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Florida woman who killed neighbor, cooked body is sentenced to life in prison

By Rachelle Blidner - New York Daily News

Monday, December 8, 2014

A Florida woman who killed her neighbor, cut him up and cooked his remains will spend the rest of her life behind bars.

Angela Stoldt, 42, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole Friday for the murder of 36-year-old James Sheaffer.

Stoldt and Sheaffer argued over money before Stoldt stabbed her neighbor in the eye with an ice pick and strangled him in a cemetery April 3, 2013.

She wrapped Sheaffer's head in plastic to prevent blood leaking in her car and transported the corpse to her house, prosecutors said.

Stoldt chopped him up in two kiddie pools and threw a leg in the oven and other limbs on the stove in an attempt to cremate the body, police said.

The mother told her daughter, now 16, and her son, now 18, she was disposing of a dead deer. She even recruited her son to help dump the body parts in the trash.

A Volusia County jury spent three hours deliberating and found Stoldt also guilty of abuse of a dead body and tampering with physical evidence.

The Deltona mother shared a bank account with the limo driver, and they frequently fought over money.

Investigators do not know if Stoldt and Sheaffer were involved in a romantic relationship, Assistant State Attorney Heatha Trigones told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Stoldt had a boyfriend in Texas and was separated from her husband.

Stoldt said Sheaffer attacked her and she acted in self-defense.
 

Deltona woman sentenced to life for killing, cutting up, cooking neighbor

By Frank Fernandez - News-journalonline.com

Friday, December 5, 2014

DELAND — A Deltona woman was sentenced Friday to life in prison for killing, cutting up and cooking her neighbor, whose head she boiled in a pot on her stove.

Angela Stoldt, 42, was convicted of killing James Sheaffer, a 36-year-old limo driver who lived across the street from her on Horseshoe Terrace. The jury of eight men and four women deliberated for nearly three hours before finding her guilty of first-degree murder as well as abuse of a dead human body and tampering with physical evidence.

Stoldt showed no emotion as a clerk read “guilty” on the charge of first-degree murder. She still showed no reaction as a bailiff walked over, his handcuffs clicking. The bailiff locked the cuffs on Stoldt’s wrists as guilty verdicts were read for the other charges.

Circuit Judge Randell H. Rowe III sentenced Stoldt to life in prison without parole as required by the charge of first-degree murder. Rowe also sentenced her to 15 years for abusing a dead human body to follow the life sentence and another five years on tampering with physical evidence to follow the body abuse charge.

Rowe praised the jury afterward.

“You’ve performed above and beyond your civic duty,” he said. “I suspect that most of you have never heard anything like what you’ve heard this week and probably hope that you never have to hear it again.”

The macabre case has included Stoldt testifying that she drove Sheaffer to the Osteen Cemetery on April 3, 2013, where she claimed he attacked her as they sat in her car in the dark near an oak tree. She testified she stabbed Sheaffer in the eye with an ice pick and then strangled him in self-defense. In an interview at the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, she said after Sheaffer was dead she stabbed him in the other eye but she denied that during her testimony at trial. She also denied saying to a family member that she had spiked Sheaffer’s vodka with Flexeril, a muscle relaxant she took from her dying father.

After the killing, Stoldt said she became scared of being arrested and her two kids losing their mother, so she drove Sheaffer’s body to her house where she used a hacksaw to cut him up. Then she said she tried to cook his limbs in a failed effort to cremate him.

She testified she had to pull the ice pick out of his head so it would fit in a pot to boil. Afterward she told her daughter and son, now 16 and 18 years old respectively, that she had hit a deer and then they got in her car and drove around Volusia County disposing of Sheaffer’s body parts as far east as New Smyrna Beach.

Stoldt had agreed in October 2012 to be the payee on Sheaffer’s Social Security disability benefits, which at the start were $1,230.

Stoldt would receive $100. But Sheaffer overdrew that first month and kept overdrawing it. Assistant State Attorney Heatha Trigones said that investigators don’t know if there was any romantic relationship between Stoldt and Sheaffer. Stoldt was separated from her husband and had a boyfriend in Texas.

