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It was supposed to be a romantic rendezvous, but it turned out to be anything but.
On February 14, 2010, 46-year-old Richard Schoeck went to Belton Bridge Park in Lula, Georgia, to meet his wife, Stacey Schoeck, for an exchange of Valentine’s Day cards.
As he exited his truck, he was met with a flurry of gunshots. “He’s dead!” Stacey frantically declared in a recorded 911 call she made after reaching the secluded wooded area in her vehicle.
Schoeck was shot five times—specifically in the torso, once in the neck, and once in the head, as explained by Woodrow Tripp, a former officer with the Hall County Sheriff’s Office.
“All of the bullet wounds were in the front area of his body,” Tripp said in the “My Deadly Valentine” episode of The Real Murders of Atlanta, airing Saturdays at 8/7c p.m. on Oxygen.
Police determined that the shooting occurred between 8:45 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Schoeck still had his wallet, wedding ring and watch on him, so robbery was ruled out.
“There was no doubt that it was an intentional hit,” Tripp said. “Richard never had a chance. He never saw it coming.”
Three sets of tire tracks were found at the crime scene — one set from Schoeck’s truck, another from Stacey’s car, and a third from an unknown vehicle. Photographs and molds of treads at the scene were taken.
“We knew [the tracks were] going to lead us to whoever might have been involved with the death,” said Richard Trinkwalder, a now-retired investigator with the Hall County Sheriff’s Office.
That trail eventually led to a conspiracy whose mastermind shocked investigators.
Who was Richard Schoeck?
Shortly after midnight on February 15, police interviewed Stacey. She said she’d met Schoeck three years earlier. He worked as a graphic artist in Atlanta.
“Stacey was attracted to his adventurous side,” said former WVEE news anchor Linda Looney.
He flew hot air balloons, rode motorcycles and enthusiastically led Cub Scouts. “His personality was such that he got along with everybody,” his friend Greg Gaugler told The Real Murders of Atlanta.
Schoeck’s first marriage ended in divorce with no children. Stacey had been married four previous times. She had three sons, ages 7 to 12 — two by her third husband and one by her fourth. “Richard just took them in like they were his own,” Trinkwalder said.
But the Schoecks had relationship issues. Stacey informed police that she was frustrated in her marriage. She’d been having an affair for six months with Juan Reyes, one of her co-workers at DeKalb Medical Center.
Stacey claimed she was nowhere near the murder scene when her husband was killed, but said she had no idea where Reyes was during the shooting.
Detectives learned that Reyes lived with his ex-wife, Jennifer, and their children in a rental property that Stacey owned. Stacey informed investigators that she’d told Reyes about her plans to meet her husband at the park on Valentine’s Day.
Investigators question Stacey Schoeck’s lover
At 4 a.m. on February 15, detectives went to the residence Reyes shared with his family in Buford, Georgia, about 30 miles from the crime scene. Police knocked on doors and windows, but no one answered.
The next morning, they found Reyes at his workplace and informed him of Schoeck’s death. He agreed to come to the station for questioning.
Reyes confirmed that the house that he and his family lived in was owned by Stacey. He admitted that he had met Schoeck a couple of times and denied any involvement in his girlfriend’s husband’s murder.
Detectives asked about Reyes’ whereabouts around the time of the homicide. “We ate dinner at about 7:30,” he said in a recorded interview. “By 10:30, I was in bed.”
He also said he’d simply never heard police knock on the doors and windows of the house he lived in. Reyes’ ex-wife confirmed his story.
Detectives focus on tire tracks at the crime scene
Investigators turned their attention to the evidence at the crime scene.
“The tire tracks were very significant in this case, because it was obvious from the scene that the person who did the murder arrived first,” said Lee Darragh, District Attorney for the N.E. Judicial Circuit in Georgia. “Richard’s truck went over the tire tracks of the person who was already at the scene.”
A week into the investigation, police got a break. “A manager at a tire dealership identified the third set of tracks, the killer’s tracks, as Goodyear Integrity tires typically found on SUVs and trucks,” Looney said.
Tires on vehicles belonging to Reyes and his ex-wife were not a match. They were eliminated as suspects.
IT records show Stacey Schoeck mass-deleted emails
The investigation appeared to have stalled until police got a call from the IT department at the clinic where Stacey worked. During a routine maintenance check, a technician noticed that Stacey’s email account had been wiped clean for February 12 to 14, which included the day of the murder.
Detectives got a warrant for copies of the emails backed up on the server. The communications showed that Stacey had transferred $10,000 from her real estate account to the account of Lynitra Ross, a fellow employee also renting a house from her.
The money was supposedly for home repairs. Police couldn’t prove otherwise and looked for other leads.
Cell activity near crime scene obtained
On March 24, investigators obtained a record of all cellular activity pinging off the remote tower near the park where Schoeck was killed on February 14. Records showed that Reginald Coleman, an Atlanta personal trainer who’d served time for violent crimes, connected with Ross at 8:40 p.m. that night.
At the same time, there was a text message that Ross sent to Stacey that read, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Detectives believed that was code signaling that the hit was done, Trinkwalder said.
“It looked like a hit funded by Stacey with the money funneled through Lynitra Ross to the triggerman Coleman,” Looney said.
Detectives determined that Stacey had access to her grandparents’ 2009 Chevrolet Impala. The tire tread on this vehicle was a match for the unidentified ones at the crime scene.
Stacey Schoeck and two conspirators arrested for Richard Schoeck’s murder
Stacey, Ross and Coleman were arrested for murder. Investigators hoped for a confession from one of the conspirators. Stacey was the first to crack. She pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against her accomplices.
Stacey claimed that in December of 2009, she’d complained to Ross about her unhappy marriage. Then, in January, she said she wanted Schoeck dead. Ross hooked her up with Coleman, according to The Real Murders of Atlanta.
Stacey then explained that she lent Coleman her grandparents’ Impala to use the night of the murder. She claimed she thought it was only going to be a robbery. But officials didn’t buy that account.
“Stacy Schoeck is one of the most manipulative people I have ever met in my life,” said Darragh. “She can tell a lie as easily as telling the truth.”
What was her motive for masterminding the hit? She claimed she feared that Schoeck was going to divorce her and get custody of her sons.
Between May and November of 2012, all three conspirators were sentenced to life without the chance of parole.
To learn more about the case, watch the “My Deadly Valentine” episode of The Real Murders of Atlanta. The show airs new episodes on Saturdays at 8/7c p.m. on Oxygen.
