Home --> AJ's Story --> AJ's Story: Newspaper Articles --> 1995 Page 5
A.J.'s Story
- Newspaper Articles
The following links take you to various articles in AJ's story as it
appeared in the South Florida media.
PLEASE DO NOT COPY THE INFORMATION ON THIS SITE BEFORE ASKING.
Thank you!
 |
 |
In Loving Memory Of Andrew James "A.J." Schwarz April 24,1983 - May 2,1993 "Beautiful Child who has found love from the angels...RIP..." |
 |
This
page contains articles from the Palm Beach Post and The Sun-Sentinel
from the year 1995. |
|
If you are interested in reading the FULL DETAILS of this case aside from what is posted here, please purchase "No One Can Hurt Him Anymore" by Carol J.Rothgeb and Scott H. Cupp. Mr. Cupp thinks it's the book that nobody will read...please show your support and show him that you care about AJ, too by ordering his book by clicking on the cover image below.
In
Court (6/10/95)
When It Comes To Family Life, What's Normal? (6/10/95)
Do Our Kids Have To Die For Attention? (6/24/95)
Briefly (7/6/95)
Schwarz Denies Killing Stepson, Accuses Others on TV Talk
Show (7/7/95)
AJ Case Haunts Father: David Schwarz Says Wife Didn't Kill
Boy (7/17/95)
Call Can't Change Schwarz's Image (7/28/95)
Convicted Child Killer Paints Herself as Victim (7/29/95)
Schwarz's Parents: She Has No Excuse (7/29/95)
Schwarz Sentenced To 40 More Years -- Stepmother Shows
No Remorse (8/5/95)
IN COURT
The Palm Beach Post
June 10, 1995
WEST PALM BEACH
Jessica Schwarz should get a new trial because the judge
who convicted her of second-degree murder in her stepson's death improperly
``stacked the inferences'' that implicated her, Schwarz's attorneys
said Friday. Circuit Judge Karen Martin will sentence Schwarz on July
28 if the judge rejects Schwarz's motion for a new trial. Schwarz has
already been sentenced to 30 years in prison for subjecting the boy
to a variety of humiliating emotional abuses. Andrew ``A.J.'' Schwarz
was found dead in his family's backyard pool in Lake Worth on May 2,
1993.
WHEN IT COMES TO FAMILY LIFE, WHAT'S
NORMAL?
The Palm Beach Post
June 10, 1995
EMILY J. MINOR
I was nervous, really nervous, about the interview with John Bradshaw.
Here's a man who is respected for helping Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones,
Carol Burnett and Roseanne overcome deep, dark pasts. He has personally
made it through a childhood of abuse and incest. His latest book, Family
Secrets, is a hot hit.
But I wasn't intimidated by all that. Mostly, I was afraid I'd have
some kind of embarrassing flashback during our phone interview.
The other reporters who had signed up for this telephone news conference
were asking thoughtful questions in soft, insightful voices. They mused
about the author's candor and pain and called him ``Mr. Bradshaw.''
I barked my questions, sounding disrespectful and, I suppose, neurotically
repressed.
If my memories of childhood are happy. . . If I remember chipped-chopped
ham sandwiches, Pepsi and Wise potato chips on pay day, summer days
at the pool, and nothing about sexual or physical abuse . . . Am I repressing
something?
``It's possible,'' Mr. Bradshaw says, ``that you had a happy childhood.''
Whew.
I hung up, flashback free, determined to ask my Mom if she likes my
sister more than me.
Coming to terms with family
\ The sad and serious part of this story is that millions of Americans,
children and adults alike, can honestly benefit from Bradshaw's book,
which helps readers uncover, and come to terms with, unspoken pieces
of their family history.
The world is full of inexplicable family horrors. Pauline and John Zile,
Jessica and Bear Schwarz. Without doubt, there was serious dysfunction
in those homes.
But people like Bradshaw - and the books such as the ones he writes
- can make us a touch paranoid about not having a bad family history.
They send us searching for something wrong in a life filled with happiness,
understanding, love.
And, yes, mistakes.
When Bradshaw's publisher suggests that 96 percent of American families
are dysfunctional, I have to laugh. What family isn't dysfunctional?
There are days when we want to kick our husbands, then lock our kids
in their rooms.
That might be naughty, but it sure is normal.