The jury got the case about lunchtime Friday and started deliberations over pepperoni and cheese pizza. Just over two hours into deliberations, jurors asked that the testimony from Stoldt’s sister, April Leach, be reread to them. Leach testified that her sister told her that she had gotten behind Sheaffer and strangled him. After the testimony was reread, jurors returned the guilty verdict in about eight minutes.

Two jurors who declined to give their names said afterward that three jurors could not agree on premeditation for first-degree murder. But after more discussion only one holdout remained that did not believe there was a case for premeditation. That’s when they asked for the sister’s testimony to be reread. After that, everyone agreed on first-degree murder.

Stoldt, dressed in black pants and a blue, sparkly blouse, sat next to her attorney and showed no emotion, occasionally looking toward the jurors during closing arguments.

Trigones said Stoldt’s claims that she killed Sheaffer in self-defense don’t hold up. Trigones pointed to Stoldt buying rubber gloves and plastic wrap at Wal-Mart a few hours before she killed Sheaffer. After killing Sheaffer, Stoldt wrapped his head in plastic wrap so he wouldn’t bleed in her car.

Trigones, who prosecuted the case along with Assistant State Attorney Ryan Will, also said Stoldt told her daughter that she spiked Sheaffer’s drink. Stoldt told her sister that Sheaffer was out of it when she killed him. Trigones then described how Stoldt cut up Sheaffer.

“She’s dismembering and cooking him; she’s cutting his head off; she’s cutting his torso in three sections,” Trigones said.

Trigones also brought up Stoldt’s aversion to touching fish.

“I use the ice pick to stab the fish, so that I don’t have to touch it because that’s gross because I don’t like touching fish,” Trigones said, recalling Stoldt’s comments. “Really? She doesn’t like touching fish, but she manages to dismember a 285-pound human man … and cook him and then clean him and then put him into trash bags.”

Assistant Public Defender Jim Valerino said he was conceding that Stoldt was guilty of abusing a dead human body and evidence-tampering. But he said there was no evidence to support the first-degree murder charge.

No witnesses had information about the circumstances around Sheaffer’s death, Valerino said, except for Stoldt’s daughter and sister.

But Valerino said the daughter and sister were going by memory, which is unreliable particularly in such an emotional situation.

Valerino also said that besides the gloves and plastic wrap, she also bought milk, Mountain Dew, jelly beans, potato chips and other items.

“The state is trying to spin innocently going to the store and buying products into evidence of first-degree premeditated murder,” Valerino said.

The trial conjured imagery right out of a horror movie.

“She’s cooking him,” Trigones said. “She’s boiling him and baking him and it actually gets a little too much smoke and the odor; she doesn’t realize it was going to be that bad.”
 

Mother, 42, on trial for stabbing her neighbor through the eye with an ice pick and COOKING his remains on her stove sentenced to life in prison

• Angela Stoldt, 42, confessed to killing limo driver James Sheaffer, 36, in April 2013 by stabbing him in the face and strangling him with a cord

• She then dismembered the slain man with a hacksaw and knife and tried to dispose of remains by cooking some of them in pots and in the oven

• She showed no remorse as she was sentenced Friday to life in prison

• Stoldt's lawyer claimed in September that she killed Sheaffer in self-defense because he attacked her and threatened to kill her

• The prosecution said it was premeditated and followed a money dispute

• Only 56 of Sheaffer's 206 bones were recovered

• Police never found his head or torso

• Stoldt's sister turned her into police after she became suicidal

By Joel Christie and Snejana Farberov for MailOnline

December 6, 2014

A Florida mom convicted of cooking her neighbor after stabbing, strangling and dismembering him following an apparent money has been sentenced to life in prison.

Angela Stoldt, 42, will now die behind behind bars after being sentenced in Volusia County on Friday, but showed no remorse as the decision was handed down.

Authorities say Stoldt tried to cremate 36-year-old James Sheaffer's body in April 2013 by putting several body parts in an oven and in pots on the stove, including a foot, a leg and both arms.

When that didn't work, she put his body parts in bags and had her teenage children help her scatter them in different places near their home in Deltona, telling them she was trying to dispose of a deer she had hit with the car.

The prosecution say Stoldt drugged her neighbor Sheaffer before driving him to Osteen Cemetery in Deltona, stabbing him in both eyes with an ice pick, and choking him with a cord.

