It’s been more than 20 years since 37-year-old Hunters Glen resident Irene Schnaps was found murdered in her blood splattered bedroom by a Princeton Forrestal Center co-worker, but authorities involved in the case remember it to this day.
The arrest and conviction of Nathaniel Harvey in connection with the slaying ended a year-long reign of terror that not only involved the Schnaps killing, but also a series of savage rapes in Mercer and Middlesex counties.
Today Harvey sits on Death Row in the Trenton State Prison, and like most Death Row criminals, he claims to be innocent. Also like many Death Row inmates, Harvey has found himself an attorney—one who is claiming that there’s evidence that supports his client’s claims.
Eric V. Kleiner says that there are flaws in the evidence used to convict Harvey and mistakes in the original defense. While Kleiner’s challenge was rejected last month by the state Superior Court, the Englewood Cliffs-based attorney now plans to take the case to the New Jersey Supreme Court.
While these types of machinations are fairly common in a capital punishment case, Harvey’s appeal has two unusual elements.
Kleiner is pointing an accusing finger at a former neighbor of Schnaps, a man once considered a possible suspect by police but soon ruled out. He implicates Peter Stohwasser, now 61 and living in Hightstown, in the Schnaps case and also in the murder of a young East Windsor woman, who disappeared in 1984 and whose body was found in 1995.
In addition, Harvey’s claims are not just being bandied about in legal papers; they have received banner treatment in the New Jersey section of the May 15 Sunday New York Times.
For Stohwasser, it’s the murder case that won’t go away. In 1985, Stohwasser, then a resident of Hunters Glen, was briefly considered a suspect in Schnaps’ murder. Now, 20 years later, Harvey is again trying to embroil Stohwasser in the crime.
In the mid-1980s, Princeton Meadows in Plainsboro was the place to live for singles and young professionals who wanted be in the middle of an active social scene.
Reveling in this atmosphere was Stohwasser, then a 41-year-old divorcee who was described recently by one law enforcement official as “one of those guys who hung around the pool with gold necklaces trying to pick women up.”
Stohwasser had befriended Schnaps, a neighbor whose husband had died only six weeks earlier of cancer, and says that he was attracted to her. He had hopes of a romantic relationship, but Schnaps told him that she needed time to deal with her husband’s death before becoming involved.
While he waited, hoping for the right time, Stohwasser says he continued to be Schnaps’ friend. “I had people over to my house for barbecues, people from the neighborhood, and I invited her over so she wouldn’t be alone. These were fun people, and I was a fun person. That was how it was at that time.”
But a relationship between the two would never materialize. Soon Schnaps was dead and Stohwasser found himself as the prime suspect.
Schnaps was killed overnight late Saturday, June 15, 1985, or in the early morning hours of the following day. On Monday, one of Schnaps’ colleagues at RCA Americom, on Research Way, went to Schnaps’ apartment after she didn’t show up for work.
Inside was a horrific scene. Schnaps had been bludgeoned to death by at least 15 blows to the head from an axe or a hatchet. She was lying nude in her bloodied bedroom, and a crimson-stained footprint was found on a pillow case on the floor. The footprint would prove to be a key piece of evidence in the case.
Outside her apartment, assembled with other neighbors watching the crime scene, Stohwasser told investigators that he was friendly with Schnaps and at one point said that he thought he might have been the last person to see to her alive.
Soon Stohwasser, who grew up in New York City as the son of European immigrants, found the police knocking on his door. “They came to my house day in and day out for a while.”
On one Saturday, he was hauled down to the Middlesex Prosecutors’ office for the whole day. He was questioned and administered a lie detector test. Years later he would learn that he had failed the test.
Eventually, the police stopped calling. Investigators ultimately dropped Stohwasser as a suspect in large part because the bloody footprint was made by a size six sneaker, and Stohwasser’s foot was size 12.
But as far as Stohwasser was concerned, he was still a suspect – until Nathaniel Harvey came along.
Nathaniel Harvey, a convicted serial burglar, and serial rapist, was convicted twice by two separate juries of Schnaps’ murder.
In an attempt to save his life, Harvey, along with his attorney, has dragged Stohwasser out of his quiet life in obscurity and onto the pages of the New York Times, all but accusing him not only of the Schnaps killing, but of a 1984 unsolved murder.
Originally arrested in West Windsor in connection with a series of burglaries and rapes in Mercer and southern Middlesex counties, Harvey was charged with the Schnaps murder after evidence was found linking him to her killing.