Is normal now dysfunctional?
\ And with a generation of parents trying hard to do it all, and do
it all right, perfection seems to be our new standard for normal. And
normal is our new standard for dysfunction.
I bet Bradshaw would have a heyday with the way we used to torture my
mother, hiding her hearing aid, then calling her to the phone. We poured
cold water on my dad as he bathed every night of his life. ``I'll get
even,'' he'd bellow. And one Christmas, my mother hand-stitched a Casual
Corner label in a coat she'd bought me at Kmart. I thought that was
pretty weird. But now, I view it as a sweet effort to provide me with
the coat we could not afford.
Certainly, the world is full of people with pasts that are sometimes
perplexing, sometimes troubling and all too often horrifying. The world
is full of victims.
And some of us are victims of happy childhoods.
Back To Top
DO OUR KIDS HAVE TO DIE FOR ATTENTION?
The Palm Beach Post
June 24, 1995
EMILY J. MINOR
Timothy Hero almost died.
Do not feel badly if you do not remember him right off. He made it into
the newspaper, but not onto the front page.
Christina Holt, A.J. Schwarz, Pauline Cone. Those names we remember.
They're gone.
But Timothy Hero, 2 1/2 years old, is still alive. And somehow, that
seems to have made him less important.
Timothy Hero's guts were smashed inside his little body, his face bruised,
his arm fractured. His collarbone was broken once, healed by itself,
then was broken again. Prosecutors think his mommy and her boyfriend
did it because he wouldn't use the potty.
The court papers charging Kathy Moore and Jason Zeeman with attempted
murder go on and on - seven single-spaced pages of atrocities. The little
boy's vomiting, fevers, bruises, bite marks, hair loss, broken bones.
A horrid list.
But what may be even worse - for by now we know our world is littered
with sick adults who hurt children - is the list of people who should
have come forward to help Timothy, but did not.
So many clues, so little action
A preschool teacher who has worked in day care for 14 years said she
never saw a child as constantly bruised as Timothy.
A nurse at the pediatrician's office said the boy was anxious and scared
when his mother held him. But when she picked him up, he calmed right
down.
HRS was notified of possible abuse in February, but continued to allow
Timothy to live at home.
And his pediatrician saw him 21 times in 13 months. Some of those office
visits were routine. But many were to treat bruises, bites and broken
bones that were not easily explained.
Finally, in April, the brutal act that almost killed Timothy at the
same time saved his life. Prosecutors say either Moore or Zeeman stomped
him so hard, Timothy's organs ruptured when they smashed against his
spine.
It was after this episode, tied to tubes in the intensive care unit,
that Timothy finally told a nurse: Mommy hits me.
In a year that has given us the Ziles and the Cones and the Schwarzes,
little Timothy is disturbing evidence that we still have not learned
to be sensitive - overly sensitive, overly protective if need be - to
the suffering of children.
Have A.J. and Christina and Pauline taught us nothing?
There's much we still don't know
Doctors think that, physically, Timothy will eventually be all right.
He is safe now, away from his tormentors. But the emotional pain he
suffered may never heal.
We still do not know all the sad chapters of Timothy Hero's sorry little
life. His mother and her boyfriend have not gone to trial. State social
workers have not gone public about past investigations of the family.
And his pediatrician, citing confidentiality, will not talk to the press
about the case.
But one thing is perfectly clear. If Timothy Hero were dead, we'd remember
him right off.
Back To Top
BRIEFLY
The Palm Beach Post
July 6, 1995
A suburban Lantana woman convicted of killing her 10-year-old stepson
in May 1993 will be featured on the Maury Povich show today in a segment
titled, ``Killer Stepmothers.'' The segment, taped in May, will include
interviews with A.J. Schwarz's stepmother, Jessica Schwarz, and his
biological mother, Ilene Schwarz. Jessica Schwarz's mother, Helen Woods,
and neighbors also will appear. The show airs at 10 a.m. on WPTV-Channel
5.
Back To Top
SCHWARZ DENIES KILLING STEPSON,
ACCUSES OTHERS ON TV TALK SHOW
Sun-Sentinel
July 7, 1995
TESSIE BORDEN and MIKE FOLKS Staff Writers
The stepmother convicted of abusing, torturing and murdering Andrew
"A.J."Schwarz, 10, spoke out for the first time Thursday,
on a national television talk show, and gave her version of who killed
the boy.
