Frank Schilt pleaded guilty today to second-degree murder in the death last year of his wife, Teresa “Terri” Schilt. Her body was dumped in a trash bin but hasn’t been recovered, despite extensive searches of area landfills.
Under the plea agreement, the 54-year-old Schilt will be sentenced to a term of between 32 and 48 years at a hearing in August.
Previous court testimony showed that Schilt claimed to have killed his wife at their Denver home after she wagged her finger in his face when he confessed he had depleted her inheritance and the couple’s life-savings.
Asked by Denver District Judge John Madden whether he had caused the death of Terri Schilt, Schilt quietly said, “Yes.”
Speaking for the family, daughter Amy Schilt said they supported the plea bargain, which resulted in the dismissal of charges of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.
“It would be better for everyone if we could move on with our lives,” Amy Schilt said.
She described herself as feeling “conflicted” about her father. “On my good days, he is still my dad,” she said. On bad days, she wants nothing to do with him.
Amy Schilt, 24, added that her mother was a “Betty Crocker mom” who supported herself as a Mary Kay cosmetics representative.
Terri Schilt also worked part-time at Emily Griffith Opportunity School.
Her disappearance was first reported by Denver Public Schools to police on March 21, 2006, after she failed to report to work for three weeks. Police also were told that Schilt’s younger daughter, Melody Schilt, had missed a week of school at John F. Kennedy High School. When she returned, Melody told the staff that her mother had become ill while in Chicago and that she and her father had gone there to find Terri Schilt.
Prosecutor David Lamb claimed that Frank Schilt concocted a series of stories to hide the murder and to throw police off track. Lamb also claimed that Frank Schilt tried to kill Melody by pumping exhaust from a family vehicle into her bedroom.
Deme Trujillo, Schilt’s lawyer, had argued that Terri Schilt’s death was an accident, saying that Schilt had never been violent toward his wife, two daughters or son.
Schilt, in interviews in Arkansas, where authorities had tracked him, he told Denver detectives that after his wife wagged her finger in his face, he grabbed her arm, fell against her and she hit her head twice on a bed headboard, killing her.
But Lamb said the story defied common sense. He said blood-spatter evidence showed that when Terri Schilt died, her head was 17 inches from the headboard and that there was nothing on the headboard to indicate that she had hit her head.
Hundreds of officers, firefighters and volunteers – some from as far away as Tennessee – spent 87 days searching a landfill in Keenesburg and 18 days searching another landfill in Arapahoe County.
Lamb praised the volunteers and their efforts.
“It was a disappointment we couldn’t find Terri’s body,” the prosecutor said.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
