Sword and Scale - Episode 300
Episode Date: June 14, 2025The calm of a suburban street in Youngstown, Ohio, was shattered when a sudden explosion ripped through a home, leaving witnesses stunned as they watched their neighbors’ house consumed by flames. T...he fire claimed the lives of the homeowners, Bill and Judy Schmidt, and as police delved into the case, they uncovered a shocking truth: this was no accident, but a calculated act of arson. At the heart of this twisted crime was an unlikely person—a ten-year-old girl named Corrine Gump.
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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised.
Yes, is there a... Did anybody report a house on Fire and Power is away?
They did, ma'am, and they're on their way, okay?
Do you know if anyone got out, everyone got out or you don't know?
I don't know, I don't think they did.
It's episode 300.
Three-hundy.
Are you picturing a battalion of 300 Greased-up Roman warriors and loincloths
violently charging the Persian army's front line?
Swords erect.
It's just me sorry to disappoint
that was gayer than true crime obsessed
and no Karen that's not a slur, it's literal. Jesus, this PC culture has to die already.
Anyway, welcome to the meaningless call out of a number that doesn't really matter and
affects nothing at all.
This is our 300th episode of Sword and Scale.
Still don't know why you people listen to tragedy for entertainment, but here we are.
Enjoy. About 75 miles south of Cleveland, Ohio, one of my favorite places, near the eastern edge
of a place called Youngstown lies a quiet residential street called Powers Way.
On most days, this street is as ordinary as any suburban road.
Lawns are mowed, families are gathering for backyard barbecues,
and kids are zipping up and down the street on their bikes.
It's a typical middle-class American neighborhood.
Picturesque.
Something out of the Hallmark Channel.
A peaceful place where crime rarely makes an appearance.
But in the early hours of March 30th, 2015, at around 3.30am to be precise,
something jolted the entire neighborhood awake.
It shattered the usual calm and this something was far from typical.
This something was criminal. out okay but somebody does live there yeah somebody doesn't live there okay I got the
people right next door out of the house all right we'll send them out a massive explosion
ripped through the night shaking the entire neighborhood residents of powers way sprang
up from their beds quickly realizing that a nearby two-story house was engulfed in flames. The fire raged out of control and onlookers quickly understood the grim reality.
If anyone was still inside, I mean, their chances of survival were next to none.
Do you have a fire on?
Yes, we have an explosion over here.
Yeah, we got fire trucks on the way.
Do you know if anybody's still in the house?
Oh my god.
Hello?
It's huge.
Pardon, I don't know.
You don't know?
Okay, we have fire trucks on the way, okay? Did you see anybody leaving the area?
Please hurry, this place is...
Oh my God.
Okay, the trucks are on the way.
Did you see anybody leaving the area?
No, I just got off work.
I didn't see anybody.
Phone calls flooded the 911 dispatch center.
And it wasn't long before dispatchers learned a troubling detail about the two homeowners.
They both had a disability. And they're deaf? Yes. Okay, they're on their way. Are they home?
Do you know if they're home?
I don't know. Nobody's outside, but it's a big fire and there's an explosion.
I mean, our windows exploded on our house.
The homeowners were deaf.
And for the neighbors who knew them well,
what they were witnessing was both unimaginable and heartbreaking.
Oh my God!
I'm going to 3635! I'm supposed to be in a golf course right? unimaginable and heartbreaking. area. I didn't see them. I didn't see them. I'm on the car quarter. Okay, there's the fire trucks and the ambulances are on the way, okay? Thank you.
Uh-huh. When firefighters arrived on scene, they immediately began fighting the flames.
Soon after, several police officers arrived as well and began working to
identify the homeowners. They did this by running the license plates on the cars parked in the driveway.
All vehicles are coming back to me. William E. Schmidt.
William E. Schmidt. 3631 Powers Way.
The police confirmed that the home belonged to 63-year-old Bill Schmidt and
his wife, 60-year-old Judy Schmidt. The couple married in 1974,
the year of my birth, got them old. And by all accounts, it was a loving marriage. Bill
and Judy were the perfect match, and nobody ever doubted that they would be together forever. Despite being deaf, both Bill and Judy led full and active lives.
Bill was an outdoorsman who spent time hunting and fishing.
He also enjoyed road trips on his Harley Davidson and was known locally as the Grill Master.
That's a cool title.
When Bill fired up his barbecue pit, anyone lucky enough to be in the vicinity knew that they were about to enjoy one hell of a meal.
As for Judy, she was a typical quilt maker who loved board games.
She was especially social and had a wide circle of friends.
Known for her warmth, Judy had a maternal touch that led many friends, young and old, to think of her as a second mom.
With the homeowners identified,
police ran a background check on an address,
looking for any recent reports of incidents at the property.
And as it turned out, there'd been a few.
See if we have any call issues here.
We do. The last call was in February.
And it was a 31-year-old daughter that was missing since September.
Okay.
And then before that, the next call was in September of 2014.
That's about the daughter menacing her parents.
About the daughter menacing the parents? Yep.
Bill and Judy had three adult children,
two of whom were also deaf.
What are the chances?
Their third child, 31-year-old Lynn Schmidt, was not.
Police reports indicated that there had been
ongoing issues with Lynn.
