Law&Crime Sidebar - New Girlfriend Killed in Love Triangle Murder-for-Hire Plot: Cops

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Portia Rowland was gunned down in the driveway of her Illinois home this month, just days before her 33rd birthday. Portia had been dating a woman named Sarah Shafer, who was in the process of divorcing her husband. Police say Sammy Shafer Jr. hired two men to kill Portia. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber takes a look at the charges and the alleged confessions police got from the suspects with Illinois attorney Patrick Provenzale.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lcsidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. During this investigation, the Major K-Squot investigators standing behind me served over 30 search warrants, followed up over 200 leads. A massive investigation into the murder of a woman in her own driveway just before her birthday has led to the swift arrest of three people. And investigators in Collinsville, Illinois, say it's all connected to an apparent love triangle and a murder for hire plot. Welcome to Sidebarter. Presented by law and crime, I'm Jesse Weber. On January 21st, out in Collinsville, Illinois, this is a small city outside

near the border with Missouri. Police responded to a home at around six in the morning to find 32-year-old Porsche Roland in her driveway with multiple gunshot wounds. Authorities say she had been warming up her car on that very cold morning. And here is what we know about Porsche's life at this time. So she was a mechanic for the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, was dating a woman named Sarah Schaefer. The last names are important here because Sarah told the St. Louis Post Dispatch that she was living with Porsche, planning to marry her.

She also said that they were preparing their home so Sarah's three children could move in. but here's what's key. Sarah was in the process of divorcing her husband, Sammy Schaefer, Jr., who she'd reportedly been separated from for two years. Now, police are investigating whether this new relationship was the possible motive for Schaefer allegedly hiring two men and paying them $10,000 to kill Portia. So now you're seeing the full complete story here, because Schaefer, let's talk about him, operates a business with his father in another small town, Pontoon Beach. It's called S. Schaefer Excavating and Demolition, does work all over the region, according to their Facebook page. But police say that Schaefer hired one of his employees, 33-year-old Marty Shaw, to kill Portia.

And Shaw, in turn, allegedly recruited his cousin, 45-year-old Gary Johnson, to help him. So State's attorney Tom Hane actually spoke about this case at a news conference this week. We believe the evidence at trial will show that this was not a random act of violence, but rather this was a calculated and cold-hearted murder for hire scheme based on a personal grievance. As charged, we believe the facts at trial will show that Gary Johnson from East St. Louis shot and killed Portia, that Marty Shaw from Collinsville was an accomplice to that killing and was the driver for Gary Johnson.

And Sammy Schaefer from Caseyville solicited and encouraged the killing. All right. So to talk about this, I want to welcome on Illinois trial attorney Patrick Provenzal to the show. Patrick, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. You got a love triangle, a murder for hire plot. Unfortunately, whenever I see these cases, it's almost like out of a movie.

But these are the cases I always feel that if true, if the allegations are true, the goal is for someone to hire other people so it can never come back to them. And yet, and we'll go through this, it almost feels like it leads the, the biggest trail of breadcrumbs back to the main suspect, right? Yeah, so first, Jesse, thanks so much for having me today. I'm glad to be on and talk about this case. What a tragedy for the families of Ms. Roland and Ms. Schaefer and her kids and all their friends and family.

My heart goes out to them. This is, as you said, what appears to be classic love triangle type situation where the ex-husband or the estranged husband may have. solicited some other individuals to unfortunately take Ms. Rollins' life. Yeah, and let me amplify that a little bit because investigators say that Schaefer offered Shaw $10,000 to kill Portia, who was shot the very next morning. Shaw allegedly drove Johnson to the scene. So police release photos of who they say is Johnson dressed in black, pointing a gun

outside of the home, and they say both Shaw and Johnson admitted to what they'd done. Now, Patrick, before we go any further on this, do we typically see that in these kinds of cases, the accomplices or alleged accomplices, you know, confessing or maybe agreeing to turn on the ringleader, again, assuming these allegations are true. They are not at this point. But do we typically see that in these cases? It is, it's fairly common because in order to, in order for the police to know and the prosecutors to know who's ultimately culpable if someone has.

solicited or ordered that murder, they would have to have the people actually carried out the crime tell on them and explain why they did what they did. It creates a raft of problems for prosecutors and proof because you really have the most unreliable people as your prime witness. In this case, you've got Mr. Johnson who pulled the gun, Mr. Shaw who drove him as being the ones who are pointing the finger at Sammy Schaefer Jr. as the one who ordered it. And, you know, if those things are true, there would be some criminal liability for that. I mean, that explains the charges that they have of not only first-degree murder, but solicitation for murder for hire.