Jessica Schwarz, 40, A.J.'s stepmother, said on The Maury Povich Show
that she was asleep when A.J.'s nude and battered body was found floating
in the family's above-ground pool two years ago.
Schwarz, speaking from the Palm Beach County Jail, faces life in prison
at a July 28 sentencing on convictions of second-degree murder and witness
tampering charges.
She said she thinks neighbor Ron Pincus Jr. or her absent husband, David
Schwarz, killed the boy. Pincus has never been charged in the case,
and David Schwarz's whereabouts are unknown.
According to trial testimony, Pincus saw A.J. walking the family dog
about 1:30 a.m. on May 2, 1993, hours before his body was found.
"[Pincus) was the last person to see A.J. alive," said Schwarz.
In reference to her husband, she said, "Guilty people run."
The show, taped May 8, was the first time Schwarz and the boy's biological
mother, Ilene Soini-Schwarz, of Fort Lauderdale, confronted each other
since Schwarz's murder conviction on April 11.
A screaming match erupted between them.
Schwarz repeatedly denied accusations of abuse, saying she "loved
A.J., and I tried to treat him the same as my other girls."
Soini-Schwarz fired back, "Jessica, why is it that everybody is
lying but you? Did you and David [A.J.'s biological father) ever attempt
to come to the funeral?"
"You never notified us," Schwarz angrily replied.
Soini-Schwarz also accused Jessica Schwarz of killing A.J. out of jealousy
for Soini-Schwarz's relationship with David Schwarz.
"She knew that was the only way she could get to me and my family,"
said Soini-Schwarz, who said David Schwarz had asked to come back to
her if his wife was convicted and sentenced to jail.
Two of Schwarz's neighbors, Beth Ann Walton and Ann Steinhauer, who
testified in the trials, also appeared on the show.
Walton and Steinhauer said they remembered Schwarz abusing and maligning
A.J. in front of them. Steinhauer said she witnessed Schwarz pick A.J.
up by his neck and toss him around the garage "like a rag doll."Walton
said she had heard her daughter say how Schwarz made A.J. eat a cockroach.
Schwarz denied she ever forced her son to do that.
She said the story was fabricated by Walton's daughter, who overheard
her reprimand A.J. for stashing food in their garage.
On Thursday, Soini-Schwarz said she was not sure going on the show did
any good.
"Two days later, I ended up in the hospital with a breakdown,"
she said. "But somebody had to [ask) how it was that everybody
else was lying and it was only [Schwarz) telling the truth."
Steinhauer said she also regretted doing the show.
"Nothing important was said. It was all a big joke," she said.
"As soon as they started arguing, the producers were telling us
to jump in and say how we feel and get our point across. I thought,
`That's not what I'm here for.'" Steinhauer said that just before
the show, Povich stated that he hoped to set the record straight.
"I thought, `What is there to set straight?' She's been convicted,"
Steinhauer said.
Steinhauer said she does not think A.J.'s memory was served by the show.
But she said she will remember the little boy who always smiled and
told her to have a good day.
"One day I took him to school, and he reached over to give me a
hug," she said. "When I came toward him to give him a hug,
he backed away, so I backed away. Now I think, `God, I wished I had
hugged him.'"
Schwarz's defense attorney, Rendell Brown, said on Thursday he had opposed
her appearing on the show. He said he was not surprised at what his
client said.
"What she said is what she has said all along before, that she
did not commit the crime," Brown said. "The frustration she
feels over being convicted of a crime she didn't commit created a need
for her to vent."
Assistant Palm Beach County State Attorney Joe Marx, a prosecutor in
both of Jessica Schwarz's trials, said he had turned down a request
to appear on the show.
"It was just horrible. I was disgusted," Marx said of Schwarz's
denials of abusing and killing her stepson.
--
SOURCE LINE
Hear Jessica Schwarz on The Maury Povich Show. Enter 6155.
Broward 523-5463
S. Palm Beach 496-5463
N. Palm Beach 625-5463
Dade 866-5463
Back To Top
A.J. CASE HAUNTS FATHER
DAVID SCHWARZ SAYS WIFE DIDN'T KILL BOY
Sun-Sentinel
July 17, 1995
MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer
More than two years ago, David Schwarz pulled his son's battered body
from a backyard pool.
