True Crime Campfire - Invader: A Story of Madness and Revenge

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

Home is the one place in the world that’s ours and ours alone. It’s the place we’re meant to feel completely safe and comfortable. The warm, beating heart of our lives. So when that sacred space is violated, where does that leave us? Can we ever really feel safe again? This is the story of one of the strangest home invasions ever investigated, and the aftermath that left two innocent people’s lives changed forever.Join Katie and Whitney, plus the hosts of Last Podcast on the Left, Sinisterhood, and Scared to Death, on the very first CRIMEWAVE true crime cruise! Get your fan code now--there are only a handful of rooms left! CrimeWaveatSea.com/CAMPFIRESources:Court papers, People v Schmuhl: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/circuit/sites/circuit/files/assets/documents/pdf/opinions/cl-2021-2333-schmuhl-v-clarke-va-doc.pdfCourt papers, Schmuhl v Clarke: https://law.justia.com/cases/virginia/supreme-court/2023/211114.htmlThe Washingtonian, Jason Fagone: https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/10/02/schmuhl-home-invasion-torture-session-one-lawyer-nearly-killing-another-washington-suburb-mclean/True Crime News (formerly Crime Watch Daily): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3zTO-3TE_QNBC Washington: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/ex-lawyer-sentenced-to-45-years-in-home-invasion-torture-attack-of-former-boss-his-wife/18765/Investigation Discovery's: James Patterson's Murder Is Forever, episode "Home Sweet Murder"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enTwitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Home is the one place in the world that's ours and hours alone. It's the place we're meant to feel completely safe and comfortable. The warm, beating, heart of our lives. So when that sacred space is violated, where does that leave us? Can we ever really feel safe again? This is the story of one of the strangest home invasions ever investigated and the

aftermath that left two innocent people's lives changed forever. This is Invader, a story of madness and revenge. Also, if the sound is a little off in this one, we apologize. One of us basically lives on the surface of the sun, and she really, really needed to leave the AC on this time. So, campers, for this one, were in McLean, Virginia, November 9, 2014. Leo Fisher and his wife Susan Duncan were having a peaceful night in. Sue was cooking dinner. Leo had flopped down in a comfy chair to read. It was about 6.15.

in the evening when Sue called out from the kitchen. There's a car coming up the drive, she said. That was strange. They weren't expecting anybody. A few moments later, the doorbell rang. Sue had her hands full in the kitchen, so Leo went to answer it. He hadn't opened the door more than a few inches when a man pushed it open all the way, sending Leo stumbling back.

Leo saw something black in the man's hand, and suddenly he felt his body seize up and hit the floor. A taser. He could see the little probes. sticking out of his chest. While Leo was prone on the floor, his limbs not quite working after having 50,000 volts shot through them, the man quickly shut the door, then knelt and secured zip ties around Leo's wrists and ankles. Hearing the commotion, Sue ran out from the kitchen, and when she saw what was happening in front of her, she screamed. The intruder put up a hand to stop her.

I'm from the Virginia SEC, he said. I'm here to arrest your husband. Sue knew that was a lie. There was no Virginia SEC. The Securities and Exchange Commission was a federal thing. She stared at the man. He didn't look like any kind of law enforcement to her. He was wearing a long black jacket and black tennis shoes with Velcro instead of laces. He flashed her a badge, but she only got a quick look at it and it didn't look real to her. Looked like a cheap imitation like something you'd buy at Halloween Express.

Strangest of all, the guy was wearing an Indiana Jones hat. That was the only way you could describe it. It looked exactly like the one Harrison Ford wore in those movies. He had it pulled way down over his face. The man grabbed Sue and quickly bound her up with zip ties, just like he'd done with Leo. Leo and Sue were both 61 years old, and the neighborhood they lived in wasn't used to violent crime. Crime of any kind, really. They lived in a beautiful house on Spicer Road, the product of years of work.