But it's almost necessary if you're going to get anyone else to be held accountable for the murder who wasn't there and who didn't pull the trigger or wasn't the getaway driver to be sent to prison for that kind of thing. If you don't have that, the only other exceptions would be if you had some, some sort of like recordings of someone saying something, right? Like again, over here or an eavesdrop or something, which is the only other real compelling way to prove those cases. By the way, we wanted to know a little bit more about Sammy Schaefer, Jr., the alleged mastermind of this plot and his criminal history.

So we went on Truthfinder, the powerful background checker to do a little bit of digging. And we were able to confirm that back in 2008, Schaefer was charged by the Conservation Commission of the state of Missouri for, quote, unlawfully operating in all. terrain vehicle within a stream or river. He ended up pleading guilty, paid a $50 fine, and in 2015, he reportedly had another traffic citation, but we weren't able to independently confirm that one. But big picture here, law and crime, we partner, we truth finder. We use it to get details on the people involved in all of our stories. But even if you don't work in true crime, this just can be a great resource to give you some peace of mind. After all, it's one of the largest

public record search services in the United States. And with the paid subscription service, you can get access to unlimited reports about almost anyone. So if you're interested right now, you can get 50% off of your first month of confidential background reports. Just go to truthfinder.com slash LC sidebar. By the way, I just have to say, you can never put money, you know, a price in someone's life. But $10,000, what is that numerical value? Again, if this allegation is true, what does that tell you? Well, it presents some proof problems for the prosecutor, right?

because it questions the believability of someone who said that they would accept $10,000 and the risk that comes with killing someone as if that's enough money to do it. Depends on how desperate these folks were, all those things would come into play. But I think if I understood the facts on this, it looks like the $10,000 wasn't paid until after the murder had happened. If I read the information on this case correctly, which again presents problems for the prosecutor, if the money wasn't paid up front or if the money's paid after the fact, it gives the Tammy Schaefer Jr.'s lawyers some room to argue about what he was paying for. What did he really expect to happen and whether or not the alleged confessions of Mr. Johnson

and Mr. Shaw are really that credible given all those circumstances. So let me lay out a little bit. Here's how the petition to keep Schaefer behind bars because it has some more information on it. Here's how it lays it all out. quote, driver confessed to being hired by defendant to kill victim. Driver then contact Shooter, and they go to victim's residence. Shooter waits outside for victim to come out and then shoot victim. Think about just how cold and callous this is.

Shooter then runs to where driver is waiting. They then drive to Shooter's residence where Shooter changes his clothes and they go to the casino. Driver also admits to then seeing defendant the next day and being paid $10,000 for the murder. Driver took 3,500, gave 6,500 to Shooter. Shooter also admitted to being hired by Driver's boss, defendant to do a murder, and to shooting victim. So, Patrick, there are elements of this that are, you know, clandestine, right? Don't want to lead it back up to the main parties. There's also an element of complete sloppiness here, right?

I mean, out of all places to gun someone down right outside their home, you know that there's surveillance. it seems that there is a quite a trail leading back to them. And again, they haven't been proven guilty. But again, go back to my original point, it seems so many times in these cases, even though there is planning and there could be, and there's potentially payment, that leads a big trail of breadcrumbs. The evidence is really sloppy. It seems that the crime is very sloppy.

I would agree with that up to a point because what you have are convenient explanations or excuses of the people who took out the crime. And I'm speaking from the perspective of if I was the lawyer defending Mr. Schaefer, there's question as to the credibility that Shaw or Johnson have of saying that Schaefer is the one who solicited them. Because the only evidence that it sounds like is out there pointing the finger at these two individuals being solicited or requested to do this is the statement of one of these, the alleged statement of one of these individuals that he was hired to do it. And of course, it's convenient. for anyone who's caught, if they're so sloppy as to leave such a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to them

that they would try to excuse or get out of their own criminal conduct by flipping or ratting out someone else as a way to bargain their way out of trouble. So these cases are difficult from prosecutor's standpoints to prove, notwithstanding they have a strong case against, it sounds like a strong case against both Shaw and Johnson, to prove against the person whom they claim solicited them or hired them because that connection is full of credibility problems, of self-interest that these two individuals would have to try to pin it on someone else and gain something for themselves to be witnesses against Sammy Schaefer Jr. at trial and then in exchange for that cooperation by themselves some leniency for the horrific crimes that they

apparently committed. Going back to the evidence, though, you know, the witnesses near that home, they told police, they heard screams, they was followed by three gunshots, neighbors called police, they found Portia in the driveway. And talking about the charges, the men are all charged with two counts of first-degree murder. And this is interesting because the description of the charges gives a kind of a small distinction between the two counts. So the first count reads, said defendant, or a person for whom he is legally accountable, without lawful justification, and by means of discharging a firearm with the intent to kill Portia Rowland, shot Porsche Roland, thereby causing the death of Porsche Roland.