Allegedly, she had harassed her parents and then a few months
later she disappeared, prompting Bill and Judy to report her missing. As police gathered
all this info, firefighters pressed on, working to fully extinguish the blaze. As they made
their way through the charred home, they uncovered something that brought an Ohio prosecutor
into the investigation. 6 a.m. the Youngstown 911 Center received a call for a residential fire at 3631 Powers Way in the city of
Youngstown in Ohio.
The Youngstown Fire Department while attempting to extinguish the fire discovered the bodies of two
adults in the house.
Inside the home firefighters discovered the bodies of Bill and Judy Schmidt.
The couple was found dead in their bedroom.
Right away, firefighters suspected foul play.
It was clear this fire was no accident.
Bill and Judy were victims of arson.
So it didn't take long for the Youngstown Fire Department to
determine it was arson fire.
They're pretty astute at determining whether something's accidental or arson fire. They're pretty astute at determining
whether something's accidental or arson.
And in this case, all the firefighters described
smelling the scent of gasoline upon entering the fire.
And they knew right away that this was an arson.
The firefighters smelled the unmistakable scent of gasoline.
Then they spotted the two gas cans,
tucked just out of sight near the back of the house.
One had a plastic glove jammed into its neck.
Whoever did this had soaked the inside of the house, drenching the walls and floors with gas,
while Bill and Judy lay sleeping.
What a monster. Then, after flicking a flame, the killer fled, leaving behind burning destruction and death. Later that morning
the arson investigation led detectives to a nearby Walgreens. Strangely one of
their leads involved the purchase of some makeup.
And where do you work at? Walgreens. And which store? The Austin Towne store.
And at one time, was that store a 24-hour store? Yes. I'm going to ask you about a gentleman that came in to buy some makeup.
Can you tell me about this?
It was early in the morning and it was just me and Michael because we were the overnight shift.
And he told me that a guy needed some help putting on some makeup over in aisle one.
I walk over there and he told me that he had a jury thing to go to this morning
and that night he took out his trash and something exploded in his trash which is why his face was
all burned. So he wanted some stuff to kind of cover it up because he didn't want to look like
a freak to the other jurors is what he said. After we picked out like the foundation he wanted
something for his eyebrows because they had burned off. So he wanted to After we picked out like the foundation he wanted something for
his eyebrows because they had burned off so he wanted to know if there was like an
eyebrow pencil. This Walgreens employee recalled a man who would come into her
store that morning asking about makeup. Something about him seemed mmm off. He
was dressed in a suit but he wore a baseball cap pulled low over his face.
A strange combination.
Maybe something you would see on Sports Center.
But not a typical ensemble, you know?
Especially at Walgreens.
The man nervously explained that he had jury duty in a few hours.
He needed makeup to cover up the bright red flash burns on his face.
He also asked for eyebrow pencils,
as his own eyebrows had been burned clean off.
Yes, I know this story sounds familiar,
but believe it or not,
it's not the same story we told a few weeks ago.
Apparently there's a lot of idiots out there starting fires.
Anyway, this idiot's story was that he had some garbage that blew up in his face.
So his trash exploded?
That's what he said, yeah.
Did he say where this trash was?
He said at his house.
Okay. So you see this guy, what does he look like?
Well, he's not much taller than me. He's probably about maybe four inches taller than I am.
Maybe like 5'8", 5'9".
OK.
He's pretty husky, bald.
Was he a white guy, black guy, Hispanic, male white?
Yeah.
How old would you say he was?
I'd probably say maybe 30 to 40.
Do you remember what makeup that he bought?
Yeah, he bought, I talked him into a Maybelline BB cream
cause that's what I use.
Okay.
And then he bought Maybelline brow pencils.
I know those two for sure.
Very early in the investigation,
detectives found themselves with two solid leads.
The strange man buying makeup at Walgreens, and the mysterious absence of Bill and Judy's
daughter, Lynn Schmidt.
But as the case unfolded, they would discover everything.
Every motive and every twisted, sordid, disgusting detail.
Centered around an unlikely person.
A 10-year-old named Corin Gump. On the morning of March 30, 2015, a Youngstown, Ohio home exploded into a raging inferno.
Firefighters successfully extinguished the flames and found that the homeowners, 63-year-old
Bill Schmidt and his wife, 60-year-old Judy Schmidt, were dead.
The married couple had been murdered.
They were victims of arson.
This double homicide sent detectives on a long winding road.
Eventually that path led them to a 10 year old girl. Her name was Corinne Gump.
So can you give me your name? Corinne. Okay what's your last name? Gump. When is your birthday? January 31st.
Okay and how old are you? Nine years old. Nine? Okay, so what schools do you go to?
South Range.
You go to South Range, what grade are you in?
Third.
Third grade.
Do you like third grade?
Mm-hmm.
What's your favorite subject?
Reading.
Reading.
Do you read at home?
Sometimes.
So what kind of books do you read?
Bad Kitty, Princess Books, Animal Books.
At the time of this interview, Corrine was living with her grandparents, but for much
of her life she had lived with her mom, her younger half-sister and her mom's boyfriend.
Okay, who did you use to live before?
My mom, Ava, me, and then my mom's boyfriend.
Okay, what's his name?
Junior.
Junior? Is that his real name or does he have a different name? Well, his real mom's boyfriend. Okay, what's his name? Junior.
Junior?
Is that his real name or does he have a different name?
Well, his real name is Robert.
Robert, okay.
Do you know how old you were when you moved into his house?
Maybe four or five.
