Ex-pastor gets 20-40 years in 1st wife's death [View all]
Source: Associated Press
Ex-pastor gets 20-40 years in 1st wife's death
| September 10, 2014 | Updated: September 10, 2014 4:25pm
LEBANON, Pa. (AP) — A former pastor already serving life without parole for bludgeoning his second wife to death in 2008 was sentenced Wednesday to 20 to 40 years in the 1999 death of his first wife.
Arthur "A.B." Schirmer was sentenced in Lebanon County after pleading no contest in June to third-degree murder.
Schirmer, 66, a former Methodist clergyman, had long claimed he was out for a run on April 23, 1999, when he returned home to find the body of 50-year-old Jewel Schirmer, his wife of 31 years, in a pool of blood at the bottom of the basement steps. Although she had suffered a fractured skull as well as injuries to her face, body, arms and legs, the coroner made no determination as to whether her death was an accident or a homicide, and the case was closed.
Authorities reopened the investigation after Schirmer was charged in Monroe County with using a crowbar to kill his second wife, Betty, in 2008, and staging a car accident in an effort to conceal the crime. Schirmer was convicted of first-degree murder in that case and is serving life without parole.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Ex-Pa-pastor-to-be-sentenced-in-1st-wife-s-death-5745979.php
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