The second count as the same wording, but it adds, knowing such act created a strong probability of death to Porsche Roland. Why do you have the change there, Patrick, if you know? Sure. Well, it echoes back to what I was just saying, which is the challenge in these cases to prove when you have inherently unbelievable witnesses who have a great self-interest to try and go upstream with respect to the responsibility, to point it at Mr. Schaefer as the one who allegedly, hired them or solicited them to do this horrific act. Because the prosecutors start with, of course,

the uphill battle of both a presumption of innocence and a burden of proof that's beyond a reasonable doubt. So when they have what is likely to be questionable witnesses who have questionable credibility and they have a difficult road ahead of them to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and to overcome the presumption of innocence, they really have to approach it in a very wide and generous proof a pattern. So the first count is an allegation of murder with the intent to kill. And intent to kill is a very specific intent. And to prove that, you really have to show that someone knew that the conduct that they were engaging in or that they were accountable for another to engage in was going to cause someone's death. The knowingly or the probability language in the second count is sort of that

easier proof because you don't have to prove this specific intent to kill, just that you had some knowledge ahead of time that it was probable that whatever you hired or accountable for these people to do was going to lead to the death of someone else. And so a prosecutor who's looking at these cases is going to charge it in both ways to make sure that they can secure the conviction they need to so these families can have justice. And I will also say Schaefer's also charged with two counts of solicitation for murder of for hire. So in one count, Schaefer is accused of encouraging Marty Shaw to commit the offense. The other says he requests. arrested Marty Shaw to commit the offense. And Marty Shaw, who police say it was the getaway driver,

not the shooter. He's charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Gary Johnson, the alleged hitman here, the shooter, alleged shooter charged with two counts, first-degree murder, and one count of a felon in possession of a weapon. Police found a nine-millimeter handgun when they arrested Johnson. And by the way, talking about a felon, he got out of prison, Johnson, on another murder charge just a few years ago. According to court records, Johnson was charged with first-degree murder back in 1998 out in Illinois. First Alert 4 reports that Johnson beat another man to death with a concrete block, then burned his body. He entered a guilty plea in 2000, was given a 40-year sentence, but he was released with supervision in 2017. Discharged from that in 2020. Patrick, first I'll

ask you, failure of the system here? I mean, again, of you assuming if he's responsible for Porsche's death. And B, again, in these cases, if someone hires somebody else to commit a murder, these are the kind of people that you're getting, right? You're getting people with a criminal history. Right. So first, failure of the system, I don't know anyone would disagree how someone who engaged in something so horrific and terrible, like as described Mr. Johnson allegedly did back in 1997 or 1998, would be out within 20 years on a 40-year sentence. I know back at that time, I was a young prosecutor, there was truth and sentencing requirements in Illinois law that could have required him to serve 85% of the sentence.

So I'm a little confused as to how he could have gotten out on day for day, which is really sort of the half calculation of a full sentence. Big head scratcher there, it doesn't make sense to me, but I imagine there's some explanation for it in the records. But no surprise, like you said, I mean, where do you go to find someone to commit an act like this, well, you go to someone who's killed before. And I'll tell you, this is the best piece of evidence that I think the prosecutors have in this case to rebut any argument that Mr. Schaefer's lawyers are going to throw out that he didn't know or really didn't anticipate that either

one of these individuals were going to do something that would cause the death of his estranged wife because who else do you hire to do something like this than a convicted killer? I was going to ask you, how do you defend this? If you're any of the defense attorney for any of these defendants, because I'll also add this. Investigators say they used cameras, license plate readers, to track down Shaw and Johnson, led them back to Schaefer. You see all the points being connected. How do you defend any of these defendants?

What would be a defense? Well, the defense is going to look at what it, so it depends on which one, right? So for Mr. Schaefer, his defense is going to be quite a bit of a law school question because there are so many different legal issues and factual issues related to what he's charged with. argument against him for murder, of course, is not that he pulled the gun or that he was the driver to get away, but that he's accountable for the individuals who did that. So accountability theories are fairly generous in Illinois in terms of what the jury's instructed on when someone's accountable. Maybe

the viewers would recognize the phrase aiding and abetting. That's the sort of common understanding of accountability liability. But instructing, directing, those kinds of things that are very similar to the solicitation charge are enough, where there's enough evidence to establish his intent to be part of that scheme. And that would get them there. But the defense is going to be to attack the credibility of Sean Johnson directly with their claim that they were hired by Mr. Schaefer. You've got, like you said earlier, the question of $10,000, how can anyone's life be valued at that? And if someone's paying someone else to kill someone, especially someone apparently owns a big company, maybe he has enough money to hire someone who's not as sloppy that he would actually do that. And you have