His wife, Jessica, was charged with abusing and killing the boy, her
10-year-old stepson.
But when his wife went to trial, Schwarz was nowhere to be found.
The truck driver has been on the road, or staying with the few people
he says he can call friends, just trying to forget.
"I blank a lot of this out of my mind," he said during an
interview last week at a friend's Broward County apartment. "I'm
a truck driver. I can't go down the road thinking about all this."
Schwarz, 38, has a salt-and-pepper beard and shoulder-length hair. When
he talks about the changes in his life, he says "I'm not running
from nothing," and takes a sip from a cool can of beer.
He said his nightmare began early on May 2, 1993, when he found A.J.'s
body in the family's above-ground pool.
He recalled how Jessica, 40, came running into the couple's bedroom
that morning, telling him that she could not find the boy.
"I was taller than Jessica. I saw A.J. in the pool. I went in and
pulled him out," he said, fighting back tears. "I don't think
I've cried since that day."
Within hours, Jessica was a suspect. Neighbors in the Concept Homes
development near Lantana began telling detectives of the abuse Jessica
had put A.J. through.
The abuse, they said, included forcing the boy to eat from a plate on
the floor next to a cat litter box; to run naked through his neighborhood;
to eat a cockroach, and to edge the lawn with a pair of scissors.
Although Schwarz said he was not around much because he drives trucks,
he said he never saw any evidence of abuse. He said that even the Department
of Health and Rehabilitative Services found no evidence of abuse in
two separate investigations.
"If the neighbors had all this graft that they spouted in court,
why in God's name didn't they come and tell me? If Jessica was doing
this, A.J. or the girls would have told me. The neighbors wanted to
get rid of Jessica, and they did," he said.
"If he doesn't think anything happened, then why is A.J. dead?"
she said. "He just had blinders on because he didn't want to see
what was going on."
Schwarz said that after A.J.'s death, his life began to unravel.
His daughter, Jackie, 5, and stepdaughter, Lauren, 11, immediately were
taken away by HRS. Three months later, Jessica was indicted and charged
with murder, child abuse and witness tampering. She was jailed after
neighbors reported that she had threatened them.
Schwarz said he found himself alone in the family's home, drinking a
12-pack of beer each night to fall asleep. The neighbors, once friendly,
suddenly shunned him.
He and Jessica argued constantly about his drinking and smoking when
she called from the jail, he said.
Finally, after one last fight on the phone with Jessica, he packed a
few things, walked to a neighbor's home and knocked on the door.
"I told him to take what he wanted, and I left," Schwarz said.
"Maybe it was immature ... but it was either leave or start hurting
people."
He didn't go to Jessica's trials, he said, because prosecutors and defense
attorneys didn't want to hear what he had to say.
But Assistant Palm Beach County State Attorney Scott Cupp and Jessica's
defense attorney, Rendell Brown, say that's not so.
"We were actively - even during the trials - looking to place him
under subpoena, as was the defense," Cupp said.
Brown agreed, saying, "We have been and still are interested in
talking with David. I think he knows full well that she didn't kill
or abuse A.J."
But Schwarz said he couldn't believe Jessica, who accused him of the
murder on the Povich show.
Although he didn't see the show, which was shown on July 6, he contacted
the Sun-Sentinel after reading a story about the broadcast.
"Jessica accusing me really pissed me off," said Schwarz,
who denied killing his son.
But Schwarz steadfastly defended the woman he met eight years ago at
the Riptide bar in Fort Lauderdale.
"I really did not, and still do not, believe Jessica did it,"
he said. "But, I just don't know."
Schwarz thinks she blamed him for A.J.'s death in an attempt to rile
him and force him to come forward.
"I'm not going to deal with her no more," he said, holding
up his left hand to show he no longer wears his wedding ring.
And he won't be at Jessica's sentencing on July 28, when she faces life
in prison for A.J.'s death. She already is serving 30 years for her
convictions for aggravated child abuse against A.J.
But A.J.'s death still haunts Schwarz. And he misses his daughter and
stepdaughter, whom he thinks are living with relatives. He says he is
unable to provide them with the stability they need.
"I'm comfortable," Schwarz said. "But I'll never be happy
again."
