TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The public defender who represented Julie Schenecker in the trial involving the murder of the Tampa mother’s two children poked holes in several claims made in a motion for a new trial.
No one denies Schenecker was mentally ill when she shot her 13-year-old son Beau and 16-year-old daughter Calyx January 28, 2011. But during her trial three years later, the jury in her trial was not convinced she was legally insane at the moment she fired the gun.
Evidence showing she drove to Oldsmar to buy the weapon and wrote in her journal about killing her children was used by the prosecution to prove the crimes were premeditated.
Schenecker was sentenced to two life sentences and the verdict was upheld on appeal in 2016.
But the Lowell Correctional Institution inmate, now 61, has filed a motion for a new trial leading to two days of hearings in Hillsborough County Court before Judge Michelle Sisco.
Tuesday, Schenecker’s former public defender Jennifer Spradley denied her client’s claim she was convinced or bullied not to testify in her own defense.
“No,” she told the court when asked by Assistant State Attorney Michelle Doherty if Schenecker ever said she “wanted to testify.”
When Schenecker was seen on television after her arrest, she was quivering but stiff and almost frozen, while barely blinking.
University of South Florida Pharmacologist Daniel Buffington told the court Monday Schenecker’s appearance showed a “textbook” adverse reaction to a new regimen of medication for bipolar disorder with mania.
According to testimony, Schenecker had started taking the new set of drugs the October before the January murders.
Buffington is one of several witnesses Schenecker said she wanted to testify on her behalf, claiming he would have told the jury in his opinion she was insane when she pulled the trigger.
But Spradley denied Schenecker and argued for any additional witnesses.
“I don’t remember there ever being an issue about her wanting us to call somebody that we didn’t call,” Spradley said.
Spradley testified there were strategic reasons for not calling Buffington and others Schenecker mentioned in her motion, including a Tampa realtor who refused to cooperate with the defense team after a text message.
“She had a fear that because of the text message and how close in time it was to the children’s death that maybe Ms. Schenecker intended to harm her,” Spradley said.
The children’s father Col. Parker Schenecker had testified in his opinion, his ex-wife was not insane and that the murders were premeditated.
Buffington is scheduled to return to the stand next week, with Judge Sisco’s decision on the motion for a new trial expected in two to three months.