A Maricopa County judge on June 5, 2026, accepted a plea deal that will send Adam Sheafe — the man who confessed to crucifying 76-year-old Pastor William “Bill” Schonemann inside his New River, Arizona home in late April 2025 — to prison for the rest of his life, ending a year of disturbing court appearances in which the defendant openly demanded his own execution.
Under the terms of the agreement, prosecutors with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office will not seek the death penalty against Sheafe, 51, who is representing himself. He is scheduled to be sentenced on August 14, 2026, to natural life in prison after pleading guilty to all charges, including the six felony counts handed down by a grand jury — among them first-degree murder.
Randy Schonemann, the slain pastor’s son, listened to the hearing virtually. He told the court he was “content with the natural life sentence,” a quiet coda to a case that has shocked Arizona and the broader Christian community since the killing.
A Pastor Killed in His Own Bed
Schonemann, the longtime shepherd of New River Bible Chapel, was found dead inside his home in late April 2025 after the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call. Deputies discovered the 76-year-old in his bed, his arms stretched wide and affixed to the wall in what investigators described as a crucifixion-style pose. A crown of thorns had been placed on his head.
Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan, addressing reporters after the killing, called it “probably one of the most bizarre cases [I’ve] ever seen in [my] 40 years with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.”
Sheafe, who had an extensive criminal history that included domestic violence, identity theft and bank fraud, was arrested as he allegedly prepared to kill a second pastor in Sedona. Prosecutors say Schonemann’s murder was meant to be the opening act of a nationwide campaign: Sheafe intended to kill 14 Christian pastors and priests, beginning in Arizona because it was the state where he had been baptized as a child. Investigators recovered multiple crowns of thorns he had fashioned for future victims.
A Defendant Who Demanded Death
Sheafe’s posture in court was, for months, defiant. In a jailhouse interview that became public in June 2025, he confessed in stark terms to the killing and said he felt no remorse. He told investigators he carried out the murder because Christian pastors and priests were misleading their congregations by teaching the New Testament, and that, in his view, declaring Jesus to be God violated the first commandment. Jesus, he said, was a false god.
He described stalking Schonemann before the killing — sitting outside a Wednesday evening Bible study to identify the pastor, following him home, and returning on Sunday to carry out the attack. By March 17, 2026, Sheafe was in open court entering a “no contest” plea and asking for the death penalty, arguing that the crime’s brutality and the victim’s age made capital punishment a foregone conclusion. He told the judge he wanted to move directly to sentencing because he was “not contesting anything.”
In a separate interview, Sheafe went further, saying that if given the chance he would “execute every single priest and burn every church to the ground” and that he wanted the death penalty to prove “you can’t kill God’s son.”
A Family Tragedy Reshapes the Case
The path to the plea deal was not direct. In April 2026, a previously scheduled plea hearing was continued for more than a month after the judge required a competency evaluation — a standard safeguard, given that the matter was being treated as a capital case and Sheafe had insisted on representing himself.
The most consequential shift, however, came from outside the courtroom. In March 2026, Sheafe’s father, Chris Sheafe, and his stepmother were killed in a plane crash. Chris Sheafe had previously told reporters his son had become obsessed with the Old Testament before the murder, and his death appeared to alter Sheafe’s calculations. After the crash, the defendant dropped his push to be executed and emailed prosecutors offering to plead guilty to every charge in exchange for a life sentence.
That offer formed the spine of the deal accepted on June 5. The agreement removes any possibility of execution and forecloses the lengthy capital appeals process that would have followed a death sentence — a process that, given Sheafe’s stated wish to use the trial as a public platform, prosecutors and the victim’s family appeared eager to avoid.
What Comes Next
Sheafe will return to court on August 14 for formal sentencing. Barring an unexpected reversal, he will spend the remainder of his life in an Arizona prison.
For the congregation at New River Bible Chapel, the plea closes the criminal chapter but not the wound. Schonemann was 76 when he died, a pastor killed in the home where he had prepared his sermons, by a man who had watched him minister to his flock before deciding he should die for it. His son’s words — content, not vindicated — captured the muted character of a resolution that spares the family years of appeals but offers no real comfort.