Harvey was the subject of a May 15 article in the New York Times’s New Jersey section, titled, “Fighting For His Life,” that law enforcement officials are criticizing as being too biased in favor of the killer. Harvey is now looking to the state Supreme Court to overturn his conviction.
In the Times article, Kleiner, Harvey’s attorney, claims that he has uncovered new evidence that could clear his client. Kleiner is the public defender appointed to Harvey’s case five years ago.
“A voluble, intense man with a solo practice, he began tugging at other strings, pried thousands more pages of documents from prosecutors, brought in his own experts, and ended up tearing the case apart,” said the Times article, adding that Kleiner is accusing prosecutors of withholding and destroying evidence.
Law enforcement officials respond that Harvey is a vicious criminal, who confessed to the crime, and was twice convicted of the crime.
“Our opinion is unwavering that the right person was convicted,” says Cliff Maurer, Plainsboro director of public safety, who was the police chief when the murder was committed. “What we have is someone sitting in prison with an inordinate amount of time on his hands and looking to work the legal system.”
“Harvey is as guilty as anybody I’ve seen in my 25 years as prosecutor,” says Thomas Kapsak, of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office. Kapsak led the investigation in Harvey’s 1986 trial.
He alleges that the Times left out key pieces of information clarifying Harvey’s guilt in order to fulfill a political agenda. “This is one of those times where the defense lawyer is waging a publicity campaign, and he probably called a friend at the Times, because they hate the death penalty.”
Former and current West Windsor police also say the article seems extremely favorable to Harvey and that the man depicted by the Times is nothing like the so-called “animal” hunted through fields and wooded areas of the township, and eventually captured off of Old Trenton Road.
West Windsor Police Lieutenant David Mansue, a detective at the time of Harvey’s arrest, says that claims Harvey was railroaded are ludicrous. “I don’t think there’s any railroad here. We got the right guy.”
Even after 20 years, officials interviewed by the News vividly remember the Harvey case and the fear his crime spree bred.
“East Windsor, West Windsor, Plainsboro. He terrorized people for over a year,” says a retired West Windsor officer familiar with the case, who asked not to be identified. “This was a bad guy. Doing the kinds of crimes he did, I would certainly say that murder wasn’t beyond his capability.”
“It was literally a seriously nervous time for Plainsboro,” says long-time Mayor Peter Cantu. “There were a number of incidents, including a number of burglaries, a rape, and the murder. People were very very concerned.”
During 1984 and 1985, authorities were becoming increasingly concerned about a series of burglaries in Plainsboro, West Windsor, and the surrounding communities. Even more disturbing were several rapes, which many believed were committed by the same suspect.
Meanwhile, authorities were also working to solve the Schnaps murder and the disappearance of Donna Macho, 19, from the basement of her parents’ East Windsor home in February, 1984. Macho’s blood was found in her room.
“Nathaniel Harvey, that was the big one,” says Barry Hibbs, retired West Windsor Police detective sergeant.
According to Hibbs, by early 1985, law enforcement officials had banded together and were assembling a special task force in an effort to solve the crimes. As part of that initiative, police in the townships stepped up patrols to create a “dragnet” to catch the suspect, described by witnesses as a short, stocky, black male.
The big break in the case came on October 28, 1985 – the day Harvey went on a rampage through southern West Windsor.
“The first call that came in to dispatch was that someone had attempted to abduct a 13-year-old girl from her home in Dutch Neck Estates,” recalls Hibbs. “Apparently, Harvey got this girl, put his hand over her mouth, and got her halfway down the steps. Somehow, she got his hand down and managed to scream. That woke up her parents, and when they came out to see what was going on, he ran off.”
“Harvey’s MO was breaking into homes between 4 and 6 a.m.,” says Hibbs. “For some reason, he liked to go into people’s houses when they were home. In one instance he even sat down at the table and had a beer. He was pretty brazen.”
After fleeing from the home in Dutch Neck Estates, Harvey broke into another house, probably to hide from police, speculates Hibbs. He was confronted by the homeowner. “This guy turns on the light and sees Nate Harvey standing there threatening him with an axe. Harvey turned around, shattered the sliding glass door with the axe and ran off into the woods.”
“He loved axes,” Hibbs adds, pointing out that in one of the rapes Harvey committed, he told the victim he had an axe, even though he was brandishing a knife. Ultimately, it was not lost on law enforcement officials that the murder weapon in the Schnaps killing was believed to be an axe.