In September, Stold's attorney filed a motion claiming self defense under Florida's controversial 'stand your ground' law, but Judge Randell Rowe III rejected the motion.

Court documents obtained by Daytona News-Journal previously showed Sheaffer, a married father of three, had asked Stoldt to act as the payee on his Social Security disability benefits, but he kept overdrawing their joint account.

He also wanted Stoldt to ask her father for a $4,000 loan.

Stoldt relied on their financial relationship for money, but the two were platonic.

On the morning of April 3, 2013, Stoldt, with her two children in tow, picked up her neighbor from his work at Blue Diamond Limousines and drove to her home on Horseshoe Terrace, where the two drank vodka and peach schnapps cocktails.

But according to court filings, the mother of two spiked her neighbor's beverage with a prescription pain medication, which she had stolen from her father knowing that it causes drowsiness, especially when mixed with alcohol.

While Stoldt had previously claimed Sheaffer 'came at her and said that he was going to kill Ms. Stoldt as well as her children', according to her strand-your-ground, Prosecutor Ryan Will told the jury she had planned to kill Sheaffer all along.

She reached to the backseat for the ice pick and stabbed Sheaffer in the right eye.

She then grabbed a cord with two handles and used it to strangle Sheaffer by wrapping it tightly around his neck, Will said.

After the man stopped moving, the mother grabbed the ice pick again and drove it through Sheaffer's left eye.

She then wrapped the man's head in Saran Wrap to keep him from bleeding all over the car interior.

The News-Journal reported that Stoldt had bought the plastic, as well as rubber gloves, from Wal-Mart just hours before the killing.

She then drove home, with Sheaffer's corpse propped up in the passenger seat, the ice pick still protruding from his face.

Will said Stoldt then drove to her home and parked in the garage, where she cut up Sheaffer's body using a knife and a saw.

She then moved the body parts one by one into her kitchen.

'She took him into the house piece by piece. ... The very same house she shares with her two teenage children and she cooked him in her oven and stove. She started with the oven but when the smoke and smell became unbearable she realized that she might get caught,' Will told the court.

Thats when Stoldt allegedly began boiling some parts on the stove.

Sheaffer's head and torso were not found, testified Dr. Marie Herrmann, the medical examiner for Volusia County.

However a soup pot was recovered that contained Sheaffer's thigh bone, knee cap and some soft tissue, Hermann testified.

Stoldt dumped other mutilated body parts in trash bags and disposed of them with the help of her teenage son, who was led to believe that they were getting rid of a deer his mother had killed with her car the night before.

To cover up the murder, Miss Stoldt then buried her neighbor's cellphone and driver’s license in different parks, and got rid of the pots and pans used to boil human flesh.

When Stoldt's daughter, who is now 16 years old, asked her about the foul smell lingering in the house, the 42-year-old woman initially lied that a rat had gotten trapped inside the oven.

But she eventually came clean to the girl, telling her that she had drugged and killed James Sheaffer after he threatened to kill her.

However, it was not until three weeks later that Angela Stoldt confessed to the rest of her family, prompting her sister to call 911 on April 21 because she was afraid the distraught, sleep-deprived woman might commit suicide.

In the course of her questioning, Miss Stoldt spoke without hesitation of her attempts to dispose of her neighbor's corpse.

'Thursday is when I was cooking him. Friday is when I was dumping him,' she was quoted as saying.

The woman showed little remorse for her actions, telling police she believed at the time Sheaffer was going to ruin her life.

‘I’m sorry, but I put Jimmie where he belonged, in my opinion at the time,’ she told detectives.

Ms Stoldt eventually led sheriff's deputies to various locations around Volusia County to help recover James Sheaffer's remains, but officials said they were never able to locate all of Sheaffer's body parts.

Investigators who canvassed Sheaffer’s Deltona neighborhood looking for the missing man before Stoldt’s confession had talked to the woman on more than one occasion. She acknowledged being friends with Sheaffer and said she handled some of his financial affairs for him.

She told investigators that she last saw Sheaffer on April 5 and 15, even though family members hadn’t seen him since April 2.