Okay, that's when you moved in?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Corinne's mom's boyfriend was 46-year-old Robert Andrew Seaman Jr.
He was mostly known by the nickname Junior.
Robert or Bob or Junior, whatever you want to call this guy, earned a steady
and more than decent income by working on an assembly line at General Motors.
Robert Seaman was working at a factory, a local factory, we believe it was GM at the time,
and he was living in Canfield with his girlfriend,
his biological daughter, and then his girlfriend's daughter
from a previous marriage.
Robert's girlfriend's daughter was Corinne Gump,
the 10-year-old.
And according to Corinne, Robert didn't keep his hands or
penis to himself. Fair warning, we're about to get into some pretty graphic
stuff involving children and sexual assault and I know that a lot of you
subscribe to True Crime Podcasts and for some reason can't hear that kind of stuff.
Well, you might want to turn it off and go listen to some crime junkie instead.
If you can't stomach this sort of thing,
then sorting scale may not be for you.
Anyway, that's enough warning
because we already have the trigger warning labels
on every episode and all that,
so if you need more than that, I don't know what to tell ya.
Here we go.
What is it that happened with Junior? He raped me. what to tell you. Here we go. He, uh, stuck his private. Okay. And he did it to me.
Okay.
When he, when he made you suck his private,
where did this happen at?
Um, in the living room.
Mm-hmm.
In the bedroom.
Mm-hmm.
Their bedroom or upstairs, or my room.
Okay. Do you remember what age the store did it at?
Four or five. Four or five, okay.
In March of 2014, when Corinne was just nine years old,
she sat in a police interview room.
She used crayons to color on paper and she described how her mom's boyfriend,
Robert Seaman Jr., repeatedly sexually assaulted
her. For years.
Did he, so he did put his penis in your mouth?
Mm-hmm.
Okay. And what would happen?
He would try to pee in my mouth.
Okay, did he pee in your mouth?
One time.
One time? And what did he say?
To swallow it, but of course I did not. Mm-hmm. What did you do?
I went to spit it out.
Okay. Did he know you spit it out?
Yeah. Yeah, what did he say?
He said you were supposed to swallow it, not spit it out.
How many times would you say this happened between?
I don't know.
What would you say?
A lot of times.
A lot of times?
So more than one time?
Okay.
Robert Seaman was a monster who forced his girlfriend's daughter to give him oral sex.
Yes, I know it's actually rape, but we have to describe things so the audience understands
what we're saying. According to Corinne, this happened countless times and throughout the years,
things only escalated.
To say the least, what Robert did to Corinne was depraved, evil and disgusting.
But you shouldn't need a podcaster to tell you that.
He would climb on top of you.
Mm hmm. Okay. And kiss me. Okay. Where would he kiss you at? tell you that. I tried to touch my private. Okay. Would he say anything to you when he was doing that?
No.
No?
Do he ever touch you on your boobs?
Yes.
Yeah.
Where on top of your clothing, underneath your clothes,
or something different?
Okay.
Did he ever put his penis on your lulu?
Yes.
Yes.
Were your clothes on or off or something different?
Off. Off. And your clothes on or off or something different?
Off.
Off.
And what did he do?
Just would like push me back and forth onto him.
Did he ever put his penis in your butt?
One time.
Corinne claimed that between the ages of four and nine, Robert Seaman had repeatedly sexually assaulted her.
Anyway, as it is often the case in these situations, there was no evidence to confirm or back up these accusations against Robert.
Even so, the detectives and prosecutors believed Corrin.
They actually usually do, and it's a rare instance where women aren't believed.
But you know, tell yourselves whatever you want.
I tend to believe a rape victim,
unless they've lied over and over and over again
in the past, and so should you.
Anyway, I believe her.
Judge for yourself.
Obviously she's nine at the time.
There was no other evidence other than her statement, but her description of the assaults and every time that something would happen was very compelling.
You know, she had details that a nine-year-old shouldn't know. After Corrin disclosed and described the years of abuse
that she endured, Robert Seaman was arrested and charged
with multiple felonies, which included the sexual assault
of a minor, one of the worst possible crimes you can commit.
Definitely in the top three.
At his arraignment, Robert pled not guilty.
He was given a very high bond in comparison to a lot of cases.
$250,000 cash or surety, meaning he either has to post $250,000 in cash or get a surety
like a bondsman to come in and vouch for him and saying they would post if he ran.
Within days of the arraignment, prosecutors were shocked
to find out that Robert had managed to post bond somehow.
What is it with these judges, anyway?
This predator was now free to harm other children,
but at least he was given strict conditions,
because I'm sure he'll pay attention to those
since he follows the law and stuff.
As a condition of that bond, he was to be placed on an ankle monitor that was GPS-enabled
and that he was told he was on house arrest.
He couldn't have any contact with the victim or her family.
Unsurprisingly, Robert violated his bond condition soon after his release by having contact with
Corinne's mom.
What was unexpected was that Robert hadn't initiated this contact.
Corinne's mother had reached out to him.
And here is a critical detail.
Corinne's mom was Lynn Schmidt. Remember her?
The non-deaf child of Bill and Judy Schmidt?
So like the last time I spoke with you,
you hadn't had any contact with Robert,
but we had some concerns from what we had heard
that he believed you were going to recant,
and that was why we came to talk to you,
just to find out if there was any basis for that and what your
intentions were in terms of in terms of the criminal case against Robert.