A short time later, Hibbs was helping to canvass the area and spotted Harvey walking across a soybean field and then running off into the woods. Police converged, and Harvey was apprehended near the Princeton Arms shopping center at Old Trenton Road and Dorchester Drive by a state trooper.
During questioning, police learned of the extent of Harvey’s one-man crime spree as he admitted to the burglaries and a recent sexual assault.
“Before he killed her (Schnaps), Harvey abducted a girl from East Windsor and brought her to a small abandoned building off Dutch Neck Road and sexually assaulted her,” says Mansue.
“He used to watch girls through their windows at night,” says Hibbs. “In the East Windsor case, the victim went out onto her deck to smoke a cigaret and Harvey grabbed her.”
It is also believed that Harvey was responsible for a heinous sexual assault on a Plainsboro woman. The victim identified Harvey in a lineup, says Hibbs, who was present. “They brought out a lineup of guys, all of them looked similar, and as soon as she saw Harvey, she broke down and became hysterical.” Eventually, she calmed enough to identify Harvey as her assailant.
Authorities decided not to prosecute the case because of the vicious and perverse nature of the attack and the effect that testifying would have had on the victim.
A search of Harvey’s car, found in the Princeton Arms apartment complex on Dorchester Drive in East Windsor, tied him directly to the Schnaps murder. In addition to items stolen from homes in several recent burglaries, police discovered a Seiko watch that was identified as having been stolen from Schnaps’ apartment at the time of the murder.
According to Hibbs, Harvey’s wife lived in the apartment complex. Although it was suspected he was living there, the fact had to be hidden because his wife was receiving state assistance.
Authorities also claim that Harvey admitted to killing Schnaps, a fact that Harvey now disputes.
“He was questioned here (at West Windsor police headquarters) in reference to many different things and ultimately, he gave up the Schnaps murder here,” says Mansue. “He asked to call his father and he was told by father to `do the right thing.’ That’s when he confessed.”
Harvey was convicted in 1986 for the Schnaps killing, but the state Supreme Court overturned the conviction four years later, ruling that police obtained the confession without properly informing him of his Miranda rights. Harvey now claims that his confession was given under duress and immediately recanted.
According to Mansue, Harvey was read his Miranda rights when he was arrested, but there was some question about whether he should have been “mirandized” again after he spoke with his father.
In a second trial, DNA evidence presented by the prosecution showed that genetic traits found in a blood sample taken from Harvey, who is black, also were found in blood samples lifted from stains on a box spring in Schnaps’ apartment. The testing revealed a DNA marker found in only one out of every 1,”400 black men.
Harvey was again convicted and sentenced to death in 1994. Three years later, the conviction and death sentence were upheld by a divided state Supreme Court in 1997. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Alan B. Handler wrote a 64-page analysis of the DNA testing, saying “I have little doubt that when the time comes this case will eventually be reversed by this court or a federal court.”
Kleiner, in the New York Times article, maintains that the blood DNA evidence used in Harvey’s second trial was erroneous and contaminated. He is also demanding DNA testing on other evidence collected in the case that he believes may implicate Stohwasser.
According to the Times, a search warrant was served on Stohwasser shortly after the murder. A quilt that appeared to contain blood stains was taken from his apartment. From his car, investigators confiscated a pair of white work gloves and a metal strip that appeared to have reddish spots on them.
Several days after the murder, police discovered a set of sheets and clothes abandoned in a common laundry room that had been washed but seemed to have red stains. Kleiner is asking that the items be found and tested for DNA evidence. He also wants items taken from the car tested.
According to the Times article, test on the quilt revealed human blood, and had hairs that appeared to match the victim’s. Stohwasser maintains that the stains on the quilt were menstrual blood from another woman he was seeing.
After Harvey’s arrest, the quilt was returned to Stohwasser, and the glove and piece of metal taken from his car tested negative for blood, say prosecutors.
Kleiner claims that his investigations have revealed that the hair from the quilt is now missing, as are bloodstained swatches taken from the article of bedding.
He says he also is suspicious that all of the hair retrieved from the crime scene was originally listed as being Caucasian, with the line “and one Negroid hair” added at a later time. Kleiner told the Times that he has been informed that all the hair evidence, the technicians’ notes, and microfilm are all missing. He says he believes the hair never existed.
