The attorney who represented convicted murderer Anastazia Schmid during trial for the 2001 stabbing death of her boyfriend may not have told her about a plea agreement that prosecutors offered for the lesser charge of reckless homicide.
That's according to Lafayette defense attorney Michael Troemel, who is representing Schmid in her bid for post-conviction relief. A three-day bench trial before Special Judge Rex Kepner of Benton County began Tuesday in Tippecanoe Circuit Court.
Testimony will resume this afternoon.
Schmid, now 37, is serving a 50-year sentence in the March 4, 2001, death of 26-year-old Tony W. Heathcote. She wants a new trial and is arguing that Heathcote's death was justified because of -- essentially -- battered woman syndrome.
Troemel further argues that Schmid's trial-level attorney, David Hennessey, should have given jurors the option to find Schmid not guilty because of justifiable reasonable force, which is tied to the defense of mental disease or defect in Indiana.
Schmid was instead found guilty but mentally ill.
"The evidence was right there for the taking," Troemel told Kepner. "All they had to do was file a piece of paper ... justifiable reasonable force as a defense."
Kepner will be the one to decide whether Schmid receives a new trial.
Hennessey is scheduled to testify on Thursday. Troemel said he is expected to admit that Jerry Bean, Tippecanoe County's prosecutor at the time, had offered Schmid a plea agreement to reckless homicide but that Schmid was never told about it.
Reckless homicide is a Class C felony, punishable by two to eight years in prison. By comparison, murder is punishable by 45 to 65 years.
Schmid's mother, Barbara Godlewski, testified Tuesday that the reckless homicide offer was never relayed to her and that, had she been told about it, she would have encouraged Schmid to plead.
Godlewski also said that Schmid was covered in bruises following Heathcote's death.
"Tony's body had been stabbed, but Anastazia's body was just as bad," Godlewski said, referring to pictures that were shown to her by Bill Lindbloom, an investigator in the public defender's office.
Schmid was convicted in 2002 of murder and six other felonies.
During trial, it was raised that Schmid told psychiatrists that she and Heathcote -- her boyfriend and her business partner -- were in the midst of a bondage sex act when she heard voices telling her that she was the messiah and commanding her to kill Heathcote, the devil.
Heathcote was stabbed 39 times.
Prosecutors argued that -- whether true or false -- Schmid's motive stemmed from her being told that Heathcote was accused of molesting her daughter.
A portion of Tuesday's hearing focused on Heathcote and his criminal history. Among the people subpoenaed to testify were Kipp Scott, Tippecanoe County's chief probation officer who supervised Heathcote on a theft case at the time of his death, and Cori King, Heathcote's ex-girlfriend.
King said she began dating Heathcote when she was in eighth grade and he was 18 years old. She recalled two instances where he used physical violence -- one time, yanking her by the hair and another time holding a small handgun to her head.
"I'm sure there were good things," King said. "I don't remember a lot, just the bad things."
King did not testify at the original trial. In fact, she had never met Schmid until late last year, when she approached Schmid in jail and told Schmid she had dated Heathcote, too.
Kepner was quick to note that some of what was brought up Tuesday likely would not be admissible in court, should Schmid receive a new trial.
"How much of his life do you get to drum up?" the judge said.
Troemel argued that it could be admissible if the prosecutor's office opts to defend Heathcote's character.
Schmid took the stand briefly Tuesday, testifying about what she described as a difficult childhood growing up in the Chicago suburbs in Illinois. Schmid said her stepfather was "very tyrannical, mean, controlling" and that he, at one time, locked her in the trunk of a car during a hot summer day.
She's expected to take the stand again today.
Troemel noted that the judge who presided over the criminal trial, Judge Thomas Busch of Tippecanoe Superior Court 2, found as a mitigating factor that Schmid's actions were the result of being battered.
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