During the course of their investigation the detectives working to put Robert
behind bars came across something deeply unsettling. They discovered that Lynn
might actually testify on Robert's behalf.
It appeared she was prepared to take the stand and claim her daughter had lied about the
sexual assault.
Did he contact you from there then?
No, he never contacted me.
I approached him because I knew that...
Right.
So how often did you see him there?
I saw him there.
I mean, I've been there. I mean, I don't know how many times but I've been there.
Okay.
And I said, no, you know.
Why are you going there?
Because I want him to think that, you know, nobody like, nobody else, I mean I know other people know, you know what I mean, but I just want...
You want him to trust you?
When detectives questioned Lynn
about her ongoing contact with Robert,
her answers were evasive.
She claims she was scared of Robert,
fearing he might retaliate against her,
her parents or even Corinne,
and that staying in touch with him
was her way of keeping him in line.
Sure, Lynn.
Sure.
Sure.
Yeah, I know, I'm concerned about your parents' house too
because of their, their, their hard of hearing.
Or their, their, right, their lack of hearing.
I don't necessarily believe that he has the means and even the stomach or the will to
actually do that.
And I want to believe, obviously, that you're afraid of it.
I feel that he knows full well how to make you this afraid and how to make you do his his wishes in order to get out of his current
predicament as she's advising you you need to remove yourself from being anyone near him or
having any contact with him. Despite the warnings to keep away, Lynn ignored this advice. Instead, she went further. She moved back into Robert's
house, bringing along, get this, her younger daughter, Ava, who was only four at the time.
It appeared that Lynn had turned her back on her daughter Corinne in favor of the attention
and affection that she was getting from Corinne's rapist.
We don't know why Corinne's mom went back to Robert Seaman
after the rape allegations came out in March of 2014.
She was never able to give us a straight answer
as why she went back with Robert.
She, her and she took her youngest,
who was also the biological child of Robert
Seaman, Ava, back to the house and lived with him.
It's weird. All these smart people don't know why she went back. But I do. I do. It's
Dick. Say it with me. Dick. Lynn was now living with Robert while her daughter Corinne had moved in with her grandparents
because Robert kept raping her.
And her grandparents were the murder victims, Bill and Judy Schmidt.
For a while, everything seemed calm, but then, on the eve of Robert's trial for sexual assault,
guess what happens?
You want to guess?
I'll give you a couple of minutes.
Okay.
Okay.
Here we go. they're on their way, okay? Okay, thank you. Okay, did you know if anyone got out,
everyone got out, or you don't know?
I don't know, I don't think they did.
Okay, all right, we're getting them down there.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Bye.
3.41 a.m., Monday, March 30th,
an explosion and fire at 3631 Powers Way.
Fire broke out from the bottom of the basement and just swish.
Just hours before Robert's trial was set to begin, Bill and Judy's house exploded,
and the subsequent flames engulfed their home, killing them.
We asked all the firemen and the fire marshals investigators why that would be, why would
they hear an explosion? And they said from our evidence, we know he
went in with those gas cans and went to the landing of the basement stairs.
And we believe he poured the gas over the side of the stairs down into the
landing. He then must have taken those two gas cans back outside and set them
alongside the door, figuring he'll grab them on the way to his car.
And he goes back in with the lighter.
And when he goes back in and even just flicks that lighter,
because that gas,
all those fumes had been building up now while he poured the gas,
the investigators and the forensic scientists
that we talked to,
just him flicking that lighter
can ignite still those fumes in the air.
And that's why he is that flash burn on his face
and they hear essentially an explosion from the fire.
Now it also might've exploded like bigger ones.
It hits like the house's gas line.
The explosion and fire claimed the lives
of Bill and Judy Schmidt,
but tragically they weren't the only victims.
Within a few hours, we know the three people in the house,
10 year old Corrine Gump and her grandparents,
Bill and Judy Schmidt had died in the fire.
Bill and Judy were not the intended targets of this arson attack.
Heartbreakingly, they were simply collateral damage.
Robert's true aim was to silence his young victim.
And he succeeded.
When firefighters sifted through the ash and rubble, they found the bodies of Bill, Judy,
and a small girl.
Ten-year-old Corinne Gump was dead. On March 30th, 2015, an arson fire claimed the lives of three people in Youngstown, Ohio.
Ten-year-old Corin Gump and her grandparents Bill and Judy Schmidt.
Before the flames even had time to fully die out, some of Corin's family members had their
suspicions about who was
responsible for this horrific crime.
Corrin's grandma on her dad's side thinks this fire was no mistake.
He was wicked.
He was evil.
She thinks this man had something to do with it.
Robert Seaman accused of sexually assaulting Corrin.
The trial was supposed to start today.
On literally the eve of trial, hours before this trial
was supposed to begin, this victim dies in a fire.
That same morning, the sexual assault trial against Robert
Seaman was scheduled to begin.
And Mahoning County prosecutor Don Cantela Mesa
was prepared to go forward.
Strangely enough, it seemed that Robert was ready
to proceed as well. It was probably 830, 9 o'clock in the morning that morning and
he was all dressed ready for his trial and then the judge ordered the records
from his GPS bracelet to be passed to the court so that she could review where that GPS bracelet study went.
We were able to then see from those records
that they immediately faxed
that before coming to court that morning,
he had stopped at the Breaking Point Recovery Center
who maintains his bracelet and at Walgreens.
