We were all so happy
together. We have lots of photos and videos, the wonderful
memories of our happy family together that no one can take away
from us. We never made it, no cruise. Our dreams were shattered on
October 29, 1999, our son had his accident while playing that took
his life from us. We lost him. We lost it all, including our life,
from all the lies and no investigation done. A parent’s worst
nightmare had just begun.
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We have even lost each
other so far for two years and two months, but not our love for
each other or our son.
We can’t have our son
back, but we wish we could. But, with God’s help and your help we
can have our lives back together, John and I.
Please don’t let me lose
him, too. He is the only man I ever truly loved. John, also, is a
wonderful, caring and compassionate dad.
We did not kill our son.
We were a happy family. God is the only one who knows what
happened to our son. God knows the truth.
I wish I could tell you
what happened, because I have never lied and I don’t intend to
start now. If I knew, I would tell the truth. I really don’t know
what happened that night to our son.
We don’t have to answer
to God for what we have been accused of, but the ones who have
borne false witness against us will have to answer to God seventy
times seven times.
I will never tell
anything but the truth, so help me God. I am an evangelist and God
is using me for a reason, as God has a purpose for everything that
happens. We will never give up this fight against our enemies
until we win or we die trying.
I forgive my enemies for
bearing false witnesses against me. May God bless them and keep
them.
Even Jesus was innocent
but was persecuted, yet he loved.
When God gives you an
open door no man can shut it. And, if God be for you, who can be
against you?
-
Gilda Marie
Schoonover
58
SENTENCING
STATEMENTS
by
John
Schoonover
I was standing behind Mr
Ramsey when he told Gerald Hilsher, “I haven’t a clue to what
actually happened in that house.”
What actually happened
is no secret. The weather had just ended on TV with a frost
predicted, and to prevent burn, I told Ben, who was playing on the
floor, “I’m going out to water the flowers, Ben. Let me know when
supper is ready and I’ll come back in”.
“OK daddy” were his last
word to me. Marie was in the kitchen on the phone with Nora
Stanart.
It was past
6:20 PM.
While I was still on the
front porch watering the 30-plus hanging plants and front Canna
bed, Ben ran up to the glass storm door and pressed his face
against it and I sprayed water on the door. He reflexed back,
giggled, ran off, and came back to do that 3 or 4 more
times.
It was past
6:25.
I walked out to the
center rose bed. I could, and did, look in to see over the Cannas,
through the glass storm door and foyer to the living room. I saw
Ben make a lap or two.
It was past
6:29.
Finishing the center
bed, I walked east past a point where I could, and did, glance in
over the Cannas and café curtains on the dining room bay window
into the kitchen to see Marie standing with her back to the
refrigerator. Ben was in front of her, telephone in his hands,
talking to his Great Grandmother, who told this court what he
said: “I’m fine, I’m running and playing, mama is fixing me soup
and daddy is outside watering the flowers.”
It was past 6:32.
I watered a small Black
Apple tree and started for the east flower bed when the glass
storm door screeched open and Marie yelled, “Johnathan, come
quick! Something’s happened to our boy!”
No one knew, at that
time, what had actually happened to Ben, though Nora Stanart was
an ear witness to the accident. It happened too
quickly.
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Ben had evidently
climbed up on the edge of the table as, Mary Stanart, Ben’s
Grandmother, wrote he frequently did, to look out over the café
curtains to find me. Supper was about ready.
The room was dark, and
when he stood up on the edge of the table, he lost his equilibrium
and arced backwards by the piano bench onto the concrete
floor.
Marie heard the impact.
“I’ve gotta go, mom”, and dropped the phone, still on, on the
counter. Nora could hear everything. Marie ran to Ben, picked him
up and getting no response, laid him back down – on the adjacent
carpet – and ran outside for me. Perhaps within a minute or two
after I saw him talking to Nora Stanart. How much of that short
time he talked to Nora, I don’t know.
It is at
least 6:33.
“You don’t have to yell,
I’m right here.”
“Well, get in here
NOW!”
I rushed in to find my
boy on the edge of the carpet next to the rock foyer. Seizuring.
