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Posts Tagged ‘Paul Schmakeit’

Convict walks, victim doesn’t

Posted in courts, tagged , , , , , on September 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

   Dennis Phillips, seen here before he was attacked and paralyzed during a robbery at his home.

Former Coupeville High School athlete Paul Schmakeit served half his sentence for his role in a home break-in which left the 68-year-old homeowner, Dennis Phillips, permanently paralyzed.

The Washington Statewide Automated Victim Information and Notification Service (VINE) reported Schmakeit was released Friday from custody at the Monroe Corrections Center.

After pleading guilty to second degree residential burglary and assault charges, he was sentenced to 20 months in prison Oct. 28, 2016.

He began his sentence at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton before being transferred to Monroe.

As a young man, Schmakeit played on the 2010 Central Whidbey Little League Juniors baseball team which won a state title.

He went on to play football and baseball at Coupeville High School, graduating in 2013.

Schmakeit and Codie Burley broke into a Greenbank residence July 27, 2015 — allegedly in an attempt to obtain marijuana plants — when Phillips unexpectedly returned and engaged the robbers.

The former Wolf football player tackled the older man, landing on top of him and breaking his back, as detailed in police reports.

Schmakeit fled into the woods and was later arrested while trying to avoid a customs inspection at the Canadian border at Sumas.

He was found in possession of a handgun.

Burley is currently serving time at the Cedar Creek Corrections Center in Thurston County.

Phillips, who was not discovered until six hours after the crime, underwent extensive spinal surgery but remains paralyzed below the waist to this day.

 

To help Phillips and his family, pop over to:

https://www.gofundme.com/3p53prmk

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Guilty plea, jail sentence for former Wolf

Posted in Baseball, tagged , , , , on November 12, 2016| Leave a Comment »

(Shelli Trumbull photo)

   Paul Schmakeit, during his days as a Coupeville High School baseball player. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Paul Schmakeit, a member of the 2010 Central Whidbey Little League juniors baseball team which won a state title, has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for his role in a 2015 burglary which broke the 68-year-old victim’s back and left him paralyzed.

The former athlete, who graduated from Coupeville High School in 2013, plead guilty Sept. 26 to residential burglary and assault in the second degree.

He is currently incarcerated in the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, inmate #394801.

During a burglary of a Greenbank residence July 27, 2015, the homeowner, Dennis Phillips, returned and engaged Schmakeit.

The former Coupeville High School football player tackled the older man, landing on top of him and breaking his back, as detailed in police reports.

Schmakeit fled into the woods and was later arrested while trying to avoid a customs inspection at the Canadian border at Sumas.

He was found in possession of a handgun.

Canadian authorities have not publicly stated whether they will pursue their own charges against Schmakeit.

Phillips, who was not found until five hours after the crime, remains paralyzed.

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Former Wolf faces first-degree charges

Posted in courts, tagged , , , , on August 17, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Paul Schmakeit during his days as a CHS baseball player. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Paul Schmakeit during his days as a CHS baseball player. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Former Coupeville High School athlete Paul Schmakeit has been charged with first degree assault and first degree burglary and could face up to 34 months in prison.

The 2013 grad, who played baseball and football for the Wolves, was charged in Island County Superior Court this week and is being held in jail on $150,000 bail.

The charges stem from a burglary on the South end of the Island July 27 which left the home-owner, 68-year-old Dennis Phillips, paralyzed.

Schmakeit was later arrested at the Sumas border and also faces charges in Canada.

He attempted to avoid a customs inspection and a handgun was found in his car after his arrest by border authorities, according to a detective’s report.

During the Whidbey robbery, Phillips arrived home and surprised Schmakeit, then went after him with a shovel.

A police report states Phillips told detectives that Schmakeit speared him, knocking him to the ground. The two then fought on the ground, with the homeowner biting the younger man’s finger.

Phillips, who suffered from a previous back injury, was not able to move or feel his legs after the attack and was not found until five hours after Schmakeit is alleged to have fled the scene.

Schmakeit has no prior criminal record.

Prosecutors could consider adding “aggravating circumstance” of deliberate cruelty, because of the victim being left paralyzed.

That would allow a judge to increase the sentence above the standard range if a guilty verdict is reached, but the jury would have to approve it.

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I really don’t know what to say…

Posted in Everything changes, tagged , , , , on August 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Paul Schmakeit (4) in happier days. (Chelli Trumbull photo)

Paul Schmakeit (4) in happier days. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Five years ago, give or take a week or two, Paul Schmakeit was on top of the local sports world, part of something truly special.

As he and his teammates on the Central Whidbey Little League Juniors squad celebrated winning a state title — the first and only one ever owned by a Coupeville team — the future was bright.

And it stayed that way for some time, with future wins, personal growth and milestones.

Not all 13 of the Coupeville players on that squad continued to play baseball for all four years at CHS, but all 13 graduated and have begun to go out in the world.

As a group, they remain young men we were all justifiably proud of.

Today, a chunk of that joy has been forever dimmed, as Schmakeit sits in police custody, the central figure in a crime that is shocking in many ways.

The buzz that filtered across the Island is matched almost beat-for-beat in the police report.

Even knowing that, reading today’s article in the Whidbey News-Times (http://www.whidbeynewstimes.com/news/321097001.html), it’s hard to reconcile with the image I have of Paul, which is of an an easy-going, genuinely friendly, super-polite guy who always had a smile.

I realize things change, people change, and sometimes (allegedly) stupid decisions spiral into truly awful outcomes.

Doesn’t make them any easier to accept.

There are no winners, only losers in this story.

Multiple families are shattered, by the events of that day and by the fallout which will continue.

And what can I say?

I hope that the man who is paralyzed wakes up one morning and is able to walk again.

I’ve never met him, as far as I know, but some of his closest friends are people I do know, people for who I have a healthy respect.

I hope that Paul, his family (who I have a great appreciation for) and his friends — the athletes I cover on a daily basis on this blog — find a way through this.

That atonement is made. That lives can be rebuilt.

There is great darkness now, but I want to believe, always, that there is hope.

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