The judge presiding over the sexual assault trial was informed about the fire
and Corinne's death. When they reviewed the GPS records from Robert's ankle monitor,
they found no indication that he had visited Bill and Judy's home, though his tracker did reveal a
trip to the headquarters of a company responsible for
monitoring the device. That company was called Breaking Point. When Robert arrived at Breaking
Point early that morning, he requested that his ankle monitor be tightened. Imagine that. Imagine
going to the place that makes your ankle monitor and requesting that it be tightened. That doesn't raise any red flags,
does it? Anyway, the staff there complied. For the judge and prosecutors, Robert's scheme was
pretty clear. He had slipped off the monitor, driven to Bill and Judy's house, set the fire,
and returned home. Once there, he reattached the ankle monitor and went to Breaking Point to have it adjusted
so that any evidence of tampering would be removed.
Robert was supposed to be on strict house arrest, permitted only to leave for court
or to meet with his lawyer.
This unauthorized trip to Breaking Point alone was a violation, which led the judge, thankfully,
to revoke his bond.
A bond he should have never had to begin with.
Robert was taken into custody and soon after, he was questioned by detectives about the house fire.
Now, you know, are you guys charging me or is that what this is about? Because, I mean,
if it is, then I shouldn't say anything, you know what I'm saying?
Well, I'm here to talk to you,
to hear your side of the story.
You seemed frustrated and told me that down there.
Yeah, I am.
And I said, let's get your side of the story.
Let's try to put this to bed quicker.
I didn't burn that house down.
No matter what, no matter shape, no matter how,
there's no way in hell in a million years
I touched that house, been near that house.
As expected, Robert denied any involvement
in setting the fire,
but the detectives didn't believe him.
They humored him, asking for details though,
about where he was and what he did that morning.
They already knew.
I don't know, were you a night owl?
I was nervous with the whole thing, so I tried to sleep, I slept, I don't know, were you a night owl? I was nervous with the whole thing.
So I tried to sleep.
I slept, I don't know, I might have slept till probably two-ish or so and I got antsy.
And then I got up, tried to watch some TV and cleaned up and just basically I was nervous
about the whole thing.
So before I left though, I showered, I got to shower.
I just tried to do like chores around the house, little things that keep me going, you
know, and then...
Can you explain this?
Detectives also inquired about the large burns on Robert's face and his missing eyebrows.
Curiously, Robert claimed that the burns weren't from the fire at all he
insisted he'd only received them after being taken back into custody saying
they were chemical burns he'd sustained in his jail cell because you know jail
cells have lots of chemicals in them I go in the room I don't know make my bed
I turn around and I didn't get to know the guy's name. He has a little goatee on him.
And there's a bottle inside of my room
that says like corrosion or whatever.
It's a spray bottle, bleach, I guess.
They have like bleach, I guess, for the tubs or whatever.
And they put it in a bottle and you could clean with it.
What was already in the room?
I went in, you know, the kid came in the room,
he has a goatee, I don't know his name
because he kept taking his armband off.
I went in the room, I probably wasn't even in there
10 minutes or so, you know, roughly right about that.
You know, I made my bed, I turned around, there he was.
He threw it at me, I turned my head this way,
I pushed and I got to the water as quick as I could. In the meantime,
he grabbed the thing, you know, I don't know, I guess he dumped it in the toilet and then
he walked out.
The detectives knew Robert was lying, but they continued playing along. They even offered
to help Robert confirm his claim with a free visit to the burn specialist. Unsurprisingly, Robert wasn't too keen
on taking them up on that offer.
I get what you're saying and I do.
And I know this, I'm sure that looks to you guys
like I'm guilty of sin.
How about this, will you go to Akron Burn to get treatment
so we know exactly what this is?
I already talked to my lawyer today and he got the,
like they have a paper upstairs and the paper says on there
It's chemical
So I don't get what I'm trying to say. So for me to keep doing this is like here's what just hear me
I'll go ahead. I want to send you to a professional
burn
Doctor not an emergency room at St. E's doctor
not an emergency room at St. E's doctor. Cause this could put a lot of stuff to bed.
Yeah. And like I said, it's just like with how many times
you guys have sent someone to the house right now,
you understand like every day out of the paper,
I'm not tortures my family because I understand
you gotta keep doing your job.
I get it.
But the point is there has to be some point
where it's redundant.
It's not for self.
That's why I'm saying. You get what I'm saying?
To the bird.
To the bird.
To a professional.
Yeah.
You know, that's why I'm saying that it doesn't, I don't understand where you're coming from.
Because that's what- Because this could help end this.
I get what you're saying, but you have to understand my point of view.
I mean, I'm trying to be as cooperative as I can, but this is like a witch hunt to me
at this point.
As far as evidence went, the burns on Robert's face were bad enough.
But detectives had a little bit more.
Well, a lot more.
I don't want to do that.
I mean, I understand you guys are probably still going to try but...
Well, let me ask you this.
Why would you go into Walgreens? Why would you go into Walgreens?
Why would I go into Walgreens?
Yes.
Did you buy anything at Walgreens?
I don't think I did. I was just killing time.
That's why I set that part over there on the corner.
What Robert didn't know was that police had obtained surveillance footage from Walgreens.
In case you're a criminal out there and you're looking to do some criminal activity,
it's 2025, you moron.
There's cameras everywhere.
This footage clearly showed Robert entering the store
and purchasing the makeup.
It was evident that the makeup was used
to cover his flash burns.