The investigation took a turn April 20 when Stoldt’s sister called 911 saying that the mother of two was acting suicidal and had admitted to killing James Sheaffer.

The caller told the Sheriff’s office that Stoldt was hugging her children and saying goodbye.

‘Why’s she hugging her kids goodbye?’ the emergency dispatcher asked. ‘Because she came to the house and she told my parents that she committed a crime and that she’s being investigated for it,’ the woman’s sister replied.

Ms Stoldt initially declined to talk to investigators and was taken in for a mental health evaluation. But officials were able to obtain a search warrant to enter her house, where they came upon evidence indicating a crime had been committed there.

A short time later, Angela Stoldt confessed to stabbing and strangling Sheaffer, and then disposing of his body. Stoldt then led investigators to a location where human remains were recovered.

Ms Stoldt is being held without bail.
 

Suspect tells jury she boiled Deltona neighbor’s head

By Frank Fernandez - News-journalonline.com

Thursday, December 4, 2014

DELAND — Angela Stoldt testified at her murder trial Thursday that she killed her neighbor in self-defense and then boiled his head in a pot on her stove in an attempt to cremate him.

Her attorney, Assistant Public Defender Jim Valerino, asked Stoldt what she did with the ice pick she had plunged into James Sheaffer’s right eye as he sat in her car last year at the Osteen Cemetery.

“I had to take it out, because it wouldn’t fit in the pot,” said Stoldt, squinting her eyes.

Stoldt, 42, is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Sheaffer, 36, on April 3, 2013. She is also charged with abuse of a dead human body and tampering with physical evidence.

The jury of nine men and five women is expected to begin deliberations today after closing arguments in the courtroom of Circuit Judge Randell H. Rowe III.

Stoldt had agreed to be the payee on Sheaffer’s Social Security benefit check. She received a $100 cut from each check, which were initially $1,230. But Sheaffer kept overdrawing the account and by the time of his death, Stoldt testified he owed her more than $300. She said Sheaffer also was asking her to borrow $2,000 to $4,000 from her dying father so he could use the money to pay his family’s rent and avoid eviction.

Sheaffer, his girlfriend and their four children lived across the street from Stoldt and her two children on Horseshoe Terrace in Deltona. Stoldt was separated from her husband who did not live in the house.

Stoldt took the stand Thursday with a pair of glasses perched on top of her long brown hair. Dressed in black, she would occasionally turn toward the jurors, her face at times contorting at a recollection, her voice quavering.

She said she killed Sheaffer in self-defense and that she didn’t realize what her rights were at the moment or she would have reported it to police immediately, but she was afraid that her two children, a 16-year-old daughter and an 18-year-old son, would lose their mother.

She said she tried to preserve the evidence for police in case it was needed by placing some of it in plastic bags, like Sheaffer’s driver’s license, which she buried in a park. She later led police to that site.

But much of the evidence she did not preserve.

Sheaffer’s head has never been found. Only 56 of the former limo driver’s 206 bones were located. Stoldt said she used a hacksaw to cut up Sheaffer’s body and then, after unsuccessfully trying to cremate his limbs, she packed him in trash bags and disposed of them around the county, tossing some in a garbage bin on the east side of Volusia County behind some restaurants on State Road 44.

Prosecutors Heatha Trigones and Ryan Will have argued that she spiked Sheaffer’s alcoholic drink with Flexeril, a muscle relaxant which enhances the effects of alcohol.

But during questioning by Valerino, Stoldt disputed that. She said Sheaffer knew the Flexeril was in the drink, which they shared. She said she drank one-third and he drank two-thirds.

Prosecutors said she drove Sheaffer to the Osteen Cemetery to get him in a secluded spot to kill him. But she testified that she just wanted to get him away from her two children. She said she knew Sheaffer would be angry when she told him that she was going to cut off his ability to withdraw money from the account.

Valerino asked her if she drove Sheaffer to the cemetery to kill him.

“Absolutely not,” Stoldt said, shaking her head and glancing toward the jury.

She said Sheaffer became angry, grabbed her right shoulder and started coming at her as they sat inside the car.

“He was telling me he was going to kill me and kill my kid and that we were not going to be missed because we were pretty much loners and the kids were home-schooled,” Stoldt said.

