Murder victim’s mother finds verdict ‘slap in the face’

Stacia Schnoor’s stomach dropped when she heard the first verdict: Not guilty of second-degree intentional murder.

“I barely even heard the rest of it after that,” she said of last week’s outcome in the trial against Jason Horner.

He was accused of killing Schnoor’s 25-year-old daughter, Sabrina Schnoor, on May 29, 2023.

Though Horner was convicted of five other counts – second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter, first-degree manslaughter and possession of a firearm by an ineligible person – the second-degree intentional count “was the one we needed him convicted on,” Stacia Schnoor said.

Trial reactions

She is grateful for the testimony of Kailee Willert, whose home Horner visited the day after he killed Sabrina.

“She helped the investigators, at the detriment to herself and her family,” Schnoor said.

She thought the prosecutors in the case “did a very good job, considering how much the judge tied their hands.”

The suggestion posed by the defense attorneys that her daughter should have asked for help on the night she was killed was an indication of Sabrina Schnoor’s past – and made her an easy target.

“After years of abusive conditioning and name-calling,” some of which was heard during the testimony about Horner’s messages to Sabrina, that simply wasn’t an option for her.

“And I still don’t understand how a jury can come to the conclusion that you put the barrel of a gun in somebody’s mouth and pull the trigger and you don’t intend to kill her?” Schnoor said of the acquittal on the intentional murder count.

“What did you think was going to happen?” she asked.

“As a mother, sitting there every day in court, seeing pictures of your daughter’s face blown apart, I mean, that’s just soul-crushing,” Schnoor said, “but I owed it to her to be there every day, through every bit of it. I owed it to her.”

She continues to process the outcome.

“To have it end like that was just … it just feels wrong,” she said. “I mean, honestly, no sentence would have been enough, but at least finding him guilty of (intentional murder) would have given us a feeling of accomplishment, like we got some justice for her, but this wasn’t justice. This is a slap in the face.”

Sentencing

In Minnesota, sentencing is guided by a grid that uses a criminal history score, or points, and the severity level of the offense. Where the two factors meet on the grid determines a sentencing range.

Horner has two criminal history points on his record.

“The reason why he’s only got two points against him is because of all the plea deals and dropped charges in the past,” Schnoor said. “If even one of them had been charged, prosecuted and convicted,” it would have enhanced the penalty phase.

Horner will be sentenced Dec. 22; the sentencing guidelines recommend a term of 153 to 216 months.

“That’s only if the judge sentences him to the max,” Schnoor said, “which I doubt he’s going to do.”

State law allows defendants to be eligible for release after serving two-thirds of their sentence. Two-thirds of Horner’s maximum sentence is just shy of 12 years; credit for the two years he’s already served while awaiting trial brings it down to 10.

A bottom-of-the-box sentence would bring that time to just over six years to serve.

No part of the trial outcome feels like a win, she said.

“This was just another little slap on the wrist for him, like he has always gotten.”

Rulings questioned

“This is another reason why we need prosecutors to step up and start prosecuting these abuse cases and these violent crimes,” Schnoor said.

She took exception with the amount of evidence that was ruled inadmissible, including Horner’s alleged text messages to – and about – her daughter, threatening her.

Only a few messages were allowed into evidence, including one profanity-laced text in which Horner said he was “gonna cut her tongue out her skull.”

Serenity Schnoor, Sabrina’s sister, wrote online that “… the reality is this: there are roughly 1,500 pages of messages from the 24-48 hours before Sabrina’s death, between Jason, Sabrina, and others.”

The messages, she said, “show exactly what was happening in the hours leading up to her murder – her fear, his threats, his escalating violence – and yet all of this was BARRED from showing to the jury. Meanwhile, a handful of far less damning statements pulled from the exact same message threads were allowed in.”

Changes needed

“This could have been prevented,” Stacia Schnoor said, “and my daughter isn’t the only one. The sentencing guidelines need to be changed. Prosecutors need to start prosecuting; they need to start doing their damn jobs.”

Given Horner’s criminal history, “he’d have been sitting in prison a long time ago,” she said, “if all those charges hadn’t been dropped or reduced, due to plea agreements.”

She’s been told part of the reason for plea deals is to save taxpayer dollars.

“Well, you know what? I’m a taxpayer, and I’m happy for my money to go pay for a trial that locks these people up,” Schnoor said. “Most of the time, they make the agreements without even giving the victim a choice. What if the victim is willing to risk it all, for a chance at real justice?”

It’s not just prosecutors and sentences, though.

“We need a different system completely,” Schnoor said. “We need rehabilitation homes – similar to a prison, but more for people who actually seem like they could be rehabilitated.”

It could include free education and other opportunities, “but prison should be a prison,” she said. “We need to start separating those who can be rehabilitated and those who can’t – and focus on the ones that can, instead of wasting taxpayer money on the ones that can’t.”

That leads to another change: “Get rid of the revolving door in the courthouse – the same people constantly getting arrested and arrested and arrested, just to walk back out and do the same thing,” Schnoor said.

A path forward

“I’m hoping people will start to take a look at our court system and do what it takes to fix it,” she said, while admitting that before this case, she knew little about how the court system works.

“When people go to vote, they need to stop looking at left and right, Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal,” Schnoor advised. “Get that out of your head. Stop looking at the sides, and start looking at the individuals you’re voting for, and what their stances are on crime, especially violent crime – and fixing this very, very broken system.”

That goes for county attorneys and judges as well, she said.

“We need to look at all of them that are in a position to make change.”

For her part, Schnoor will continue – and ramp up – her work with the Sabrina Lee Foundation for Domestic Abuse Victims, a nonprofit she founded to raise awareness of changes needed to keep victims safe.

She believes it’s already helping.

“I think … I think Sabrina is proud,” Schnoor said. “I think she’s proud of the ones that took a look at what happened to her, and used it as the reason to leave. I hope she’s looking down and just watching over everybody.

“My greatest hope is that once she got up there, all those insecurities and all those self-doubts and all that self-loathing that she had – I hope that all went away.”