Murder and Rape Suspect Identified in long unsolved lovers lane rape and murder case
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Terry Arndt was a well-liked teenager at Burney Junior-Senior High school in Burney, California.
He played football, ran track, and enjoyed socializing with his fellow students. He was quiet and reserved and loved animals. He was considered an all-round nice guy.
In a school essay, Terry wrote: "In five years I hope I'll be close to getting married. That will depend on if I have a steady job. So, in five years I will hopefully be starting my career. What that career will be is impossible to say."
His father, Keith, an avid hunter, and sports enthusiast, would often give his sons pep talks before games and hype them up, playing Led Zeppelin songs pre-game.
The eighteen-year-old drove a Ford Mustang that was mostly parked in his family’s garage since he couldn’t afford insurance. It was for this reason that when he wanted to go out, he would borrow his parents car.
On the night of December 14, 1984, Terry left his parents’ house at around 8pm to pick up a girl for a first date. He later returned home briefly at around 9:20pm to pick up some cash for gas in what would be the last time his parents would ever see him alive.
Arndt and his date drove to an old railroad grade near Mountain View Road - the area was known as a Lovers Lane. On that night, it wasn't as private as they had hoped; a car had passed by them, so they drove a little further in, to a more secluded area.
The car passing by wasn't a one-off, however, as the same vehicle drove past, back and forth, multiple times.
At one point, the driver flicked a cigarette out of the window, so close that it hit Arndt's car. Neither of them recognized the man.
It was not long after, that the glass on Arndt ’s side of the car shattered as a bullet passed through it, hitting him in the head.
A gun had been fired at him point-blank through the glass.
He attempted to shield his date for harm, but was sexually assaulted multiple times while he sat gravely injured in the driver’s seat.
The killer then fled the scene of the crime as snow began fall lightly on the ground.
It was 11:25pm by the time the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office were alerted to the shooting by the California Highway Patrol. When they arrived, they found the fatally wounded Terry Arndt and his date at the intersection of Main Street and Marquette Street in Burney, eastern Shasta County.
The girl had driven the vehicle away from the scene in search of help.
Arndt was rushed to the nearby Mercy Medical Center in Redding for treatment, however tragically died on the way.
Since it had started to snow that night, the vehicle tracks left behind by the killer could not be documented, and the route the assailant had taken out of the area was unknown, as there were several roads that lead away from the scene of the crime.
The following day, detectives talked to over 1,000 people at the high school basketball tournament, but did not collect any useful information about the potential identity of the killer.
The female victim described her attacker and a composite sketch was made and circulated, but no suspects were identified in the case until 1995, when a 42-year-old felon, Thomas Elmer Brewster, was arrested by the Shasta County Sheriff's Office. Brewster, who had a violent past, was accused of the murder and rape, and spent two years in jail before going to trial in 1997.
Ultimately, DNA from the victim and crime scene did not match that of Brewster's, and he was exonerated.
The DNA was found on female victim's blouse, which detectives investigating the scene had collected and preserved, but not tested.
Media outlets report that dried semen stains on the blouse had not been noticed due to the similarities in color. It was only years later, they said, that the forensic evidence was visible to the naked eye.
It was Brewster's lawyers that discovered the blouse in evidence and had it tested to prove their client was not the killer.
DNA samples collected from Arndt 's companion were submitted to Othram in The Woodlands, Texas and a DNA profile was created for the killer, leading to relatives. Through interviews and investigation police were finally able to identify the killer: 64-year-old Roger Neil Schmidt of Tucson, Arizona.
Schmidt, who is still living, was born in Shasta County, California, and was 23 years old at the time of the rape, and murder.
Detectives from the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit, travelled to Tucson and worked alongside the Tucson Police Department to obtain a DNA from Schmidt to submit to a lab. The sample was compared to that collected from the female victim from the night of the crime and was determined to be a match.
Roger Neil Schmidt, Sr. was arrested July 19, 2025. After being interviewed by detectives he was booked into the Pima County Jail.