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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!
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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..." |
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This
page contains articles from the Palm Beach Post and The Sun-Sentinel
from the year 1995. |
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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.
AJ's
Mom Sentenced to 40 Years (8/5/95)
Schwarz Wants Daughters To Live With Grandparents (8/8/95)
In Court (8/8/95)
Hell Hath No Fury Like Jessica Schwarz (8/11/95)
Task Force Offers Plan To Reduce Child Abuse (8/17/95)
Women Rip Jail Chow, But Hunger Strike Ends in Day (9/26/95)
What? No Meals Fit For A Child Killer? (10/1/95)
Record 427 Kids Taken Out Of Homes (10/31/95)
Heart Stopping Moments (12/31/95)
1995, The Year In Quotes (12/31/95)
A.J.'S MOM SENTENCED
TO 40 YEARS
The Palm Beach Post
August 5, 1995
CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Jessica Schwarz defiantly maintained her innocence Friday as a judge
sentenced her to 40 years in prison for the death of her 10-year-old
stepson, Andrew "A.J.'' Schwarz.
Schwarz had wanted to speak before Circuit Judge Karen Martin imposed
the sentence, the strictest allowed under Florida's sentencing guidelines,
but after a brief recess she allowed her attorney to speak on her behalf.
``Don't sentence her based on her attitude,'' Rendell Brown said. ``It's
easy to understand her indignation because she did not do what she is
accused of doing.''
During her testimony last week, Schwarz admitted that she has a ``loud
mouth'' and didn't get along with the neighbors who testified against
her. But she denied killing her stepson and said she couldn't feel remorse
for something she hadn't done.
Prosecutors portrayed Schwarz throughout the case as a heartless, brash
stepmother whose emotional abuse of A.J. ``was no less heinous'' than
if she had beaten the boy.
``She made his life a living hell,'' Assistant State Attorney Joseph
Marx said. ``We're talking about a person who preyed upon a helpless
10-year-old boy.''
Schwarz, 40, is already serving a 30-year sentence for abusing the boy.
At a separate trial in April, a judge convicted her of second-degree
murder. A.J.'s naked body was found in the family's swimming pool on
May 2, 1993. At trial, neighbors of the Schwarz family's home on Triphammer
Road in Lake Worth recounted months of verbal and emotional abuse by
Schwarz.
Schwarz demeaned the boy with obscenities, rubbed his face in a urine-soaked
sheet and forced him to eat from a dish next to a cat's food bowl, according
to neighbors.
The possibility of Schwarz ever being free again evaporated Friday when
the judge ordered that Schwarz's 40-year sentence be served after she
finishes serving her 30-year sentence.
Schwarz's parents and her 12-year-old daughter sat behind her during
the sentencing. Schwarz's younger daughter was not in court.
`Do them a favor'
"Do them a favor and put her in jail and keep her there as long
as possible,'' Marx said, referring to Schwarz's children. ``Protect
these children from her.''
Outside the courtroom, Schwarz's mother, Helen Woods, defended her daughter
and handed out the business cards of a producer and author in Los Angeles.
"I know she didn't do it,'' Woods said. "I consider this whole
thing a travesty.''
Schwarz's daughter, Lauren Cross, leaned her head against a window and
cried in the hallway as her grandmother spoke. The girl then sunk to
the floor, still in tears.
Book deal in works
Ellis A. Cohen, a producer and author with Hennessey Entertainment Ltd.
in Los Angeles, said he intends to write a book and produce a movie
about Schwarz called, Injustice on Triphammer Road.
"I have exclusive rights with her to do a book and a movie,'' Cohen
said. "I have never seen anything more horrendous than what I've
seen done to this woman.''
Cohen, who has a book out called Dangerous Evidence, said he learned
about the Schwarz case after she wrote him a letter explaining her situation.
Cohen declined to discuss the financial details of his deal with Schwarz,
but said he will research Florida law to determine whether Schwarz can
receive profits from any books or movies.
Profit from crime?
A federal law, called the Son of Sam Law after a New York City serial
killer, once prohibited criminals from profiting from books and movies
about their crimes. However, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the
law in 1991.
Florida has a similar law, which was recently challenged by Gainesville
serial killer Danny Rolling.
``I'm not saying there's any financial deal,'' Cohen said. ``If there
are any proceeds there are always her family members.''
A.J.'s mother sat in the back of the courtroom and said she believed
Schwarz ``got what she deserved.''
``Jessica has no feeling, no heart,'' Ilene Soini-Schwarz said. ``Just
cold and evil.''