Let me ask you this, do you wear makeup? Do I wear makeup?
Yes sir.
Um, no, I mean, I don't normally wear makeup as far as you're talking about the cover
up for a zit that I had when I was going to Toronto so I put it over a zit I had on my
nose.
That's the only thing I did with the makeup.
What about, um, have you ever used eyebrow pencils?
Eyebrow pencils?
No, I'm not using eyebrow pencils.
Robert's lies were unraveling fast,
and detectives knew precisely what he had done that morning.
It was written all over his face.
They knew he'd set the fire and ended three lives.
They knew that his crime had literally blown up in his face.
They knew he'd gone to Walgreens to buy makeup
to cover the evidence that was written all over
his dumb, stupid, child-raping mug.
Because once he went to the jail and all that makeup came off his face, you could see that
he had like flash burns on his face that had sinned his eyebrows.
As detectives continued to press him, Robert tried to shift the blame.
It's always someone else's fault.
In a desperate attempt to divert attention, he hinted that detectives should look a little
closer instead at Corinne's mom, Lynn Schmidt.
But Lynn and the baby have lived with me for over seven months now, you know, non-stop.
She hasn't even seen her daughter, you know, Corrine one time. And, you know, that was a fight thing with her mom and dad, you know, they had it out
and, you know, she needed a place to stay and I wasn't gonna, you know, have my daughter
go to the streets, so to say, you know.
So they were more than welcome to be there.
It was true that Lynn had returned to living with Robert after the sex abuse allegations
had surfaced.
In fact, she was at Robert's house on the morning that her daughter Corinne and her parents were killed in the fire.
You know, Lynn unfortunately isn't stable, like I said, with her.
She's getting over half a million dollars with her parents gone.
I mean, literally.
I mean, they have over half a million dollars
in cash in the bank.
Everything's entitled to her name.
So in no way, shape or form.
I mean, I'm not saying that she would do,
I wouldn't think she would do something like this,
but my point is she has so much money when they die.
It's like, it might even be close to unpaid.
I'm not trying to be rude, but essentially,
you're going to come in with some money too.
No, I ain't coming into the money.
It's not your money.
She's living with you.
Yeah, she was living with me for the years before too.
But she never worked.
She never brought in any income.
Yeah, but she's sitting on a half million dollars
that you're going to get some of that, aren't you?
Or do you think she's going to leave you?
We're not on that good of terms, so to say.
Lynn certainly appeared to have a motive for wanting her parents dead.
And Robert had no problem throwing her under the bus because, you know, he's a hell of a guy.
Do you think she could have had the opportunity to get out.
Um, during the night, I was probably sleeping at that time. But one thing that was strange was the door was open.
What do you mean the door was open?
We always close the door.
Like if she gets up in the middle of night, we still close the door.
We have a double door that closes.
When we're talking, you know, my in that master bedroom where we sleep at night.
Do you think she had an opportunity when you were sleeping to get out of the house and
get back in without you knowing about it?
She could have, yes.
Because the door was open.
That was the weird thing that I thought was weird.
Detectives were certain that Robert had started the fire.
His burns and his visit to Walgreens were proof enough.
But that didn't mean that Lynn was innocent.
Far from it.
She could very well have known about Robert's plan or even helped.
She might have provided details about how to get into the house,
where to pour the gasoline, and the best time to strike.
Considering that she continued to live with her daughter's abuser, the house, where to pour the gasoline, and the best time to strike.
Considering that she continued to live with her daughter's abuser, her capabilities seemed
disturbing.
But without hard evidence, this all remained speculation.
Kind of.
So we've always from the very beginning suspected that Lynn knew that Robert was going to do
something that morning. When the detectives first responded to the house,
they went the early morning of March 30th, 2015 to do a well check on her
because obviously if someone's going to kill the grandparents and the victim of
a crime or of the rape trial that was supposed to happen
that morning, we wanted to know if anything happened to Lynn as well.
And so when the cops went there, when the cops went to Robert Seaman's house, they
pounded on the door and no one immediately came to the house.
They went to around the back, pounded on the back door.
They came back to the front.
They made entry to the house because no one was answering and they found
Lynn just watching television in the family room and they asked her what she
was doing there and why she wasn't at court.
And she said she was told not to come to court to the next day.
However, both the state and the defense had subpoenaed Lynn for the trial and us in the state had
subpoenaed her for that day.
So she should have actually been at court that morning.
As for motive, prosecutors did confirm that if her parents died, Lynn would stand to inherit
a significant amount of money.
When Bill and Judy Schmidt had died, they apparently had added a life insurance policy
which listed all three of their children as beneficiaries, one being Lynn, Corinne's mom.
And so they called us to determine whether we had any information or any evidence that
would link Lynn to the fire, whether we thought she had been involved or we thought she had anything to do
with the arson and the murder of them.
And we told them we didn't have anything that said she was involved,
but we didn't have anything specific that said she had nothing to do with it. In the end, if Lynn was involved in the murders of her daughter and parents, detectives couldn't
prove it.
As of today, Lynn Schmidt remains a free woman.
Robert Seaman was the only person ever charged for these murders.
I said I have nothing nothing nowhere near that house.
I will not.
I don't even I've never even drove by the street of that house.
I avoided completely circle around.
I know Corrine's there.
I ain't going near that house.
You know, why would I if I had any intention of doing this, why would this be done right?
It makes no sense.
