By Nick Diamantides, Staff Writer
Bixby Knolls resident Manfred “Fred” Schockner was found guilty of the 2004 murder of his wife in the final phase of his trial at Long Beach Superior Court last Friday. The trial began on August 30, but when it was over, the jury reached its conclusion in less than 40 minutes.
After the verdict, Schockner defiantly insisted he was innocent. Deputy District Attorney Cynthia Barnes said she knew Schockner was guilty from the first time she examined the evidence in December 2004. “There was never a doubt in my mind,” she said.
In spite of that, one of Schockner’s defense attorneys, Stanley Perlo, said he and the other member of the defense team, Jack Stennett are now reviewing the trial and considering asking for a retrial. “If we do that, we’ll do it before the day set for sentencing,” he said.
Schockner is scheduled to appear before Judge Gary Ferrari for sentencing on October 10. He faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
The November 8, 2004 murder of 50-year-old Lynn Schockner drew national attention because police officers were stationed in front and behind her house while she was being murdered.
According to evidence compiled by the Long Beach Police Department, Schockner planned the murder to keep his wife from getting half of the couple’s assets–valued at $7 million–after she filed for legal separation.
Prosecutors said that several weeks before the killing, Schockner (now 67 years old) gave $50,000 to 32-year-old Frankie Jaramillo of Woodland Hills to arrange the murder. Jaramillo then hired 25-year-old Nicholas Harvey of Port Hueneme to kill Lynn and make it appear that burglary was the motive.
While Harvey was trying to break into Lynn Schockner’s home, neighbors called the police to report a prowler. Moments later, police arrived at her front door and informed her that a suspicious person had been seen behind her house. Lynn told the officers she would get them a key to the side gate, but instead of returning to the front door, she stepped into the backyard, possibly planning to open the side gate herself.
But Harvey was waiting just outside her back door and stabbed her in the neck repeatedly. Then he ran into the house, overturned some items, and grabbed some costume jewelry before exiting and jumping over the backyard fence. Police officers, looking for the prowler, arrested him on the spot before realizing that he had just killed Lynn.
Harvey and Jaramillo were convicted of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of murder for financial gain on March 13, 2007 and May 24, 2007 respectively. Both men were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Both men confessed to police and both men claimed that Schockner was the mastermind. Other evidence against Schockner included dozens of calls he made to Jaramillo on his cell phone in the days leading up to the murder and a videotaped conversation between the two men during which Schockner said that Harvey had done a sloppy job and all three of them were going to “go down.”
Perlo, however, told the jurors that Jaramillo was a con man who had wrongfully taken $100,000 from Schockner and plotted the murder to prevent being cut off from the cash flow during the couple’s divorce proceedings. Perlo told the jurors that Jaramillo was the actual mastermind of the murder.
The jury, however, did not see things that way.
Before being led from the courtroom in handcuffs, Schockner told the press he was innocent. “I had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of my wife,” he insisted.
After the trial, Schockner’s son Charlie and other family members expressed relief and said they would be taking flights back to their homes in Georgia and North Carolina.
“I’m glad it’s over,” Barnes said. “It brings closure to the family, the LBPD and everyone else involved.”
Perlo said that while the defense team has not decided on whether to make a motion for a retrial, an appeal was likely. “Cases of this magnitude are almost always appealed,” he said.