With my left forearm under his back, cradling his head with my
left hand, my right hand slipped under his butt and to his hips. I
picked him up and on the way to the bedroom to get car keys,
billfold, garage door opener and cell phone, that has Tulsa,
Claremore, Vinita, V.A. and Pryor hospital numbers programmed in
it, I said, as he had just voided, “Put some dry pants on him,
we’re taking him to the hospital.”
“Shouldn’t we call for
an ambulance?”
“No. We will get to the
hospital before an ambulance could get here, even if it didn’t get
lost.”
Before I could get my
car keys, billfold, telephone and push the garage door opener to
start the door up, Ben’s dry pants were on him and I picked him up
from the bed and said, “You drive”.
Within two minutes of
the ear-witnessed accident we were backing out of the garage and
on our way to the hospital. Nora heard the garage door close
before she broke the phone connection. I pushed “HOSPITALS” on the
cell phone and as soon as there was a signal, I pushed
“SEND”.
Four miles of dirt road,
twelve miles of highway, three miles of city traffic. Nineteen
miles in less than twenty four minutes. We were IN the
hospital at 7:00 P.M.
Testimony confirmed that
within 26 minutes of the ear witnessed accident we were in the
hospital 19 miles away.
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Yet Ramsey told the jury
repeatedly, (3 times), that I waited – that I wasted – 45 minutes,
after being called into the house, before I called the hospital.
What did I do? Did I call the hospital 25 minutes after we were
already there?
That’s Prosecutor
Misconduct. A reversible error. So are his egregious misquotes of
Drs Barton, Block and Krouse. In excess of nineteen
times.
Near naught is said of
the one Doctor who examined my boy from head to toe, inside and
out, searching with a microscope, and finds no medical evidence of
any king of child abuse present OR past.
Nor has anyone
questioned Ramsey’s verified, perjured, Probable Cause Affidavit.
Is this only Pesecutor Misconduct or also a violation of our
Constitution’s Due Process?
Contrary to Ramsey’s
confabulation of jealousy in our home, there was a great deal of
jealousy OF our home; but there was no jealousy IN it. The three
of us bonded like glue.
Sending an innocent
mother to die in prison in counterproductive to your cause against
child abuse. It send the threat to all parents: Something happens
to your child; don’t rush to the hospital as quickly as possible
for help. You will be sent to prison if you do. If you hear a cry
for help, --- RUN THE OTHER WAY.
The pure and simple,
unadulterated, evidence is that at about 6:33 PM, our boy was
playing. Marie hear a loud crack!, ran to find Ben prone on
the cement floor, summoned me, and we were in the hospital in
record time. Anything other than a tragic accident is
impossible.
I was licensed, for 10
years, by the State of Idaho, trained at Idaho State University,
to recognize and care for abused children through Category V.
During that time I cared for 16 foster children. Seven from
physically abusive homes – including Category V. I know what child
abuse looks like. Marie and I did not harm our boy in any
way.
Given all the
circumstances, it is not humanly possible for Marie to have
inflicted the single impact injury our boy had. Dr Krouse
testified in 2001 to the fact that without any peripheral
superficial or visceral injuries – and there were none –
suggesting infliction of Bens’ injury, “breaches
credibility”.
Taking my innocent wife
away after losing my only living son to a tragic accident is an
atrocity that does not fall within any definition of
justice.
“I haven’t a clue to
what actually happened in that house.”
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It was testified there
were no visible injuries anywhere on my boy. Even Dr Block
testified, in 2001, that the ½“ facture at the base of Bens’ skull
was “not discovered until the autopsy”. Dr Barton “overstated”
this fracture about 6 times. Ramsey tripled that and moved
them (now plural) to the top of Bens’ head.
Dr Barton testified at
the preliminary that he talked only to me. In 2001, he testified
he talked only to Marie. This time testifying that he interviewed
both of us several times. How could that be possible when the one
thing Ramsey did get right is that we had been ordered to leave
the hospital and we abided by the law?