It makes zero sense for
me I'm I'm I look guilty I'm the one you know what I'm trying to say so if somebody's
did this it surely wasn't me.
Jamie- When people are backed in the corner they will do anything to survive.
Howard- I wasn't backed in the corner.
Jamie- I understand that but if you can review case, the only witness they had was Corrine.
I had her mother.
I had the guardian of Lightham.
I had the juvenile record.
I had, I mean, I had so much stuff that it wasn't even, it wasn't even close.
I had her mother, you know.
Robert maintained a facade of confidence, claiming that he had a strong chance of beating
the sexual assault charges. But this was nothing more than phony bravado. Corinne's statements were
powerful and she had no reason to lie. A 10-year-old wouldn't lie about something like this
voluntarily. Not unless they were extraordinarily troubled and then you
got to ask why are they that troubled at 10. Robert knew the consequences he
faced. If convicted he would likely spend his life in a federal prison where as a
sex offender he'd be in constant danger. As we all know a lot of inmates don't
take too kindly to child rapists. Nobody should.
That's what woodchippers are for. Backed into a corner, Robert was far more desperate
than he let on. His reasoning was clear. If he was headed to prison for life, why not
eliminate the one witness against him? At best, he'd get away with it and the charges would be
dropped. At worst he'd end up in prison all the same. Robert had everything to
gain and nothing to lose. Among the many frustrations in this case one glaring
issue is that Robert should have never been released on bail. What the fuck are we doing in this country with cashless bail? How stupid
are we to come up with that shit? This monster should have remained in custody until his
trial. But even if bail was granted, it should have been revoked long before he had a chance to murder Corrine and her grandparents.
Why don't judges like Maureen Sweeney understand incentives? I thought people with law degrees were
supposed to be smart. You advised that you had information about Robert Seaman violating his
house arrest or possibly violating his house arrest. Can you tell me what you saw or how you noticed it?
Just that he was leaving a lot, you know.
And then I called and talked to the first prosecutor.
I forget her name right now, but she's like,
yeah, you know, when you see him leaving, call him, let me know every time, whatever.
So I called her a couple of times.
While Robert was out on bail, his neighbor reported seeing Robert leave the house
multiple times a day,
at all hours despite being under house arrest.
When these reports were made, the court should have been alerted immediately,
and Robert's bond should have been revoked.
But it wasn't.
When the judge got those records from the GPS company was monitoring him.
When she got, she was so pissed because we also saw that he had been
leaving his house all the time.
Apparently that breaking point, um, never called the court to tell them, to
tell the court that he was leaning, going to Taco Bell and then going to the mall
and then going to get a new suit for trial.
And they should have been reporting that to the court, but, um, they never told
the court that he was leaving all this time.
And I don't know who the neighbor was reporting it to, but my guess is that
they, if he was reporting to someone and they had reported it to the police,
maybe the court or whoever would have heard,
would have thought, well, if he was really leaving,
we get a report from Breaking Point
that said he was going outside
and going other places than the courthouse or his attorney.
As for the company responsible for tracking Robert,
Breaking Point, their failure to do
its job eventually didn't surprise anyone.
You see, it turns out that a lot of these companies are bullshit.
This one in particular, their owner had racked up nearly as many felonies and fraud convictions
as P. Diddy has, apparently.
Ryan Sheridan's trouble started almost
18 months ago when state and federal agents raided his breaking point
recovery centers in Austintown and another location in Columbus. They also
raided homes owned by Sheridan. A few days later, directors with the Ohio
Department of Medicaid announced they had suspended breaking points contracts.
Then in March, federal investigators seized more than $2 million from him.
In May, the U.S. Attorney's Office filed paperwork trying to seize Sheridan's million-dollar
home in Latonia, claiming he used Medicaid money to buy it.
Fast forward to October, when a Colombiana County grand jury indicted him on several drug charges, and just last month, another indictment.
This time, federal prosecutors were involved.
Sheridan and five others were named as investigators accused them of running a $48 million health
care fraud conspiracy.
Don't you just love how the government spends your money?
This story is, without question, both infuriating and deeply tragic.
Every safeguard that should have protected Corinne Gump failed her.
The courts, the lawyers, with their fancy law degrees and their Ivy League educations,
the GPS monitoring system and company that made it, and even Corinne's
own mother. All of them fell short. All of them were huge disappointments. And in
the end, what chance did this little 10 year old girl really have? None. None at all. He was a sacrificial lamb to this corrupt, fucked up system.
Eventually, and as the routine goes, Robert Seaman was arraigned on murder charges for
killing Corinne and her grandparents.
As expected, he pled not guilty and this circus continued. Authorities admit they don't know how Seaman managed
to get out of his electronic monitoring ankle bracelet
that morning or how he got back and forth
from the Schmitz home to set the fire
they believe caused his burns.
But they do believe they had more than enough evidence
to convince a Portage County jury Seaman was so desperate
to get out of his rape case that
he'd kill his young victim.
By now you're probably expecting the typical outcome for a case like this.
Something along the lines of Robert was sentenced to life in prison, or Robert was sentenced
to death.
But, think again.
This story has one final twist.
You won't like it. Just days before his murder trial
was set to begin, the judge called prosecutors, defense, and Robert himself into court for
a final status hearing.