Kleiner also tells the Times that he has learned that Stohwasser failed a lie detector test, administered by law enforcement officials, regarding the crime, including the question, “Did you murder Irene?”
He maintains that during the second trial, a witness for the prosecution lied, stating that Stohwasser had passed the lie detector test.
Kleiner also claims that Stohwasser should have been the suspect in the still-unsolved murder Donna Macho, the East Windsor woman who was abducted and killed in 1984, some 16 months before the Schnaps’ slaying. Macho’s body was discovered in 1995 in a field about a mile away from the Schnaps crime scene.
According to Kleiner, Macho and Stohwasser attended classes at Mercer County College during the fall of 1983. The attorney claims that after Macho disappeared, Stohwasser did not attend the spring session classes that he had signed up for.
Stohwasser contends that although he did attend Mercer County College, he did not know Macho.
In April, state Superior Court Judge John F. Malone refused Harvey’s request for a new evidetiary hearing and dismissed his habeas corpus challenge. The case is expected to be heard by the state Supreme Court sometime next year.
Kapsak, still a Middlesex County prosecutor, says he is confident that Harvey was correctly convicted and that Stohwasser had nothing to do with the crime.
“Stohwasser was somebody we looked at, and then eliminated primarily because there was a size six bloody sneaker print on the victim’s pillow, and Stohwasser had a size 12 foot,” says Kapsak, adding that the Times article left out the fact that Harvey wears a size six sneaker.
“There was absolutely no evidence that Stohwasser committed crime. He was one of those guys who drew the attention of police, who are suspicious of everybody in those circumstances. He’s the kind of guy who gets in the way (of an investigation). Just suspicious enough that you can’t clear him.”
Kapsak also says the fact that a suspect fails a lie detector in no way proves the person committed a crime. That’s why the results are inadmissible in court.
“Lie detectors are helpful during the investigation process,” Kapsak says. “They usually eliminate suspects when they pass the test. But when someone flunks a test, then it’s a starting point. It’s a reason to confront a suspect.”
Kapsak says that sometimes innocent people fail lie detector tests. “Some people have guilty consciences for reasons we don’t know about. Or they might be nervous, on medications, or sneaky people.”
“Stohwasser doesn’t deserve to be labeled as a murderer by the New York Times,” says the prosecutor.
Stohwasser laments the situation – one he thought was over and done with two decades ago. “I want this to be gone. I want this to go away. I don’t need this, 20 years later, to come up on me all of a sudden.”
Stohwasser now lives in Hightstown with his second wife, to whom he has been married for 16 years. A kitchen designer at the East Windsor Home Depot, he has also worked at the West Windsor and Hamilton stores.
“I’m honest in what I say and I don’t lie. I’m 61 years old. I have 10 grandchildren – soon to be 11 – and I want to enjoy each one of them. I had nothing to do with her murder, and my wife right now is on my back constantly because of this situation. I think this whole thing stinks. They’re trying to get him (Harvey) off of death row by involving me, and it’s not fair.”
Stohwasser says that his wife calls him a fool for talking to the newspapers, but he is insistent that he fight back against the Times article. “She’s afraid I’m going to say something stupid. I just want wish somebody would report my side of the story. That I was totally innocent. I want to bring out the truth, and I’m not afraid to tell the truth about anything.”
“They (the Times) don’t know what happened,” he says. “They even came into the store and tried to interview me there.”
Stohwasser says that he was just trying to be a friend to Schnaps, with the hope that someday it might develop into something deeper. “I never pushed her. She was a beautiful woman. She was nice. I cared for her, but I never pushed her because I knew what she had gone through with the her husband’s cancer.”
“After her husband died, I tried to make contact with her and help her out,” Stohwasser says. “I even went over to her apartment and hooked up some cable television for her, and helped out with a few other things. I met her mother and her sister.
“I feel deeply sorry for what happened to her,” Stohwasser says. “I even went to the funeral, but I just had to be off by myself, because of what was going on at the time (being a suspect).”
As for the lie detector test, Stohwasser says investigators never even told him that he had failed. He didn’t even know that he had been dropped as a suspect until after Harvey’s arrest.
He says he was at home, listening to the radio, when he heard news updates that police were hunting down a burglary suspect and later, that evidence had been found linking the suspect, Harvey, to the Schnaps murder.
“All the adrenaline in me,” he starts. “It was just like, I was finally able to breathe.”
