The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday affirmed an Aroostook County man’s murder conviction and 55-year sentence in the 2023 shooting death of his live-in girlfriend.
Last year, after a four-day trial in Houlton, an Aroostook County jury found Jayme Schnackenberg, 43, of Monticello guilty of murder. Superior Court Justice Stephen J. Nelson sentenced him to 55 years in prison.
Earlier this year, Schnackenberg appealed his conviction and sentencing, saying the court made errors during his trial and his due process rights were violated. He challenged the court’s exclusion of the victim’s toxicology report, the court’s admission of three photographs depicting the victim’s skull, and the court’s failure to give the jury a proper self-defense instruction. He also challenged the sentence imposed by the court.
A five-justice panel affirmed his conviction and sentence in a Thursday decision.
On the morning of June 16, 2023, Schnackenberg shot Kimberly Hardy twice in the head in their Monticello home and disposed of her body near a logging road in a remote wooded area in The County, according to evidence presented during his trial.
At the time, Schnackenberg said that he did not know where Hardy was when family reported her missing. Throughout days of law enforcement questioning, he maintained that she “packed a bag full of clothes” and “took off.”
Six days later, while searching the woods near Monticello, state police located his truck and two cadaver dogs indicated the presence of human remains. In a search of his Monticello home, police found a disassembled Taurus .40 caliber pistol in a Folgers Coffee can in the midst of construction debris behind the house, and observed reddish-brown stains in the kitchen while collecting samples for analysis, court documents said.
The following day, after a camp owner contacted police, a Maine game warden found Hardy’s body wrapped in trash bags and and hog-tied with a large rope and straps in the woods off Harvey Siding Road about 10 miles from the couple’s home, according to an affidavit from the Maine State Police.
Schnackenberg was arrested July 26, 2023, at his School Street home. A grand jury, in 2024, indicted him with intentionally and knowingly causing Hardy’s 2023 death.
Despite earlier denials, Schnackenberg’s attorney said in court that he shot Hardy in self-defense.
“Jayme Schnackenberg shot and killed Kimberly Hardy, but that is not what this case is about,” Adam Swanson said during the trial. “The fact that Jay shot and killed Kim is not what matters. What matters is whether the state can prove that he did so knowingly or intentionally. The state will be unable to prove the why. Why did Jay shoot Kim?”
The deputy chief medical examiner testified that Hardy died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head. Two black-and-white photographs of the victim’s skull, taken at the autopsy, depicted two entrance wounds in her skull, he said.
A forensic anthropologist testified that a triangular-shaped bone fragment found in the mop recovered from Schnackenberg’s kitchen area matched a bullet defect in Hardy’s skull.
The trial court found that it was an execution-style murder, noting she was facing away from him and he shot her twice in the back of the head at close range.
“This murder was about issues of power and control. [Schnackenberg] simply could not let her leave the home. Instead, he killed her,” Nelson said during sentencing. “Murder is the ultimate act of domestic violence.”
The Supreme Court concluded in a detailed opinion that the trial and sentencing court did not err or abuse its discretion during the trial or in sentencing Schnackenberg.
Schnackenberg remains in the Maine State prison. His earliest possible release date is Sept. 24, 2070.
