Alabama is concerned, currently, your Texas penitentiary time is dead time,” said Fry in the letter. “It does not county off any on an Alabama sentence which is yet to be imposed.”
The hearing is set to take place on October 25 at the Limestone County Courthouse.
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