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SCHWARZ WANTS DAUGHTERS TO LIVE WITH GRANDPARENTS
Sun-Sentinel
August 8, 1995
STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer
Jessica Schwarz wants her two daughters to live with her parents while
she serves her 70-year prison sentence for the abuse and killing of
her stepson.
Schwarz told Circuit Judge Hubert Lindsey on Monday she does not know
where the fathers of her children are, and it would be best for her
daughters to remain with their maternal grandparents in Palm City.
She and her estranged husband, David Schwarz, have a 7-year-old daughter.
But David Schwarz has avoided contact with his wife for more than a
year, since shortly before she went on trial for the abuse of his son,
Andrew "A.J."Schwarz, 10.
David Schwarz said in a July 17 interview that, as a long-distance truck
driver, he couldn't provide the girls with the stability they need and
decided to step out of their lives.
And her former husband, David Cross, the father of her 12-year-old daughter,
is somewhere in the Northeast, but Jessica Schwarz said she doesn't
know exactly where. Cross is also a truck driver.
Lindsey gave the lawyers in the case 45 days to find Cross. If Lindseydoes
not approve placing the children with her parents, Schwarz wants her
sister to take care of them.
While Schwarz was convicted of psychologically torturing her stepson
and of second-degree murder in his May 1993 drowning death, she has
not been accused of abusing her daughters, although she has been convicted
of witness tampering involving her oldest daughter.
Schwarz was caught on videotape in a police interview room scolding
her daughter to not say anything to police about "A.J."
She was recorded saying, "Do you want mommy to go to jail?"
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IN COURT
The Palm Beach Post
August 8, 1995
WEST PALM BEACH - Jessica Schwarz's two daughters, Lauren Cross, 12,
and Jackie Schwarz, 7, will continue to live with their grandparents
in Palm Bay while Schwarz serves 70 years in prison for abusing and
murdering her stepson, Andrew ``A.J.'' Schwarz, a judge ruled Monday.
Schwarz had agreed that her parents, Helen and Edward Woods of Palm
Bay, should retain custody of the girls.
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HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE JESSICA SCHWARZ
Sun-Sentinel
August 11, 1995
JOHN GROGAN
Commentary
Well, I guess this means Jessica Schwarz won't be inviting me to visit
her in the Big House.
The convicted child murderer, sentenced last week to 40 years in prison
for drowning her 10-year-old stepson, A.J., took time out of her busy
inmate schedule (so many cable channels, so little time) to let me know
what she really thinks of me.
"For a mental midget like yourself, whose one-track mind is used
to leading him away from facts, I guess it's not hard to understand
why you write the trash you do," she wrote. The trash in question
was a column I wrote based on a series of telephone conversations with
Schwarz. She had wanted me to proclaim her innocence. When I didn't,
well, there went a beautiful friendship.
"You turned every word I said around, just like the state's witnesses
[who) got on the stand and lied."
Uh-oh, here we go with the conspiracy theory again, and this time I
am part of it.
In the World According to Jessica, everybody's untruthful. Everybody
except Jessica, of course.
Paranoia setting in
"What's your excuse for not reporting the facts and [for) lying?
Now I understand you have some sick bond to [the prosecutors) and their
witnesses."
That's me, a stooge for the state, a puppet in Barry Krischer's hands.
We're all in it together, the cops, the prosecutors, the witnesses,
the neighbors and now the newspaper columnist, too.
"None of you are capable of perponderance [sic) of proof, but perponderance
[sic) of perjury. The state is an expert at the latter. Something you
and your nonfactual writing seem very at home with."
Poor Jessica. Everyone is out to get her. And to think she was just
sleeping peacefully in bed that night when her stepson's body somehow
ended up nude and battered face-down in the family swimming pool.
Now that she's settling into a 70-year stay behind bars _ 40 for the
murder plus 30 for prior abuse of A.J. _ Jessica has time for channeling
her abuse into written form.
"If you ever feel like coming out from under your rock, let me
know," she wrote. "You are a true hack."
Gee, Jessica, does this mean I won't make the list for your parole party
sometime in the late 21st Century?
She didn't much like how I ended the column, either.
"Your line in there, `She loved him to death,' how very dramatic.
Did you make that up all on your own? Did you get a dollar raise for
it?" Ouch! And to think, she was so sweet on the telephone. But
that's when she still thought I might serve her purpose.
Who called whom, anyway?
It wasn't like I went hunting for her. She called me, not once but five
times, each time collect. She's lucky I accepted the charges.
