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When paramedics answered an emergency call at the farm of James and Julie Schnick in the south Missouri hamlet of Elkland (pop. 200), they found James Schnick rolling on the floor and wailing in pain from a gunshot and stab wounds. He had spotted an unknown intruder in the house and fatally stabbed him after a ferocious struggle, he told Webster County Sheriff Eugene Fraker. In the bedroom Schnick's wife lay dead, shot twice in the head. The mysterious intruder, who was sprawled dead in the hallway, a .22-cal. pistol clutched in his hand, turned...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Auguries Of Innocence | 10/19/1987 | See Source »

...Fraker began to probe a bit more. He called in Sergeant Tom Martin, a friend with the Missouri Highway Patrol. The two reviewed the evidence and discovered several curious discrepancies. How could Kirk, who weighed only 130 lbs., have moved his 250-lb. father so far from their farmhouse? Schnick's wounds, it turned out, were superficial. Although Schnick claimed he had attacked the boy only with a steak knife, an autopsy revealed that Kirk may have died from a gunshot. Then, at the high school where Kirk had just begun his freshman year, Fraker and Martin learned...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Auguries Of Innocence | 10/19/1987 | See Source »

Last week, as Schnick was about to undergo a lie-detector test, he broke down and confessed that he had committed the murders and tried to frame his dead nephew. Appearing in court wearing bib overalls and a white T shirt, he was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. Though authorities suspect that Schnick may have killed to benefit from wills and insurance policies, Sheriff Frager still feels there is some mystery involved. "I don't know what was in the man's mind," he says. "There's always a possibility we'll never know...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Auguries Of Innocence | 10/19/1987 | See Source »

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