She said she reached into a box of camping gear in the back seat and pulled out what she thought was a screwdriver, but it turned out to be an ice pick. She plunged it into Sheaffer’s right eye but he kept coming. She reached into the box again and grabbed a tree climbing device, an electrical cord with plastic handles, and strangled him with it.

Valerino asked her how she did that.

“I just did it, wrapped it around his neck,” Stoldt said, and she raised her right arm in the air and made a swirling motion with her hand. “I’m not exactly sure how I did what I did but I was trying to stay alive.”

In a police interview after her arrest, Stoldt told Volusia County Sheriff’s Office investigator A.J. Pagliari that after strangling Sheaffer she took the pick out of Sheaffer’s right eye and stuck it in his left eye, according to the video tape of the interview played for the jury Thursday.

But on the stand, Stoldt said she didn’t think she had actually stabbed Sheaffer in the left eye.

“I don’t think I did because when I got home the ice pick was still in his right eye,” she said.

She said after the killing her nightmares were blending with reality, distorting her recollection.

She drove home with Sheaffer’s body in the passenger seat, a pick protruding from an eye, a cord wrapped around his neck and his entire head encased in plastic wrap.

Prosecutor Trigones pointed out during cross examination how Stoldt had changed her story. Trigones said Stoldt had lied to investigators who stopped by her house to ask about Sheaffer’s whereabouts.

“While you’re lying to them, Mr. Sheaffer is cooking in your kitchen,” Trigones said. “His body is cooking in your kitchen, right?”

“I had already turned off the stove,” Stoldt said.
 

'I put Jimmie where he belonged': Florida woman confessing to killing neighbor, cooking body to get rid of evidence

Angela Stoldt said she stabbed and choked James Sheaffer out of self-defense, and then tried to get rid of the body by boiling and baking it. When her kooky cooking method failed to make the remains disappear, she tossed the body in a dumpster, she said. She even got her son to help in the disposal by telling him she was throwing out a dead deer.

By Meg Wagner - New York Daily News

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

A Florida woman claimed she killed her neighbor, cut his body up and the tried to get rid of the parts by boiling and baking them.

Angela Stoldt confessed to murdering 36-year-old James Sheaffer in April 2013, according to newly filed court documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.

The 42-year-old mom from Deltona was arrested shortly after the alleged killing, but her charges were upgraded last week from second- to first-degree murder when a grand jury heard her confession.

When her cooking method failed to get failed of the evidence, she tossed his remains in a dumpster, she told deputies. She even got her son to help in the disposal by telling him she was throwing out a dead deer.

"Thursday is when I was cooking him," Stoldt told investigators. "Friday is when I was dumping him."

She claimed she killed the limo driver because he ruined her life, although investigators would not detail their relationship.

"I'm sorry, but I put Jimmie where he belonged, in my opinion at the time," she told deputies, according to the documents.

Prosecutors said the saga started on April 3, 2013, when Stoldt and Sheaffer met at her house to discuss finances.

They shared a bank account ― although police have not said why ― and frequently overdrew funds, she told investigators.

While at the house, she mixed him a cocktail of vodka and prescription muscle relaxers to make him sleepy and confused, she said.

Then, she drove him to a nearby cemetery where they kept arguing about money. When he asked for a $4,000 loan from Stoldt’s dad, he became aggressive and threatened to kill her if she didn’t cough up the funds, she said.

"He starts coming at me and … he didn't even really hit me, but he scared ... me and I just snapped," she said. " He came at me and I stabbed him."

She claimed she attacked him out of self-defense.

She grabbed an ice pick from her car and dug it into Sheaffer’s eye. Then, she strangled him with a rope, police said.

She dragged the body back to her house and devised a plan to get rid of it.

First, Stoldt hacked the body apart and separated the limbs into two kiddie pools in her garage. Then she started cooking the parts. She put a leg in the oven and other limbs into pots on the stove, she said.

Her daughter complained of the smell of burning skin, she said, but Stoldt reassured the girl it was only a rail broiling in the oven.

But the charred and boiled remains still looked like evidence, she said.

That’s when she put the pieces in trash bags and trashed them in a dumpster. She even got her son to help by telling him she needed to get rid of a deer’s corpse, she said.