Now she's angry that I didn't buy her new-and-improved version of why
she's innocent. She wanted me to unquestioningly lay it all out for
you, how it was a neighbor who really killed the boy, how she never
struck or belittled him or did anything other than raise her voice like
any mother might do.
The only reason she called, she said, was to taunt her husband into
coming out of hiding to testify at her sentencing to her innocence.
I couldn't even do that right.
She wanted me to belittle the husband, call him a lousy father, shame
him into stepping forward. But I could hardly blame the guy. If I were
married to Jessica Schwarz, I'd run for the hills, too.
Her letter closes: "If necessity is the mother of invention, government
and journalism (yellow, like you, that is) is the Father of [very nasty
word)-ups."
Considering the source, I'll take that as a compliment.
John Grogan's column appears every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.
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TASK FORCE OFFERS PLAN TO REDUCE CHILD ABUSE
The Palm Beach Post
August 17, 1995
WILLIAM COOPER JR.
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Foster parents will have to receive twice as much training than in the
past, according to recommendations released Wednesday by a task force
that reviewed child protective services in Palm Beach County.
The 21-member task force issued a series of recommendations that range
from increasing the pay for social workers to using computers to better
track child abuse and neglect cases.
The task force, which began meeting in January, after four children
died as a result of child abuse in the fall of 1994, concluded that
better communication would enhance the role of all agencies involved
with protecting children.
``The work of the task force will be invaluable,'' said Suzanne Turner,
the local district administrator for the state Department of Health
and Rehabilitative Services.
Many of the recommendations - including the increased training for foster
parents - will be handled internally by HRS, while others will require
collaboration between state and county officials.
The task force, which included Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach,
West Palm Beach Police Chief Billy Riggs and Juvenile Judge Howard Berman,
recommended that state lawmakers spend $602,211 for 14 new social worker
positions for the local HRS. The additional workers would reduce caseloads
to where monitoring foster children will be manageable.
The task force was brought together at the time a Palm Beach County
grand jury criticized HRS for its handling of several highly publicized
child abuse cases. They included the deaths of 10-year-old Andrew "A.J.''
Schwarz, 7-year-old Christina Holt and 2-year-old Pauline Cone, a former
foster child.
The annual training for foster parents will go from eight hours to 16
hours, according to the task force's report.
The task force also responded to requests by sheriff's officials to
have a greater role in child abuse investigations. It recommended that
the sheriff's office be allowed to initiate child abuse and neglect
investigations.
The task force said children served by the state also need a greater
voice. Foster children middle school age and older will be able to talk
about the care they received during exit interviews.
``The system has failed in making the foster child a vital part of the
planning and provision of his/her care,'' the report said.
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WOMEN RIP JAIL CHOW, BUT HUNGER STRIKE ENDS IN DAY
The Palm Beach Post
September 26, 1995
CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
As prison hunger strikes go, it wasn't a fat burner.
Seven women at the Palm Beach County Stockade decided last week that
they were fed up with the food. In a grievance filed on Sept. 17, the
inmates complained that the food is ``too starchy'' and ``no salads
- EVER.'' They vowed to begin a hunger strike on Sept. 18.
``The foods that are served to us are usually spoiled meats, green breakfast
sausage, sour greens, old sour bread, dirty undercooked chicken, etc,''
the women wrote. ``We are fed worse than the average pet in one of the
richest counties in Florida.''
Among the women who signed the petition: Jessica Schwarz, sentenced
to 70 years in prison for abusing and killing her 10-year-old, A.J.
Schwarz, in May 1993; and Jerri Gaither, charged with first-degree murder
for her role in the 1993 shooting death of Christina Racey in Boca Raton.
Maj. Darlene Halstedt, who runs the stockade, was shocked when she heard
about the complaint and hunger strike. Halstedt separated the seven
inmates from each other and ordered round-the-clock observation of the
women. After 24 hours without food, the strike was over and everyone
was eating again.
``I haven't had a grievance on food in years,'' Halstedt said. ``The
main complaint is about the time we wake them up to eat.''
Eating in jails and prisons is more a body function than a dining experience.
Because many of the 830 inmates at the stockade need to be in court
by 8:45 a.m. breakfast begins at 4 a.m. Lunch is at about 11 a.m. and
dinner at 4:30 p.m.
The ``chow'' at the stockade has improved since the Palm Beach County
Sheriff's Office contracted with a private company for food preparation
several years ago, Halstedt said.