Sue in finance, she'd just retired, and Leo, as a person, partner at the law firm of Bean, Kenny, and Corman. They handled mostly trademark and copyright stuff, not the kind of cases where you'd make enemies of scary people like this. Up until this moment, Leo and Sue wouldn't have thought they had any enemies at all. Once he had both Leo and Sue tied up on the floor in front of him, the intruder spoke. And y'all, if I gave you all day, you would never guess what came out of his mouth. What do you know about the Knights Templar, he said?

Leo and Sue looked confused. The Knights Templar, like from the Crusades? No, the intruder said, like the drug cartel. Leo stared at him. We know you sent an email putting a hit on somebody in that cartel for $370,000, the man said. I'm here to arrest you. Well, this has to be a mistake, Leo said. You must be looking for somebody else.

My name is Leo Fisher. The man nodded. I know who you are, he said. Now get up. It's time to start your interrogation. He got Sue and Leo to their feet and started shuffling them down the hall to their bedroom. He ordered them to sit on the bed. The man moved over to the window and closed the curtains. There could be a sniper out there, he said.

I've had your house under surveillance, he added. You don't seem to get out much. Such a sickening thought that this man had been watching them for who the hell knew how long. And now there might be a sniper outside waiting to shoot them? None of what this man had said so far made any sense to sue and Leo. Leo hadn't put a hit out on anyone. It was completely absurd. How would he even know how to get in touch with a drug cartel?

But the man had more to say about hitmen. Somebody had taken a hit out on Leo too, he said, for 27 grand. Leo was completely baffled. Somebody wants to have me killed? I can't imagine who would do that, Leo said. To his shock, the intruder started rattling off the names of some of Leo's colleagues at the law firm, asking about them, like an attorney taking a deposition. Are you the only one involved in the hit, or are there others involved, he said?

Are you aware that one of your attorneys is having an affair with a client? He asked if anybody else had access to Leo's computer and email account. And then he said, didn't you let somebody go lately? Well, yeah, Leo said he had. Why was she let go, the intruder wanted to know? It occurred to Leo that neither man had mentioned Alicia's name, yet the intruder knew it was a she he'd fired. And suddenly, he realized, he knew who the intruder was.

It was Andrew Schmole, the husband of a young lawyer named Alicia, who he'd hired at Bean, Kinney, and Corman about a year before. She was smart and charming. She seemed to have a lot of potential. Leo had first met Andrew at a holiday party when Alicia brought him along as her guest. Andrew was an attorney too, though he wasn't practicing at the time. Then the firm had hired him for a short project, and he seemed to do a pretty good job. Everything was fine for a while, but before long, Alicia's work performance started going steadily downhill. And then, in the summer,

the firm found out that Alicia had lied on a mortgage application, listing her husband Andrew as an employee of the law firm. She'd even impersonated a human resources lady to verify that he worked there. Andrew had done some temporary contract work for the firm that one time, but it was just a quick little thing. He'd never been an employee, so this was mortgage fraud pretty much. Alicia had already been falling down on the job lately, and the partners felt like this spoke volumes about her character. But Leo didn't want to fire her at first. He argued for giving her another chance, but he called her in for a meeting about the fraud. He basically let her know that she was on very thin ice at this point, that what she'd done could have hurt the firm, that that was unacceptable.

The next morning, when Leo got to work, Andrew Schmole was there, and he was furious. Leo shooed him and Alicia into his office to talk privately, but Andrew wouldn't listen to anything Leo had to say. He just got more and more aggressive. His face was beat red, and at one point, he was almost shouting. Jeez. Leo asked him to leave over and over. But he didn't actually go until Alicia said, Andrew, you need to leave so I can keep my job. It was unsettling. The guy had seemed unhinged. I'd have fired her ass immediately.

