Formal sentencing was done Tuesday on a killer from a 41 year old cold murder case out of Burney. On the night of December 14th, 1984 two teenagers were sitting in a car off Mountain View Road near Burney High School. 18-year-old Terry Arndt and a then-18-year-old female friend whose name will not be made public were talking when they were interrupted by then-23-year-old Roger Neil Schmidt, who shot Terry from behind. Terry used his body to block the woman and protect her from the gunfire. As he lay mortally wounded in the drivers seat, Schmidt ordered the young woman out of the car at gunpoint and made her walk about 50 feet up a hill and remove her clothing. After he sexually assaulted her multiple times he told her to go back to the car. She thought he would kill her but he left. Over the past four decades, 34 different Sheriff’s Department Investigators spent thousands of hours on the case. Last year a new DNA technique identified Schmidt, who had moved to Tuscon, Arizona. Schmidt accepted a plea deal for first degree murder earlier this month that gives him a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He also waived all appeal rights, so he’ll never get out. Terry Arndt’s parents and brothers were at the sentencing hearing Tuesday. One of his brothers and the woman who was sexually assaulted made impact statements before the sentence was passed down.
– Steve Gibson