For breakfast Monday, inmates ate eggs and oatmeal or grits with a meat
patty, coffee and juice. Lunch was a ham and potato casserole with canned
peas, two slices of white bread, two sugar cookies and Kool-Aid.
Dinner was beef pepper patties, mashed potatoes with gravy, mixed vegetables
and more cookies and white bread with Kool-Aid.
The cookies often become bargaining chips in a routine seen in elementary
school cafeterias everywhere - food trading.
Pregnant inmates are given milk and an extra fruit and vegetable with
every meal, along with prenatal vitamins. Special meals also are prepared
for diabetics and inmates whose religion restricts their diets.
The meals arrive on the back of a truck in huge stacks of single-serve
insulated trays. There are no seconds. For security reasons, there are
no knives or forks, only plastic spoons. Napkins are brown paper towels
ripped from rolls.
The menu is prepared by a dietician and each inmate gets 2,800 calories
a day. Most people consume about 2,000 calories a day, said Christine
Bandy, a registered nutritionist in West Palm Beach who has created
menus at jails.
``Well, they're certainly not starving them,'' Bandy said. ``Sounds
like they have a beef about something else.''
There has never been a problem with tainted food, Halstedt said. Salads
aren't served because the lettuce would wilt on the steam trays, Halstedt
said. As for the green breakfast sausage, the stockade eliminated all
pork after complaints from Jewish and Muslim inmates, so, the sausage
is turkey sausage.
``You let it sit on a steamy tray for awhile and it's going to turn
a different color,'' Halstedt said.
TYPICAL INMATE MENU
BREAKFAST
Eggs, sausage patty or bologna, grits or oatmeal, juice and coffee.
LUNCH
Casserole, vegetables, two pieces of white bread and cookies with iced
tea.
DINNER
Meat entree with vegetables, white bread, dessert and Kool-Aid.
TOTAL CALORIES: 2,800.
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WHAT? NO MEALS FIT FOR A CHILD KILLER?
Sun-Sentinel
October 1, 1995
Author: John Grogan
Estimated printed pages: 2
My pen pal Jessica Schwarz is having a life crisis.
The convicted child killer is settling into her 70-year sentence behind
bars and - wouldn't you know it - there's nowhere to get a decent salad.
No romaine, no sprouts, no crisp endive, no radicchio, not even a decent
crouton.
Geesh! Had she known she'd be giving up her greens, she would have never
drowned her 10-year-old stepson, A.J., in the family swimming pool.
Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
Jailhouse dining, stepmother Jessica has discovered, is no walk through
the cabbage patch. I guess she confused a life behind bars with a life
behind the salad bar.
The reality is starch and fat, starch and fat, day in and day out with
nary a cherry tomato to be had. What's a waistline-conscious prison
mama to do?
What Jessica did was declare a hunger strike last month at the Palm
Beach County Stockade, where she is being held pending her transfer
to a state prison.
Schwarz and eight other women inmates in her cellblock signed a grievance
declaring the cuisine "very much below standard."They vowed
to stop chowing down until jail food lightened up.
Welcome to Cafe Au Bar
"Most meals are full of starches; no salads, ever," the complaint
states. "We are fed worse than your average pet in one of the richest
countys [sic) in Florida."
I was so moved by Jessica's plight, I almost mailed her a week's supply
of Alpo so she could eat as well as any pampered pooch.
But then I figured a dog deserves to eat better than a child killer.
Dogs, after all, don't beat and berate their pups, don't make them eat
cockroaches, don't order them to run naked down the street.
When I think of hunger strikes, I think of Bobby Sands, the Irish nationalist
who, while in a British prison in 1981, refused all food. He lasted
66 days, dropping from 155 pounds to 95 pounds, before he died.
Sands was on the scrawny side when he began the strike. Schwarz, on
the other hand, is an expansive 200 pounds and growing by the day. She
could survive for years on her fat deposits alone.
But it will never come to that. Schwarz and the other inmates began
their hunger strike on Sept. 18. Then they got hungry. Suddenly, that
greasy meatloaf looked pretty tasty.
Putting their stomachs first
As best as sheriff's Maj. Darlene Halstedt, the stockade's commander,
can figure, the strikers skipped one meal before rethinking the wisdom
of starving themselves.
"It's apparently resolved," she said. "Everybody's eating."
The stockade, Halstedt said, contracts with a private food service to
prepare meals. A dietitian monitors the menus for proper nutrition and
a caloric intake that hovers between 2,800 and 3,000 calories a day.
Friday's menu, for instance, included eggs, hash browns and turkey sausage
for breakfast; turkey roll, cheese, coleslaw and pears for lunch; and
a quarter chicken, greens and macaroni and cheese for dinner.