She spent the next few days destroying more evidence: she buried his cellphone and threw out the pots and pans she used in her kooky cooking plot.

Three weeks after the killing, she confessed her crimes to her family ― and her sister turned her in, police said.

Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. If convicted, Stoldt will likely be sentenced to life in prison.
 

Deltona woman dismembered neighbor, cooked remains, records show

By Melanie Dostis - OrlandoSentinel.com

November 17, 2014

Angela Stoldt told officials she took a hacksaw to her neighbor's body last year and tried to cook away evidence of James Sheaffer.

One leg went in the oven. Other parts went into pots.

Stoldt's house in Deltona smelled of burning flesh, but she assured her daughter it was just a rat broiling in the oven, according to details made public last week after a grand jury charged her with first-degree murder.

"Thursday is when I was cooking him," Stoldt told investigators. "Friday is when I was dumping him."

The 42-year-old Deltona woman is accused of killing Sheaffer, 36, a limousine driver, in April 2013.

Court documents filed last week detail for the first time her alleged confession and attempts to make his body vanish. According to the documents, cooking didn't work. She allegedly ended up putting the remains into trash bags and dropping them into dumpsters in New Smyrna Beach.

Last week, a grand jury listened to those alleged details and upgraded the charges against Stoldt to first-degree murder. She previously was charged with second-degree murder.

Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty, said Spencer Hathaway, a spokesman for the State Attorney's Office.

That means life will be the likely sentence if she's convicted.

The case started April 3 of last year when the neighbors met at Stoldt's house to discuss money problems. Stoldt served Sheaffer a cocktail of vodka and peach schnapps, laced with her father's prescription drugs. The muscle relaxer made him drowsy and confused.

Earlier, Sheaffer had asked Stoldt for a $4,000 loan from her father.

He had repeatedly overdrawn funds from a joint account the neighbors shared. Stoldt told officials she was responsible for dealing with Sheaffer's Social Security disability check, according to the incident report.

Detectives wouldn't say why Stoldt was handling Sheaffer's financial affairs or describe their relationship.

Stoldt claimed self defense — an argument a judge denied.

She took Sheaffer to Osteen Cemetery, where the duo fought.

He swung his arms around and yelled as he threatened to kill her if she denied him the loan, Stoldt told deputies.

"He starts coming at me and … he didn't even really hit me, but he scared ... me and I just snapped," she said. " He came at me and I stabbed him."

She took an ice pick from her backseat and plunged it into one of Sheaffer's eyes. That didn't keep him away though, she said, so she took a cord and strangled him.

She pierced him in the other eye moments after his last breath.

At first, Stoldt placed the body in a baby pool in her garage. She began to cut into it the next day, placing the torso in one pool and other body parts in a second pool.

Her plan was to cook and burn the body, but that didn't eliminate all the evidence, records show.

So she turned to her unsuspecting son, telling him she had the rotting corpse of a deer that she needed to discard. They disposed of the bags in dumpsters behind a New Smyrna Beach fish house.

"I'm sorry, but I put Jimmie where he belonged, in my opinion at the time," she told deputies.

She referred to him negatively in her confession, saying he ruined her life.

Over the next few days, Stoldt continued to hide evidence, burying Sheaffer's cellphone and his driver license in parks, throwing the pots and pans in dumpsters and tossing the rug from her car into a lake.

Sheaffer, 36, had been missing since April 3 when he returned from driving a client to Tampa, deputies said.

He never showed up for his next job. Stoldt originally told investigators she hadn't seen her neighbor in awhile.

Three weeks after the death, Stoldt showed up suicidal at her parents' house confessing to the killing, records allege.

It was Stoldt's sister who called authorities and led investigators to further question Stoldt.

Her sister said Stoldt was saying goodbye to her children and described her as distraught, sleep deprived and "out of her mind" that night.

Stoldt is being held without bail at the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach.

She is also charged with tampering with physical evidence and with abuse of a dead body.

In September, Stoldt's attorney filed a motion claiming self defense under the state's "stand your ground" law, but Judge Randell Rowe III rejected the motion, citing "unreasonable actions" for someone acting in self-defense.