Like, she's lucky he gave her a second chance. Come on. You did fraud, for God's sakes. Yeah, like, lawyers have to be ethical. Like, that's the entire point of your job. Yeah, but that shows you what a nice guy, Leo, is and how unfair this whole thing is. right? And then for your husband to come in and be so unhinged and for her to just sit there and like not say anything until it's clear that she might be fired over it. It's just,

yeah. So even after that second chance, Alicia's work performance continued to circle the drain. By fall, Leo didn't feel like he had a choice anymore. He fired her. He handed her a severance check and told her she was going to make a great lawyer someday, but she was going to have to do it another firm. That was just two weeks earlier. Now, Andrew was in their house, pacing back and forth in front of them where they sat on the edge of the bed. Leo didn't want to let on that he recognized their intruder. Sue had begun to cry softly. Andrew said, ma'am, you don't need to cry. There's no need for you to be crying. You need to stop. Leo knew he couldn't let her know he knew who this guy was. If Andrew figured that out, they might both be in a lot more danger.

I can handle this, he told himself. Every now and then, between his weird questions about Leo's fellow attorneys, Andrew made a phone call to someone. They had no idea who. He'd say stuff like, yeah, and no, not yet. Once he said, well, the interrogation isn't going very well. Leo isn't giving the right answers. When he hung up, he'd say, I was just talking to my boss. It seemed clear that Andrew was in no hurry to wrap this up and leave.

He was determined to get something out of Leo Fisher. He kept asking questions about Bean, Kenny, and Corman. Private stuff. And when he didn't get the answers he wanted, he got visibly frustrated. It was incredibly nerve-wracking for Sue and Leo. About an hour into this weird interrogation, Andrew suddenly ordered Leo and Sue to their feet and prodded them down the hall into Leo's study where he kept his computer.

He ordered Leo to log into Bean, Kenny and Corman's private network where all its secrets were kept. And for the next 45 minutes or so, Andrew went through email after email, obviously looking for something he wasn't finding. He kept demanding to see different files, different folders. He was getting angry, glaring at Leo. He accused him of not looking at the right stuff, trying to hide something. You're going to be in trouble, he told him. Several times, Sue had to go to the bathroom and throw up just from the stress and fear. Surprisingly, the intruder let her go, cutting off her zip ties and then putting new ones back on when she came out.

At one point, as she went between the bathroom and the study, Sue saw the man open the front door and go out onto the deck. She could hear him talking to someone, woman. They both sounded stressed. Another time, she saw him flicking the porch light on and off, clearly a signal to someone, who knew what it meant. Finally, their intruder gave up on Leo's emails and ordered them back to the bedroom. The tension was thicker than fog. The guy was getting worked up, and his cell phone conversations with the boss were getting testy. Sue looked over at her husband.

He was breathing really hard, the way he did when his heart was hurting him. Leo had had a heart bypass just a year earlier, and she was terrified at what this stress might do to him. Are you okay? she whispered. I feel like I might be having a heart. attack, Leo said. Sue was horrified and she pleaded with the intruder to let her call him an ambulance, or at least a doctor. Unsurprisingly, he said no. And then he got Sue up and hustled her out of the bedroom. I have to separate you now. There may be things your husband won't tell me in front of you, he said, and shut her into the bathroom by herself. It's only for 15 minutes, Sue heard the

intruder say as he walked away. He must have seen how upset she was getting, though, because a few moments later he came back to the door. Look, you can call out to Leo every few minutes if you want to to make sure he's okay. And Sue did. She kept an eye on her watch and every three minutes or so, she'd call out to Leo and get his reassuring, I'm okay. Meanwhile, Andrew's interrogation continued. Well, is there anything you want to tell me now that we're alone? He said, no, Leo said. Who would succeed you at the firm if you died, Andrew wanted to know. Leo couldn't say. You know, there's another operation going on right now at one of your partner's houses, the intruder said. That made Leo's blood run cold. Then Andrew abruptly shifted focus. Do any of your neighbors ever come over unannounced, he said. And then,

you have a lot of cash in the house, don't you? 20 to $100,000? Leo shook his head. No, we don't keep cash like that. You have gold bars, don't you? Andrew said. No, Leo said. But the question sparked a tiny bit of hope. Maybe if they could give him some money, he'd go away and leave them alone. We don't keep money here, Leo said, but we can go to the bank. The next thing Leo knew, Andrew was knocking him flat on the bed and pressing a pillow to his face. As he struggled, he felt a sharp slicing pain across his throat and stab after stab to his head and left shoulder. And stab after stabs shoulder. Like a lot of couples who've been married for a while, Leo and Sue had cute nicknames for each other. He was Pie and she was Muffin, or Muffy. Alone in the bathroom, she suddenly