Doesn't sound too bad to me.
"No one's compelled to eat anything they don't want to eat,"
Halstedt said. "We give them plenty of food; they can eat what
they want and throw away the rest."
But why no baby leaf lettuce with a refreshing splash of vinaigrette?
Sorry, epicurean jailbirds. Salads, the major said, are not served because
they quickly wilt on the warm trays.
So Jessica and the other incarcerated veggie lovers will have to settle
for boiled-to-death broccoli. My heart goes out to them.
Personally, I hope Jessica gives the hunger strike a second chance.
A couple months without food could strip off some of that unwanted weight
and do all of us a favor.
The way I see it, a pound less of Jessica Schwarz is a pound in the
right direction.
John Grogan's column appears every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.
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RECORD 427 KIDS TAKEN OUT OF HOMES
The Palm Beach Post
October 31, 1995
BETH REINHARD
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Believing lives were in danger, state officials removed more kids from
their homes in Palm Beach County in the past year than ever before.
From June 1994 to July 1995, the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative
Services took 427 children out of their homes - a 16 percent increase
over the previous year - because officials thought they were abused,
neglected or abandoned.
Among these children are a record number of babies who were shaken so
hard they suffered brain damage.
HRS officials attributed the increase in family breakups to:
A 6 percent rise over the previous year in complaints to the state's
child abuse hot line, (800) 96-ABUSE.
HRS investigators, doctors and technology getting better at detecting
abuse.
Perhaps most important, rising awareness about child abuse, galvanized
by the recent deaths of children whose parents were convicted of murder.
``People are more inclined to report abuse because they worry that the
kid they know about could be the next A.J. Schwarz or Christina Holt,''
said Becky Walker, HRS program operations administrator for children
and families.
Complicating the record numbers are some of the worst cases of abuse
HRS has ever seen: a child whose mouth was taped shut and who developed
cerebral palsy; a shaken baby who grew up retarded; siblings forced
to watch each other have sex with their father.
``It's not just a matter of bumps and bruises anymore,'' said Sandra
Owen, who heads the HRS division of children and families. ``We're looking
at skull fractures, broken bones and burns.''
These severe abuses are leading to more criminal charges. Scott Cupp,
an assistant state attorney who prosecutes crimes against children,
said his jury trials will double this year to about 30.
``It's depressing in the short term, but in the long term, it means
we're breaking the cycle before these kids turn out to be abusers themselves,''
Cupp said. ``The only way to do that is to take them out of their home.''
Once HRS takes a child away from a parent, it must prove ``probable
cause'' of abuse or neglect to a judge within 24 hours. Then the child
is either returned to the home, placed with relatives, or put in foster
care.
Owen said HRS is sheltering the recent wave of abused children by persuading
foster parents to take care of more children and taking advantage of
the 12 new beds at Children's Place South in Boca Raton, a shelter for
kids younger than 6.
``By the time someone leaves, someone else is coming in,'' said Nancy
Lambrecht, executive director of the Children's Place.
While the number of foster homes is down over last year, more abusive
parents are losing their parental rights, allowing more troubled kids
to get adopted. The number of parental terminations increased from 76
in 1993-1994 to about 120 in the past year.
Now, HRS is facing the time of year when it receives the most abuse
reports, triggered by the demands of the school year and holidays on
violent parents.
``It's an anxious time,'' Walker said. ``I worry that we're not going
to have enough places to put all these kids.''
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HEART-STOPPING MOMENTS
Sun-Sentinel
December 31, 1995
JIM Di PAOLA Staff Writer
CRIME
-- The Palm Beach County courthouse was hectic on April 11, when two
juries sent out strong messages about child murders. One jury convicted
Pauline Zile of first-degree murder for watching her daughter, Christina
Holt, 7, being beated to death and then helping in an elaborate cover-up.
Within hours, a second jury convicted Jessica Schwarz of second-degree
murder after members learned Schwarz had a long history of abusing her
stepson, A.J., 10. In 1994, A.J.'s father found his son's beaten and
naked corpse floating in their pool.
Zile was later sentenced to life in prison and Schwarz was sentenced
to 70 years.
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1995: THE YEAR IN QUOTES
Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
December 31, 1995
``The record is replete with testimony that this mother despised her
child.''
- Palm Beach Circuit Judge Karen Martin, convicting Jessica Schwarz
in the 1993 death of her 10-year-old stepson, A.J. Jessica Schwarz was
later sentenced to 40 years in prison.
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