A Man On Trial for a Pastor’s Murder Says the Crime Was Part of a Larger Plot

In the spring of 2025, William Schonemann, the 76-year-old pastor of a chapel north of Phoenix, had exciting plans. He was to meet his son to fly the Miss Montana, a World War II-era cargo plane they had helped restore, and continue a restoration project on another plane.

But it would not come to pass. On April 28, 2025, Schonemann, known locally as “Pastor Bill,” was found dead in his home in New River, Ariz. His body was laid with arms outstretched as if he was crucified.

Days later in the Arizona town of Sedona, roughly 80 miles north of New River, a manhunt was launched in search of a burglary suspect. It ended with the arrest of Adam Christopher Sheafe, a man from California with a criminal record of domestic violence and theft.

By June, police had announced that the two cases were linked: Sheafe had confessed to killing the pastor in his home, the first of 14 planned murders. 

In the same month, Sheafe shared with local media his plan and motive. Sporting a neck tattoo of the Hebrew spelling of Yahweh, an ancient name for the biblical God, Sheafe told journalists he was baptized in Phoenix and raised a Christian, but he believed only in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ, he said, was a “son of Satan worshiped as God.”

“The son of God sacrificing his son is utter BS,” he told 12 News.

Sheafe decided he would kill 14 Christian leaders in 10 states, beginning and ending in Arizona, saying they would represent “the 13 tribes of Israel” plus Adam. Much of Sheafe’s plot was improvised, as he had not identified anyone in particular before setting off on his killing spree attempt. He began following different religious leaders, looking for someone who lived alone. He eventually landed on Schonemann.

A grand jury indicted Sheafe on nine charges, including murder and burglary. Sheafe pleaded guilty to all of them and asked to be put on death row, apparently uninterested in his right to trial. He is representing himself in his case.

“Is there any way that we could speed up this process?" he asked a judge in March.

Defendants have requested capital punishment before. In 2008, Marco Allen Chapman was executed in Kentucky for the stabbing of a mother and her three children, killing two of them. Chapman had waived his right to a jury trial in favor of the death penalty. However, the state’s Department of Public Advocacy appealed the ruling first, arguing that the decision was permitting “suicide by court.”

The appeals court allowed the death sentence to stand, concluding that Kentucky prosecutors secured the death penalty not because of Chapman’s request, but because the punishment fit the crime.

The wishes of the victim, the court ruled, “should play no part in the penalty determination.”

The death penalty is legal in Arizona, where 110 people sit on death row. However, judges have sentenced people to death at a declining rate over the years, and in 2023 Gov. Katie Hobbs paused all executions while the state conducted a review of its death penalty protocols. That pause ended in 2025.

Sheafe could be eligible for the death penalty because of the aggravating circumstances of the crime: His victim was over the age of 70, and a jury could decide the killing was “especially heinous, cruel or depraved.”

On April 8, Sheafe’s father and stepmother, Chris and Jacque Sheafe, were killed in a plane crash. Prosecutors have since received a plea offer requesting that Sheafe receive a life sentence, which they believe is connected to their deaths. The judge overseeing the case has given prosecutors until June to review the new offer.

Schonemann’s family put out a statement sympathizing with the Sheafe family while also expressing their disappointment with its impact on the criminal case.

“We obviously feel let down with another pause in the criminal case,” they wrote in a statement to ABC15. 

Before his death, Chris had told reporters that he loved his son, even if he didn’t agree with his behavior. 

“At this point I just want closure for everyone,” Sheafe told reporters about his life sentence plea.