This “cold-blooded
murderer” comparison of Ben to Jeffrey Dahmer is nothing more than
a figment of Ramseys’ corrupt mentality. From an article in
Parenting Magazine was a comment that Jeffrey Dahmer had been an
adopted child. Wendys’ Dave Thomas was also and adopted child.
Should Parenting Magazine be placed under scrutiny for “Making
Comparisons”?
We were convicted solely
on Ramsey’s tyrannical, garrulous, rhetoric of haranguing fantasy
about behavioral problems after those who knew the truth testified
that Ben had none.
Grotesque gesticulations
and confabulations of non-existent injuries: “Ben’s brains were
squishing and gushing out of the top of this head.”
Three times Ramsey acted
this out in front of the jury, gospelling to them, that while this
impossibility was happening, I callously stalled for 45 minutes
after the accident occurred. Creating his illusion to the jury
that we were trying “to hide something”, before I called the
hospital. From 6:35 PM to 7:00 PM is NOT 45 minutes. And
there were, “NO visible signs of any injuries on Ben –
ANYWHERE.”
He told the jury,
“People lie in Court all the time.” The examples of his expertise
in this matter alone constitute Prosecutor Misconduct and warrants
Reversal on Appeal – AGAIN. “Brains gushing out the top of his
head”, for 45 minutes that didn’t exist, when there were “no
visible signs of injury”?
If you believe Ramsey, I
called the hospital from home 25 minutes after we were already
there.
Ramsey fabricated a
non-existent crime, in a non-existent time and boasted to the
press that he proved my innocent wife a murderer.
The Oklahoma Supreme
Court will once again know that Chuck Ramsey is still a
liar.
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“I haven’t a clue to
what actually happened in that house.” How could he? He never
asked, and he wouldn’t grant us an interview when we requested
one. Ramsey has no interest in finding the truth or he would have
sought it. Winning, at any cost, is all that matters. Truth and
justice become void and even the “winner” loses.
Last August Mr Ramsey
also told Gerald Hilsher, concerning our age and my health: “Any
sentence is a Death sentence.”
Yet Ramsey would
contrive malicious deception to send not one, but two
innocent people to prison to die when he, “Hasn’t a clue to what
actually happened in that house”. And suppress exculpating
evidence.
Isn’t that comparable
with the act of “a cold blooded murderer”?
One either embraces this
opprobrious tyranny – or protects us all from it.
The jury was not allowed
to witness you yourself confirm, on the record, that we both have
solid alibis that prove our boy’s unwitnessed injury could have
only been a tragic accident.
From the fact of a time
frame that excludes the possibility of anything but proof of a
sudden tragic accident:
6:30 – A happy “running
and playing” boy talking to his Great Grandmother.
6:32 – A heard, but
unseen accident.
7:00 – Admission
IN the Pryor hospital 19 miles away.
Not one second of time
wasted.
Three years and seven
months of torment and anguish for two clans.
You have the Power,
Position and Knowledge of Pilate to exacerbate this atrocity or
terminate the nightmare now.
I accept guilt of
nothing more than knowing my wife is innocent.
John
Schoonover
Immediately after reading his sentencing statement, Mr
Ramsey asked Judge Post if there was any way she could impose a
greater punishment, as he felt that the seven years imposed by the
jury was quite inadequate. Judge Post expressed regret that she
could only lower it; not increase it. However, she would do what
she could; she assessed $1,500 in FINES! A final lash to the
Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution, which protects against
arbitrary deprivation of a liberty interest. This is not a new law
that Judge Post chose to ignore35.
To reiterate Nietsche,
“Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful” … or a
Knight in Dirty Armor.
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The Schoonovers’
attorneys filed notice of appeal.
John Schoonover
F-2003-633 Marie Schoonover F-2003-623
Kevin D Adams, Atty
Katrina Conrad Legler, Atty
1717 S Cheyenne
Oklahoma Indigent Defense System
Tulsa OK 74119 PO Box
926 Norman OK 73070
Attorney for State,
Nancy Elizebeth Connally
State Capital
Building
Oklahoma City OK
73105
"http://www.oscn.net"
Submitted (John) 02
February 2004 for Decision. Submitted (Marie) June, 2004 for
Decision.
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