It was a crime that shocked Plainsboro and nearby towns and also sent shivers through the young community living in the Hunters Glen apartment complex.
In 1985, Irene Schnaps, 37 years old and recently widowed, was found dead in her apartment with more than a dozen blows to the head from a hatchet.
At the time, Plainsboro and the surrounding area were troubled by a series of burglaries, as well as several rapes. Many law enforcement officials believed Nathaniel Harvey was responsible for most of the crimes, and he was convicted two separate times for Schnaps’ grisly murder.
However, Nathaniel Harvey has gotten both verdicts reversed. A 1986 murder conviction was overturned in 1990 after the state Supreme Court ruled police extracted a confession from Harvey without properly informing him of his Miranda rights. He was re-tried and convicted again in 1994.
In the most recent twist, the 1994 conviction, originally a death sentence, was overturned by a state Superior Court judge last month. The judge ruled Harvey received inadequate legal assistance in the early 1990s.
Harvey, 65, will still serve out a 70-year sentence from a separate charge. His 1994 death sentence was reduced to life in prison without parole after the state abolished capital punishment in 2007.
Defense attorneys for Harvey claim DNA evidence connecting Harvey to the murder was flawed, and they have maintained that the real culprit is one of Schnaps’ neighbors, Peter Stohwasser, who died in 2011. In addition, the defense attorneys are building a case connecting Stohwasser with the February, 1984, disappearance of Donna Macho, 19, from the basement of her parents’ East Windsor home. Macho disappeared 16 months before Schnaps’ murder, and her body was discovered in 1995 in a field a mile away from the Schnaps crime scene.
In 2005 The News interviewed Stohwasser, then living in Hightstown, as well as several law enforcement officers involved in the case who were convinced of Harvey’s guilt (May 27, 2005).
After Stohwasser was mentioned in a New York Times article that local police officials say was biased in favor of Harvey, who was then on death row, Stohwasser spoke to The News to clear his name.
“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 Harvey off of death row by involving me, and it’s not fair,” Stohwasser said in 2005. “I want this to go away. I don’t need this, 20 years later, to come up on me all of a sudden.”
In the mid-1980s, the Princeton Meadows neighborhood was a popular spot for young professionals and singles.
Stohwasser and Schnaps both lived in the Hunters Glen development, and Stohwasser, 41 and divorced, told the News he befriended his recently widowed neighbor in the hope of developing a romantic relationship.
The two never dated, and after Schnaps’ murder police obtained a search warrant to investigate Stohwasser’s apartment. A quilt with blood stains was taken from the his apartment, and hairs from the quilt appeared to match Schnaps’ hair.
The Middlesex prosecutor’s office took him in for questioning. According to Harvey’s defense attorney, Stohwasser failed a lie detector test, though test results are not admissible in court. He had also previously served jail time for stalking a girlfriend. However, police dropped Stohwasser as a suspect in large part because of his shoe size: he had size 12 feet while a bloody size-six footprint was found at the scene of the crime.
Schnaps, whose husband had died of cancer six weeks earlier, was killed overnight on Saturday, June 15, 1985, or in the early morning hours the next day. When Schnaps did not show up to work Monday one of her colleagues at RCA Americom, on Research Way, went to Schnaps’ apartment to check up.
Schnaps was found nude in her bedroom, and on the floor was a blood-stained pillow case with a size-six footprint.
Local authorities meanwhile had assembled a special task force in response to a series of burglaries and rapes that terrified residents in Plainsboro, West Windsor, and surrounding communities. Police organized “dragnet” patrols to catch the suspect, described by witnesses as a short, stocky, black male.
They caught a break on October 28, 1985, after a man broke into two homes. He attempted to abduct a 13-year-old girl from her home in Dutch Neck Estates at one residence, but he fled after her parents woke up to their daughter’s screams. The man broke into another home, threatening the homeowner with an axe before fleeing into the woods.
Police canvassed the area and spotted Harvey walking across a soybean field before running into the woods. He was apprehended at Old Trenton Road and Dorchester Drive by a state trooper.
Evidence connecting Harvey to Schnaps’ apartment and several recent burglaries was later found in Harvey’s car. There were items stolen from homes in several recent burglaries, and police also discovered a Seiko watch that originated from Schnaps’ apartment. Harvey also had size-six feet.
At his second trial, DNA from blood samples found on a box spring in Schnaps’ apartment matched genetic traits found in a blood sample taken from Harvey. A divided state Supreme Court upheld Harvey’s conviction in 1997, though one dissenting judge expressed doubts on the DNA testing.
Harvey, then an East Windsor resident, had a lengthy rap sheet. In the 2005 News article, West Windsor police officers characterized Harvey as a brazen home invader, and he had been convicted of sexual assault. When the police questioned Harvey after his arrest, Harvey admitted to burglaries and a recent sexual assault.
In addition, a Plainsboro woman who had been sexually assaulted identified Harvey out of a lineup as the assailant.
Harvey’s wife lived in the Hunters Glen apartment complex, and police claim Harvey confessed to killing Schnaps. Harvey has recanted the confession, and his 1986 conviction was overturned on the grounds that police obtained his confession without properly informing him of his Miranda rights.
According to former West Windsor police lieutenant David Mansue, who was a detective at the time of Harvey’s arrest, Harvey was read his Miranda rights when he was arrested.
Prior to the state’s abolishment of the death penalty in 2007, Harvey had been on death row for 20 years, though New Jersey had not executed anyone since 1963.
