A judge has sentenced Adam Sheafe to life in prison for killing Pastor Bill Schonemann, 76, in a crucifixion-style attack inside Schonemann’s New River, Arizona, home in April 2025.
Sheafe, 52, who represented himself, additionally received a 35-year sentence and two separate 25-year sentences on attempted murder charges Friday, with all sentences ordered to run consecutively, Arizona’s Family reported.
That outcome followed a plea deal accepted in June that took capital punishment off the table. Sheafe had confessed to the killing and told investigators he intended to kill a dozen-plus additional religious leaders, saying he believed Christian leaders were leading their congregations astray by teaching that Jesus is equal to God, as CP previously reported.
Schonemann, who was known to his congregation at New River Bible Chapel as “Pastor Bill,” had his arms outstretched with his hands pinned to a wall, a posture the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said resembled crucifixion. He turned up dead and bloodied in his bed on April 28, 2025.
Sheafe said in a jailhouse interview that he drove from Phoenix to Schonemann’s house on a Sunday, killed him and put thorns around his head, a reference to the crown of thorns in Christian tradition. He said he wanted to target only pastors he accused of leading their congregations astray, and at one point expressed a desire to “execute every single priest and burn every church to the ground.”
Thirteen more Christian leaders were on his list, Sheafe said, naming states including Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Alabama and Texas.
Sheafe traveled to Sedona after the killing, planning to kill two more people, and was arrested two days later after a manhunt spanning the state.
Records filed with the court say that on the following day, April 29, 2025, he tried to burglarize a home below the Chapel of the Holy Cross, then fled after stealing a car in Cave Creek and striking another woman’s car during the chase.
Investigators later located him sorting through boxes inside a garage and camped out at a remote site before he fled into the national forest. He was caught once he returned to the city.
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office investigators tied Sheafe to the case through evidence from Schonemann’s home, the earlier burglary, his backpack and a stolen truck, and had linked him to the killing before his Sedona arrest while he was already under investigation for other crimes, including by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Prosecutors had charged Sheafe with one count of first-degree murder along with first-degree burglary, second-degree burglary, kidnapping, theft of means of transportation, second-degree criminal trespass and three counts of attempted first-degree murder.
He sought to plead guilty at a March hearing and pushed the court for an immediate death sentence, saying a quick resolution would let the families find closure, but the judge turned him down. An earlier attempt to enter a no-contest plea was also rejected by prosecutors.
He also told investigators he wanted the death penalty on the spot, saying at one point, “I want the death sentence. I’ll plead guilty right now, on the spot. … And I want the execution date right now,” according to KTAR. When a correspondent later told Sheafe he would likely spend the rest of his life in prison, he responded, “That’s what you think. … You can’t kill God’s son.”
Sheafe’s position changed after a single-engine plane crash in Marana on April 8 killed his father, Chris Sheafe, and his stepmother. Sheafe emailed prosecutors afterward, offering to plead guilty to every charge in return for a life sentence rather than execution, and formally requested the change of plea at an April 24 court hearing.
At Friday’s sentencing, Sheafe spoke to the court and to Schonemann’s relatives, asking for forgiveness and saying his method of delivering what he called his message had been severely flawed.
Sheafe said the pastor had done nothing to him personally, and that he was truly sorry. He credited prosecutors with agreeing to the plea deal.
Randy Schonemann spoke without looking at or speaking to Sheafe. He said he had stood in his father’s room, seen the blood and helped wash the house, and had found direction only through prayer and consoling others grieving alongside him, thanking his family, friends and congregation for their support.
Before his death, Chris Sheafe said Adam had struggled for years with substance abuse and had become “obsessed” with the Old Testament, and had gotten a neck tattoo of the name Yahweh to signal what he considered his direct relation to God.
Sheafe’s criminal record in Arizona and Nevada dates to 1999.
Court records show that in 2013 he restrained a woman by choking her, and he later served three years in Nevada custody on stolen-property and burglary counts. He also faced charges over nearly $500,000 taken from two banks through fraudulent use of stolen credit card numbers, and he left prison in September 2023.
He had previously lived in Oceanside, California, and worked at a restaurant in Carlsbad, and he sued a trading platform and later filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2024 after losing more than $40,000.