heard a scuffle. She burst out of the bathroom and into the bedroom where she saw the intruder straddling Leo, stabbing him. She screamed and the attacker whirled around and said, Get out. Don't come in here. Leo said, Muffy, he's murdering me. This moment of pure horror stopped the assailant in his tracks for a second. He stopped stabbing just long enough for a little chuckle. Muffy? What is this? The Muppets? Hilarious. A joke maker, this guy. Look, it's not even funny. It's not even funny. Ugh. Get off him, Sue yelled, and ran toward the attacker. Two things happened all at once. Leo Fisher rolled off the bed and hit the floor, bleeding from multiple knife wounds all over his torso, and Andrew Schmole raised a silver gun, a cobra 380, and shot her.

The bullet, in Suze on words, tore across my scalp to the bone, and she hit the floor. Leo thought she was dead, and he could feel himself bleeding out. There was a t-shirt on the floor, and Leo grabbed it to press it against the awful gash in his throat. Andrew saw him do it. He kicked Leo in the head as hard as he could. You're going to die, he told him. Then he casually stooped down and picked up the shell casing from the floor. After that initial moment of pain and shock, Sue realized she was still alive and got up onto her hands and knees. There was a phone on the other side of the bed and she started crawling toward it. Andrew saw her and leapt on top of her.

He stabbed her over and over in her neck and shoulders and back. But Sue Duncan is one hell of a fighter. She kept getting up and crawling toward that phone. Wow. Four or five times she did it. And every time, Andrew would jump on top of her with the knife, stabbing and stabbing. Finally, Sue realized she needed to play dead,

and he fell for it. At last, he left her alone. Moments later, Sue and Leo heard the front door open. Bleeding profusely, Sue made her way to the alarm box on the wall and hit the panic button. Then she called 911. Hello? Susan said. home invasion. Sue Duncan and Leo Fisher, home invasion. Please come right away. We have two cats,

she told the dispatcher. Please save them. Oh my God. This whole story is heart-wrenching, but I think that's the part that gets me the most. Sue thought she might be dying, and she was worried about her cats because their attacker had left the front door open when he fled. Oh, God. I relate to that so hard, though. That's what I'd be thinking about, too, probably. Yeah, so if I'm going to die, save my pets. Yeah, don't let them die, right? As they waited for help, Leah looked over at Sue. She was slumped against the desk in the study. There was blood all over her glasses.

I love you, Leo told her. He managed to stand up and stumble out the front door. He collapsed on the porch. Soon he saw the flashing red and white lights of a police car. In a few moments, he was surrounded by cops. Save my wife, please, he said. He was going in and out of consciousness. The cops immediately smelled gas.

Apparently, Andrew had poured some on the carpet before he left. I guess he was going to set the place on fire, then changed his mind. Thank God for that. One cop, who was also an EMT, later talked about how much blood there was in the bedroom. There was spatter and cast off, and one huge puddle that had already congealed into jelly. Until they saw blood coming out of her neck, they assumed Sue Duncan was dead. As they loaded Leo into an ambulance, a cop stayed with him. his fingers still pressed to the wound on Leo's throat.