Back To Top
CALL CAN'T CHANGE SCHWARZ'S IMAGE
Sun-Sentinel
July 28, 1995
JOHN GROGAN
Commentary
The telephone rings and it is an operator saying I have a collect call
from Jessica Schwarz.
"Will you accept the charges?" Jessica Schwarz, the Lantana
truck driver convicted of murdering her 10-year-old stepson, A.J., drowning
him in the family pool after months of belittlement and abuse. Jessica
Schwarz, perhaps South Florida's most reviled mom. What did she want?
"Sure, I'll accept the charges," I say.
"I didn't do this," she blurts out. "I'm convicted of
it, and my only hope is on appeal."
Time is running out for Jessica. Today she goes before a Palm Beach
County circuit judge to be sentenced to prison, possibly for the rest
of her life. It soon becomes obvious what she wants: a new, softer image.
"I have no money left. I'm trying to get as much exposure as I
can," she says. She wants to get the word out that she is not the
evil stepmother everyone thinks she is. I picture her in the county
jail desperately phoning every newspaper and radio station she can think
of in hopes of finding someone who will accept her collect call.
The world according to Jessica
"I'm not telling you any lies," she assures me in a voice
that is softer and more personable than I would have imagined. "I
have nothing to lose."
In fact, to hear Jessica tell it, she's the only one who is not lying.
Everyone _ from the neighbors to the child-welfare workers to the psychologist
to A.J.'s natural mother _ is setting her up. The conspiracy includes
the police, prosecutors and all those witnesses who came forth to describe
her horrendous acts of cruelty toward the skinny boy with the sad eyes.
Jessica has spent her time in jail coming up with a tidy theory neither
she nor her attorneys presented at trial. The killer she thinks is the
last person to see A.J. alive, a 20-year-old neighbor who reported seeing
A.J. outside alone at 1:30 a.m. on the morning of his death.
She theorizes that he sexually assaulted the boy then drowned him. It's
a theory investigators long ago ruled out.
"The police dismissed everyone as a suspect except me," Jessica
complains.
Explaining it all away
She runs down the list of atrocities she was accused of, explaining
each away. Despite her sincere voice, I'm less than convinced, mainly
because she tries to soften all that cannot be denied, and deny all
that cannot be proved.
Forcing A.J. to eat a cockroach? "I said it, but I would never
follow through on something like that."
Forcing A.J. to cut the grass with scissors as punishment? He did use
scissors on the lawn, but on his own to cover up that he had accidentally
sliced through the cord on the electric lawnmower.
Forcing A.J. to run down the street naked? He did that on a dare from
some playmates. She admits she yelled after him: "Get your ass
back in this house before I kick it back," but explains it this
way: "I always yell; I'm a yeller, that's all I do. If you knew
me for 10 minutes, I'd yell at you, too."
In fact, Jessica declares, her problem is not that she kills children,
but that she has a big mouth. Neighbors heard her gruff shouting and
let their imaginations run wild.
"I did not touch the child in any way," she insists despite
separate verdicts by a jury and a judge to the contrary. "Absolutely
not."
When she describes finding his lifeless body, I expect the emotion of
that painful moment will rise in her voice. But there is nothing. She
could have been talking about the death of a goldfish.
"Did you love him?" I ask.
The question seems to catch her off guard, as if she had never considered
it before.
"Yes, of course I loved him," she says finally, unconvincingly.
Of course she did. Loved him to death.
John Grogan's column appears every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.
Back To Top
CONVICTED CHILD KILLER PAINTS HERSELF AS VICTIM
Sun-Sentinel
July 29, 1995
MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer
Jessica Schwarz, convicted of killing her 10-year-old stepson, paints
herself as an innocent victim.
The 40-year-old former truck driver says she never killed Andrew "A.J."Schwarz.
Detectives never gave her a fair shake, she claims: They pointed her
out as the boy's killer less than a half-hour after his nude and battered
body was pulled from the family's backyard pool on May 2, 1993.
Neighbors with "axes to grind" marched into court and lied
about the litany of abuse they say she put A.J. through, she said.
Schwarz, facing life in prison for A.J.'s death, again made those claims
in court on Friday during her sentencing hearing for her conviction
of second-degree murder. Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Karen L. Martin
deferred issuing the sentence until next Friday.
