Police say witnesses claim Schnackenberg shot his girlfriend

4 weeks ago

HOULTON, Maine – In the second day of testimony in the Jayme Schnackenberg murder trial,  the state presented audio and video recordings of Maine State Police detectives asking Schnackenberg to create a timeline of events in the 24 hours preceding his girlfriend’s June 16, 2023 disappearance. 

Schnackenberg, 42, was charged with the intentional and knowing murder of Kimberly Hardy in their Monticello home. 

He was arrested the day after a Maine game warden found Hardy’s discarded body wrapped in trash bags and hog-tied with a large rope and straps in the woods off Harvey Siding Road about 10 miles from the couple’s home, police said. 

In the first day of the trial in Aroostook County Superior Court the state told the jurors – 11 men and five women – that Schnackenberg murdered his girlfriend of six years by shooting her in the head and that he thought he could get away with it because he had hidden her body in a remote wooded area off the Harvey Siding Road where she would not be found. 

Schnackenberg’s attorney told jurors that he did shoot and kill Hardy, but that it was in self-defense following an altercation between the couple in their School Street home. 

During the June 24, 2023 state police interview, Schnackenberg told police that they were not fighting but that she was angry that he was not paying attention to her and left their home on foot at 5 a.m. June 16 with a backpack, and he went to sleep because he had been sick all night. 

“She got pissed off that I was going to sleep and said, ‘I don’t have to be here if you’re going to sleep and ignore me.’ I watched her put her stuff in her bag,” Schnackenberg told Sgt. Adam Bell at the time of the interview. 

“Is it normal for her to leave and not take her car?” Bell asked. 

As Schnackenberg detailed the events leading up to Hardy’s disappearance, Bell pointed out inconsistencies in his accounting of the events and the people he had contact with, including friends Brian and Craig Vrieze, who are brothers.

“I want you to think, Brian and Craig are talking, and we want you to have the same opportunity,” Bell said. 

According to a police report and the recorded interview, Brian and Craig Vrieze informed police that Schnackenberg told them he pulled out a .40 calibre pistol and shot Hardy twice.

Schnackenberg denied it during the interview.

“I never said that to them. I never shot her,” he said on the recording. “How can you prove it? You have to have a body to prove it.”

Following the more than hour-long recorded interview, Aroostook County Superior Court Justice Stephen Nelson told jurors that the officers made assertions, but that is not evidence. 

“Schnackenberg’s statements are evidence,” Nelson said.

The trial continues on Wednesday with nine state witnesses, according to Assistant Attorney General Leanne Robbin.