BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. — The woman accused of murdering her ex-boyfriend, who was a Longmont postal worker, in October 2021 has been found guilty.
The jury instruction and deliberation in the murder trial of Devan Rebecca Schreiner, 27, started on Monday afternoon after the prosecution and defense rested their cases.
The trial began on Feb. 27. On Tuesday, the jury returned with the verdict. They had found Schreiner guilty of first-degree murder.
The judge immediately sentenced Schreiner to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The shooting happened around 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 13, 2021 at a row of neighborhood mailboxes at Heatherhill Street and Renaissance Drive.
That afternoon, Longmont Police Deputy Chief Jeff Satur said the suspect had approached the postal worker and shot him several times before fleeing the scene. Video from the scene indicated four shots were fired, according to an affidavit.
Initially, police were not able to locate the suspect. By 10:30 p.m. that evening, the police department confirmed they had arrested Schreiner, who was 26 at the time.
The victim was identified on Oct. 15, 2021 as Jason Schaefer, 33, of Longmont. The Boulder County coroner said he had a gunshot wound to his face.
Authorities learned that Schreiner had been his ex-girlfriend. She also worked for the U.S. Postal Service in Longmont, but had been fired about two weeks prior because of “an incident,” according to the affidavit. She then started working for the USPS in Loveland.
According to the affidavit, Schreiner was working the day of the shooting. GPS tracking of her and her postal vehicle done by the USPS showed the device pinging at an address in Loveland from between 11:06 a.m. and 1:28 p.m., and analysis by a postal inspector showed that her device did not move between those times before it started again and returned to the Loveland post office around 4:30 p.m.
Schriener called Longmont police from her home in Fort Collins around 5:30 p.m. the day after the shooting and spoke with detectives, though her statements were redacted in the affidavit. Detectives found items inside her vehicle that matched the description of the shooting suspect who was seen by a witness running from the scene.
Court documents showed Schaefer was in the midst of a custody battle with Schreiner over their 5-year-old child when he was killed.
The arrest affidavit showed that Schreiner was not giving Schaefer her new address, was changing pickup times and locations, and stated the child had been injured several times and exposed to COVID-19 during Schreiner’s time with the child. A custody document, filed by an attorney for Schaefer, claimed Schreiner was refusing to co-parent the child, was not communicating about taking the child out of therapy and would not enroll the child in kindergarten. Schaefer’s attorney asked the court to give Schaefer the majority of the parenting time and sole decision-making responsibilities. Court records also show prior divorce and custody cases involving the two.
On Oct. 19, 2021, Schreiner was formally charged with first-degree murder after deliberation.
The following day, a second person was arrested in connection to the killing.
Andrew James "AJ" Ritchie, 34, was arrested by the Longmont Police Services and the US Postal Inspection Service. According to his arrest affidavit, he was working at the Federal Correctional Institution at Littleton at the time of his arrest.
Schreiner had threatened Schaefer previously, saying that Ritchie would shoot him, the affidavit says, and the police and Postal Inspector investigation uncovered that Ritchie tracked Schaefer along his mail route the morning he was killed.
When Ritchie was interviewed on the day of the shooting by a postal inspector, he claimed he had not spoken to Schreiner all day despite her GPS tracker for work pinging at his home in Loveland.
He admitted to lying on Oct. 19 when he was confronted by officers at work. The affidavit said Ritchie followed Schaefer along his mail route before the shooting occurred, and Ritchie spoke with Schreiner throughout the day of the murder, according to phone records.
Investigators believe Ritchie and Schreiner were in a relationship, which Ritchie initially denied.
Ritchie was also charged with first-degree murder after deliberation.
His next court date is scheduled for May 30 for a status hearing. His trial is expected to start on Sept. 18, 2023, though it has been continued several times.