She already is serving 30 years for her September convictions for abusing
A.J.
"I didn't kill Andrew; I never even spanked him," Schwarz
said during her 80 minutes of testimony. "I loved Andrew. I loved
him like I loved his father."
Before Schwarz began speaking, though, a family counselor, her parents
and her 12-year-old daughter were called by the defense. All said they
never saw any evidence that Schwarz physically or emotionally abused
A.J.
Schwarz was the final witness, gliding through questions from her defense
attorney, Rendell Brown. She denounced the police, prosecutors and her
neighbors for their roles in her convictions.
Asked about her feelings of remorse, she said: "How does one show
remorse for something they didn't do?"
When Brown asked whether she had anything else to say, Schwarz launched
into a 20-minute speech. She expressed amazement at her convictions
for second-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and witness tampering.
She accused prosecutors of "buying" a homicide finding by
an out-of-state medical examiner after the local medical examiner said
he could not determine how A.J. died.
And she faulted state Health and Rehabilitative Services workers for
failing to heed her pleas for help with A.J. when he was placed in her
home in 1991 after his older sister was sexually abused by his biological
mother's boyfriend.
"There was no way I could get a fair trial in this county,"
Schwarz said angrily. "I'm at a loss for any kind of feeling."
Assistant State Attorney Joe Marx launched a blistering cross-examination,
and Schwarz became combative.
Marx attacked her credibility, saying more than 20 witnesses who testified
about her abuse of A.J. must have been lying.
"I didn't say everbody was lying. I said I'm telling the truth,"
she snapped.
Marx then asked her why she accused her husband, David Schwarz, of killing
A.J. during an appearance on the nationally televised Maury Povich Show.
"I did it to get him out of hiding, and it worked," she said,
referring to a July 17 Sun-Sentinel article in which her husband, David
Schwarz, denied he killed his son.
Schwarz said she thinks that a 20-year-old neighbor who saw A.J. walking
a dog early the morning he died had something to do with the boy's death.
To discredit Schwarz's earlier testimony that she was not violent, Marx
pressed her on a threat she made against him during a recent pretrial
hearing.
Marx, whose wife was shot and killed in May 1994 during a deposition
in Fort Lauderdale, recalled what she told him.
"Didn't you say, `Why don't you join your wife. I'll see you when
I'm out on bond'?"
"I never said that," Schwarz angrily said.
Schwarz said she didn't let detectives see her cry after A.J.'s body
was found because they immediately made her a suspect. But she conceded
she didn't cry on the Povich show, nor during recent interviews with
newspaper reporters.
"Oh, you cared so much for A.J. Scwharz," Marx said sarcastically.
"Is that the only thing that shows you care is tears?" Schwarz
shot back.
"This is the only child you had that died, and you didn't even
go to his funeral," Marx said.
"I didn't know where the funeral was. I didn't know when the funeral
was. My husband didn't either," Schwarz said.
Before the defense presented its case, prosecutors called only one witness,
A.J.'s biological mother, Ilene Soini-Schwarz, of Fort Lauderdale.
"She took the most precious thing I've ever had. I no longer have
him so I don't think she should have her freedom," Soini-Schwarz
said.
Back To Top
SCHWARZ'S PARENTS: SHE HAS NO EXCUSE
Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
July 29, 1995
CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
A judge heard no explanations Friday for why Jessica Schwarz turned
out to be a loud, brash, abusive mother who could spend the next 40
years in prison for killing her 10-year-old stepson.
According to Schwarz's parents, she was not abused as a child. There
was no alcoholism or drug abuse in her family. She graduated from high
school and successfully pursued her chosen career, driving a tractor-trailer
cross-country.
``There is nothing in her past,'' said Schwarz's father, Edward Woods.
``Nothing reaching a level of such destructive reaction.''
Circuit Judge Karen Martin heard four hours of testimony Friday and
will sentence Schwarz at a hearing Aug. 4. Schwarz already has been
sentenced to 30 years in prison for abusing her stepson, Andrew ``A.J.''
Schwarz. In April a jury convicted her of second-degree murder for the
boy's drowning death May 2, 1993, in Lake Worth.
Schwarz's parents, Edward and Helen Woods, married 47 years, both said
they believe their daughter is innocent. But they expressed little emotion
when describing their daughter's life and their step-grandson's death.
