Dunwoody Verdict: Hemy Neuman Found Guilty
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Dunwoody Police Dept(DECATUR, Ga.) — A jury has found Hemy Neuman, the defendant in the Dunwoody day care murder trial, guilty in the killing of Georgia father and entrepreneur Rusty Schneiderman.
The official verdict read by the jury’s tearful forewoman was “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt but mentally ill.” Neuman was also found guilty of possession of a gun during a felony murder.
Neuman was accused of gunning down Schneiderman, 36, in the parking lot outside Schneiderman’s son’s suburban Atlanta nursery school. Schneiderman was married to Andrea Schneiderman, who had once been Neuman’s employee at GE Energy.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers alleged that Andrea Schneiderman had an affair with Neuman, 48, and played a role in her husband’s death in November 2010. Schneiderman has denied having a romantic relationship with Neuman. She has not been charged with any crime but has hired two attorneys.
The jury had been deliberating since Monday, when prosecutors and the defense presented their closing arguments.
Experts for the defense testified that Neuman was legally insane. Dr. Adriana Flores, a forensic psychologist, said last week that Neuman had suffered undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder with psychosis since his early teens. She said Neuman experienced delusions, and had erotomania, meaning that he thought he was having an affair with Andrea Schneiderman, the wife of victim Rusty Schneiderman.
During the trial, Neuman’s attorneys said that he was visited by an angel whose voice sounded like that of singer Olivia Newton-John and a demon whose voice was similar to singer Barry White’s. While the demon encouraged Neuman to commit suicide, the angel told Neuman that Rusty Schneiderman’s children were his and that he needed to protect them by killing Rusty Schneiderman, his attorneys said.
But state psychiatrist Pamela Crawford said she believed Neuman was faking his symptoms.
“His discussion of [the demons] was inconsistent,” Crawford testified. “At one point he says, ‘I know they are not real,’ then later says, ‘I just want the demons to go away.’ He’s not even consistent in the same interview.”
The prosecution argued that Neuman could decipher the difference between right and wrong. “The defendant is serving up an insanity sandwich and he’s been serving it up since 2010 and he wants you to eat it,” District Attorney Robert James told the jury.
James called Rusty Schneiderman a good man and a good husband.
“He did not deserve this. Rusty deserved to be alive. A wife that honored him. To see his children grow up, not to be shot down in the street like a stray dog,” he said.
Watch the full story on ABC’s 20/20 Friday at 10 p.m. ET.
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