Gary Lee Schaefer

Victims

1 MURDER CONVICTION, for Catherine Richards. Theresa Fenton was CONFESSED UNDER A GRANT OF IMMUNITY and no charge was ever possible. The Sherri Nastasia charge was DISMISSED because his confession had been obtained under hypnosis and was ruled inadmissible. Deana Buxton, 17, survived and he was convicted of kidnapping her. So three deaths are attributed and only one is covered by a murder conviction, with the other two failing for two entirely different legal reasons

Years active

1979 / 1981 / April 9, 1983

Location

Springfield and Brattleboro, Vermont, USA

Method

Crushing the skull with a stone - Rape

Status

Confessed in custody in September 1983 to two murders, those of Theresa Fenton and Catherine Richards, and to the rape of Deana Buxton. In December 1983 he pleaded guilty to kidnapping, sexual assault and second-degree murder in the Richards case and was sentenced in January 1984 to thirty years to life, plus fifteen to twenty years over the Buxton kidnapping. HE WAS GRANTED IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION FOR THE FENTON MURDER AS PART OF THAT PLEA, having confessed to it, so no charge could follow; he later repeated the confession to Fenton’s mother. A first-degree murder charge over the 1979 death of thirteen-year-old Sherri Nastasia was DISMISSED IN 1985 AFTER A JUDGE RULED HIS CONFESSION INADMISSIBLE BECAUSE IT HAD BEEN OBTAINED UNDER HYPNOSIS. Held first at Leavenworth and from 1985 at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, one of a small number of Vermont prisoners housed out of state for security reasons. HE DIED THERE ON NOVEMBER 26, 2023, aged seventy-two, after an acute medical event during a routine cell check. A retired Vermont State Police captain who led the investigation said there was no doubt in his mind that Schaefer was a serial murderer.

Gary Lee Schaefer was born in Vermont in 1951 and belonged to the fundamentalist Christadelphian church. He first came to official attention while serving in the Navy, charged with arson and with possession of illegal drugs. He entered a plea of insanity and the Navy psychiatrists found him competent to stand trial. After his discharge his family and friends regarded him as normal.

In 1979 he kidnapped, raped and killed Sherry Nastasia, who was thirteen. Her family lived in an apartment complex in Springfield managed by Schaefer's brother.

Theresa Fenton was killed in the same way in 1981.

In 1982, at Brattleboro, he attacked a seventeen-year-old named Deana Buxton and she survived. It was her description that first turned police attention towards him. They still had no hard evidence by the beginning of 1983.

On April 9, 1983 he abducted Catherine Richards in Springfield and drove her to a remote place, where he forced her to perform oral sex and then crushed her skull with a stone. Her body was found at midday the next day. Descriptions of the man who took her matched the descriptions Deana Buxton had given the year before.

Police were working towards an arrest in September 1983 when the mother of that last victim wrote Schaefer an open letter. She accused him of the murder and challenged him to confess his sins, as the precepts of his own church required. He broke in custody and confessed to two of the murders, Fenton and Richards, and to the rape of Deana Buxton.

In December 1983 he pleaded guilty to kidnapping, sexual assault and second-degree murder in the Richards case. The charges over Theresa Fenton were dismissed as part of the bargain. He was sentenced a month later to thirty years to life, to be served at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth in Kansas.

So the count is one murder conviction, obtained by plea, against three killings attributed to him and one woman who lived. The source for this account is Michael Newton's encyclopaedia, which records the disposition as thirty years to life in a plea bargain on one count.