So we've been in the status conference, the judge was asking us, everybody ready? So we were done with that. We left out the back chambers of the court. We
walked, Judge Sweeney's on the fourth floor of the Marin County Courthouse. So we walked
around the corner, got in the elevator, and we usually go down to the
basement and go through our tunnel to our office. As soon as we got back, I got a call from one of the deputies that he had jumped.
And I said, no, he didn't.
Why are you playing with me?
And they said, no, we're not kidding.
He jumped.
And my first reaction was, is he dead?
After the status hearing, Robert was escorted by two deputies down the courtroom halls back towards his cell.
During this walk out of nowhere, Robert flung himself over a fourth floor railing.
At approximately 9.40 this morning, Robert Seaman was having a final pre-trial hearing on the fourth floor in Judge Sweeney's courtroom.
The court adjourned while the deputies were escorting Mr. Seaman down the
hallway to go back to our holding cell. He basically took a leap off of the
fourth floor. So we got a real quick look at what took place here. The deputies
actually did a great job.
They did what they were supposed to do
when they were escorting it out.
And, you know, I can't speak for Mr. Seaman.
He must have had his mind made up.
Murder and arson suspect Robert Seaman is dead
after jumping from the balcony
of the Mahoney County Courthouse.
Seaman is the man accused of killing a little girl
and her grandparents in an arson just over two years ago.
In the end, Robert performed one final act that could be seen only as a favor to society.
He took his own life. The coward didn't want to face what was waiting for him in prison.
As for the deputies escorting him, no one seemed to care. And really, why should they? Who could blame him?
Are we going to change anything? Well, we're going to look at that, obviously.
But I don't see any issues with this, and I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over this one.
Since lawyers can't put a dead man on trial, the prosecutors had no choice but to dismiss the charges against Robert Seaman.
In the eyes of the court, he was never found guilty of anything. Dying an innocent man on paper.
Hopefully this one episode of a podcast few people might hear one day, will at least get Curran's story out to the world, writing this horrible
wrong that our system of laws have created.
We never had to present our evidence to a jury, but we were
so convinced of his guilt in this case. I mean, not only did we have the pending
rape charge where she's listed as a victim and he knows where she is, we had
the two gas cans at the back door with his DNA in the glove. We had the makeup
that he's found within the courtroom that morning, a trial and him buying the
makeup at Walgreens that
morning, along with the eyebrow pencil.
Then we had the pictures of his burnt face from once the makeup wore off that
morning, just everything pointed to him as the one who committed it and no one
else.
There was never, once we had all that evidence lined up, there was never any
doubt in our minds
that Robert Kamen did it.
The evidence against Robert was overwhelming,
leaving almost no chance he'd escape justice.
Perhaps the final nail in his coffin was the DNA found
on the plastic glove stuffed into the neck
of one of the gasoline cans
that was found outside Bill and Judy's home,
the home that was set on fire with them in it.
That DNA was a perfect match for Robert Seaman.
And unlike people, DNA don't lie.
Robert knew that his life, as he knew it, was over.
And the fact that he chose to end his life
only underscores his guilt.
I think it's very telling.
I think it's very telling.
He knew the evidence against him.
Every witness we had talked to in preparation for the case
thought they didn't know why he was not pleading guilty
or not asking for some kind of plea.
So this is very telling to anyone out there.
We knew he did it.
He knew we had the evidence.
And there was no way he was going to get away with this.
There are so many lessons to take away from this case.
But perhaps the most significant is the role single parents must play
in protecting their own children.
Above all, a parent must place their child's welfare first. They must be
the strongest line of defense for their own blood. There are predators in the henhouse.
There have always been and there will always be. You better be a good fucking mother hen if you're going to
even lay an egg.
Know who your children are hanging out with, you know what
I mean?
Like their daughter was hanging out with this Robert Seaman.
I always think it's weird when you let another man into your
house with your biological children who isn't their dad.
All parents have a responsibility to protect their children. But for single
parents, that responsibility comes with quite a bit of nuance. They must
safeguard their kids and not just from obvious dangers, but from those that might come disguised as
affection. They can't let their own needs surpass the safety of their children.
And if they do choose to allow someone into their lives and homes, they have to
stay vigilant. The caution is essential. If that caution isn't there,
someone like Robert Seaman can worm their way in and they will manipulate
anyone and everyone to get what they want. You can't be a mom and a dumb bitch at
the same time. It just doesn't work. If you are a single parent that is also seeking
romance, the hard truth is that you need to stay on guard. It's sad, I know. It sucks. But that's
the world we live in. Because in the end, nobody, not the government, not the courts, not the cops,
government, not the courts, not the cops, will protect your kids. Only you can do that.
The innocent child named Corinne Gump died in 2015. She was only 10 years old. If she were alive today, she'd be about 20, a young woman just starting out her life. Who knows what dreams lay ahead, what possibilities lay open before her.
Tragically, the legal system and her own mother, and actually the whole fucking world to be honest Failed her. We all failed her.
Society needs to get their head out of their ass.
It ain't a Disney movie.
The real world is harsh, ugly, and disgusting.
And people can be also. Hey, go sign up for Plus.
I'm tired of begging.
At least buy something in the store.
Store.SoreAndScale.com.
You guys are cheap as fuck.
Did you know that?
Anyway, I'll be here next week regardless.
Until then, stay safe I guess. I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man
I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man
I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man
I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man
I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man
I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man
I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man
I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man
I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man
I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man
I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man I'm gonna be a man, I'm gonna be a man Thanks for watching!