the self-interest of these individuals to try and pin it on someone else to buy themselves out of trouble or at least to mitigate the amount of punishment or penalty that they're going to receive because you can expect if the allegations and the indictment and what's being reported are true these guys don't might have much of a chance to defend the case right they're effectively caught leaving running away from the scene on cameras witnesses and in their own confessions and if that's true then they need a way out and prosecutors often talk in cases with the you know this kind of a mob case, right? You're going after the top coppo to hold him accountable for the murders of the soldiers. The argument prosecutors make is, you know, when you're going after the

devil, you have to go through hell to get him. And so you have to explain why these are your witnesses that are making your case against the person who ultimately ordered it. This echoes back again, I think, to the challenge of the defense in this case. If you're going to get in a murder for hire plot, if you want to prove the intent of Mr. Schaefer to show that he wanted his estranged wife killed, you just show he hired a killer to do it or ultimately a killer was hired. It's going to be a tough defense, but I think it's going to be a tough prosecution, too, because there's inherent questions about people's credibility and self-interest when you have flippers or people like that. Prosecutors will always say, and they say it to juries,

look, we don't get to choose our witnesses. We're given who we have. And so they kind of warn the jury about that. By the way, Schaefer's attorney, Scott Rosenblum, asked the judge for a continuance that was granted. He said he wanted more time to look at the evidence before a hearing on pretrial detention. Schaefer's next hearing scheduled for February 5th. For now, he's going to be locked up. Rosenblum also told local affiliate Fox 2 that Schaefer's parents are being completely supportive of their son during this. As for Johnson, he waived his detention hearing, so he's going to remain behind bars. His preliminary hearing is set for February 7th. Shaw was arrested, by the way, in St. Louis County. He's going to be extradited to Madison County, Illinois.

to face the charges. Patrick, I wanted to ask you real quick about bail in Illinois. So cash bail, my understanding, eliminated in 2023 under the Pretrial Fairness Act. Talk to us about that. Talk us how to affect something, a case like this. So what we now call the Safety Act in Illinois, that pretrial Fairness Act did eliminate cash bail. So we now have a cashless bail system in Illinois. The presumption is that individuals will be released without bail pending trial. with certain restrictions or appropriate conditions on their release given the nature of the offense. Prosecutors do have the opportunity to ask for pretrial detention based upon a certain criteria in the new law, one of those being that the person continues to pose a threat to the community.

That's certainly something that the prosecutor in Madison County is going to argue in this case, if they haven't already in filings, to seek the pretrial detention of all these individuals, including the man, obviously one who's consented to his detention, but the one who's being extradited as well as Mr. Schaefer. And I wouldn't be surprised if the judge, given the severity and the nature of the crime here, granted that motion for detention. And let me just put a little bow on this. So let me tell you where we're currently at as opposed to just the defendants. The major case squad of Greater St. Louis, they handled the investigation up into this point. They said they're going to be handing it back over to the Collinsville Police. And I want you to take a look at this.

This was a horrific act of violence, truly shocking, and has left and will continue to leave a real mark on our community and, of course, on their lives. And in our prosecution of the case, our goal is to send a clear message to those who would conspire to commit murder, conspire to bring violence into our community for any reason that they will be found, that they will be prosecuted, and that they will face severe consequences in the court of law. when that happens. Now, when it comes to Portia, there was a funeral that was held Monday evening for her. According to her obituary, Portia was a talented athlete. She excelled in playing flagged football, volleyball, billiards. Her greatest joy was spending time with her family, hanging out with her friends. Portia will be sadly missed by all who knew and loved her. She was killed

on January 21st, and that was sadly right before, three days before her birthday. And people posted on her Facebook page just expressing their grief that she wasn't here to celebrate with them. And as for Sarah, Portia's girlfriend, she posted on her own page saying in part, Happy Heavenly Birthday Beautiful, the moment you came into my life I knew was something beyond words, incredible. You literally are beyond any words, one in a million. You could light up people's day just by walking into the room and giving them a hug or that gorgeous and infectious smile. You're truly loved and missed beyond measure by everyone. There's so many memories I will forever treasure. you have shown me that true genuine love is real i'm truly blessed that you came into my life

and that i can love you and be loved by you patrick provisazal thanks so much for coming on appreciate you taking the time and uh you know great insight on this case it's a difficult one thank you jesse it was my pleasure appreciate it and that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar everybody thank you so much for joining us and as always please subscribe on youtube apple podcast spotify wherever you should get your podcast i'm jesse weber i'll speak to you next time You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.