Neither asked the judge for mercy.
But Schwarz's daughter, Lauren Cross, 12, told Martin, ``If you put
my mother away, . . . you'll be locking up an innocent mother and let
the real killer run loose.''
The girl, in tears, went back to her seat between her grandparents,
who offered little comfort as she wiped tears from her eyes.
Schwarz, 40, took the stand and for 80 minutes blasted neighbors, prosecutors
and the media for wrongfully convicting her.
Her attorney, Rendell Brown, in an attempt to show that Schwarz regrets
A.J.'s death, asked her if she had ever cried. After thinking for several
moments, Schwarz responded: ``When my kids were born, when a friend
died, . . . when A.J. died.''
During cross-examination, Assistant State Attorney Joe Marx grilled
Schwarz about her abrasive personality. Schwarz admitted she has a ``loud
mouth'' but denied being violent or threatening.
In response, Marx asked Schwarz whether she remembered a comment she
made to him during a recess about Marx's late wife. Karen Starr-Marx,
also a lawyer, was pregnant when she was shot and killed in a Fort Lauderdale
office last year.
``Do you remember saying, `Why don't you join your wife? I'll see you
out on bond'?'' Marx asked. Schwarz remembered the exchange but denied
threatening Marx.
Back To Top
SCHWARZ SENTENCED TO 40 MORE YEARS
STEPMOTHER SHOWS NO REMORSE
Sun-Sentinel
August 5, 1995
STEPHANIE SMITH
Staff Writer
Jessica Schwarz isn't the kind of woman to cry in public, even when
she was sentenced on Friday to a total of 70 years for the abuse and
death of her stepson.
But then she didn't cry on May 2, 1993, when Andrew "A.J."Schwarz's
nude and beaten body was found floating in the family's above-ground
swimming pool.
She didn't cry as 20 witnesses detailed how she humiliated and demeaned
A.J., 10, by making him eat his meals next to the cat litter box and
run naked down neighborhood streets.
On Friday, Circuit Judge Karen Martin decided Schwarz should serve 40
years in prison for the second-degree murder of her stepson. That was
in addition to 30 years she is already serving for abusing him.
Schwarz's attorney tried to explain her lack of remorse and even downright
antagonistic attitude in court by saying the woman feels deeply the
loss of her stepson, but keeps it inside.
"Would it have made a difference if she cried her eyes out?"
Rendell Brown said. "The shock, the grief, it's all there."
Brown said there was only circumstantial evidence linking Schwarz to
A.J.'s death and that she should be sentenced to the minimum 22 years.
"Don't sentence her based on her attitude," Brown said. "Mrs.
Schwarz feels indignant about her situation because she didn't do what
she's convicted of doing."
Her indignation included an attempt to fire Brown before the sentencing
hearing. She blames her attorney for her convictions and maintains she
is innocent.
Assistant State Attorney Joseph Marx said the woman must be punished
for the misery and death of a little boy.
"She robbed him of his childhood, and she robbed him of his life,"
Marx said.
In using her sentencing hearings as a pulpit to continue proclaiming
her innocence and to call anyone who testified against her a liar, Schwarz
failed to give reasons why she should be spared the maximum punishment,
Marx said.
The only possible reason is her two daughters, he said.
"The state would submit to you, do them a favor. Put her in jail.
Keep her away," Marx said.
Marx has said he has been personally savaged by Schwarz. At an earlier
pretrial hearing, Schwarz privately told him to join his wife, Marx
said. His wife, Karen Marx, also a lawyer, was shot to death in a law
office in Fort Lauderdale in May 1994. Schwarz denied making the comment.
After the hearing, A.J.'s biological mother, Ilene Soini-Schwarz, said
after 2 1/2 years, it was now over.
"I think she got what she deserved," Soini-Schwarz said.
Jessica Schwarz's mother, Helen Woods, said she thinks her daughter
is innocent. Her parents were as dry-eyed and expressionless as Schwarz
when the judge announced the sentence.
"We don't cry that easily. Lamentations are for the church. We
feel more with our souls and hearts," Woods said after the sentencing.
Schwarz's 12-year-old daughter was not as discreet in hiding her feelings.
She hurried out of the courtroom, struggling to keep the tears from
brimming over. As she walked down the hall, the tears fell.
Back To Top