I know who did this, Leo said, blood leaking from his mouth with every word. Andrew Schmol, S-C-H-M-U-H-L. He's the husband of a former employee of my firm. He gave them Alicia's name. Sue was still clueless about who their attacker was and what his motives might have been. Right before they closed the doors, Leo thought he saw paramedics loading Sue into another ambulance, and then he lost consciousness. Andrew Schmoul's life had changed a lot in the two years before.

the home invasion. Ever since childhood, he'd always been an energetic, athletic guy with lots of hobbies and interests. After undergrad, he signed up for the army and went to law school. There was a first marriage somewhere in there, but it didn't work out, and that's pretty much all we know about it. In law school, though, Andrew met Alicia Pear. She was a lot like him, lots of energy and interests. She was a blogger. She was a skilled violinist. Somewhat unlike Andrew, Alicia had a big personality. Andrew had always had a close circle of friends, but came off as a little socially awkward. Some of their classmates at law school were confused when they found out he and Alicia were together. Like, those two, really? Well, yeah, really. They got married, and in 2009 they both graduated

with their law degrees. Andrew started working as an army lawyer. It seemed like life was going great, headed in just the direction they wanted. But then, in 2012, Andrew fell during PT, and really messed up his spine. No matter what meds he took, and he took a lot, the pain just kept coming, and over the next couple of years, it got worse. He had to take a medical discharge from the Army and go on disability. It wasn't much money at all, as disability usually isn't,

so Alicia had to carry the financial load for both of them, and they were relieved when she got the job at Bean, Kenny, and Corman. Alicia was even able to talk the firm into giving Andrews some contract work. But, of course, we already know how, that worked out. Crappy work performance, attempted mortgage fraud, etc. It was actually Andrew's idea to try the mortgage fraud. Just pretend to be someone, he texted Alicia. Hell, make up an accent. By the way, I know. I bet she did, too, and a bit was awful. So, by the way, some of the quotes in this episode come from direct courtroom testimony, and some come from an article in the

Washingtonian by Jason Fogne. When Alicia was fired, it was a huge blow to both of them. They were having some financial issues stemming from Andrew's divorce from his first wife, so they really couldn't afford for Alicia to be unemployed. Andrew had actually done like 120 days in jail for falling behind on these like divorce payment issues. So, you know, you would think that they would be extra careful not to do anything that might put Alicia's job at risk, right? But no, apparently not. This was his bright idea. Andrew was pissed. He was in bad shape health-wise, besides the chronic back pain, he was also having issues with low testosterone and kidney stones. He'd been through it the past few months.

And now, here this asshole law firm had the gall to fire his wife. You'd make more money from a gender discrimination lawsuit than you will from that severance package they gave you, he told Alicia. Let's get you an employment attorney, stat. In a text, he called Leo a worthless piece of sniveling shit and said that by the time they were done with Bean, Kenny, and Corman, I want your name on their goddamn door. And it's so absurd because, like, in that article by Jason Fagone, he talks to other female employees from the law firm. And, like, there's no basis for this gender discrimination.

Like, they treated their female employees fine. It's just something that Andrew's little fevered brain came up with. It's ridiculous. Evidently, though, he and Alicia had changed the plan at some point, from a lawsuit to a home invasion. Makes sense, right? I mean, what else could you possibly do? Once the investigators had the name of Leo and Sue's attacker,

they put out an APB for Andrew and Alicia Schmule's SUV, and it did not take long to find it. Less than 10 minutes, in fact. A couple of canine cops saw the SUV and lit up their lights, but it picked up speed. The officers could see that there was a woman in the driver's seat, and in the passenger seat there was a man who was clearly in the process of taking his clothes off.

Both driver and passenger looked pissed off. Finally, they must have realized how futile it would be to try to outrun the cops because the SUV pulled into a mall parking lot and stopped. A moment later, the passenger side door swung open and out stepped Andrew Schmull. The officers could not believe what they were looking at. Andrew was wearing nothing but a diaper. They ordered him down to the ground, but he ignored them and started walking off toward the mall. The cops drew their guns on him and brought out the dog, and that persuaded Andrew.

He lay face down on the pavement. After the cops picked their lower jaws up off the ground, they cuffed him. It was strange. He seemed totally fine at first, answering their questions in a clear voice. When they asked him if he knew why they'd put him in handcuffs, he said, I can't talk about that. But not long into the conversation, his whole demeanor changed. He looked kind of daze.

He kept saying stuff in German. Have you taken anything? One of the officers said. Andrew rattled off the list. He was on the fentanyl patch for chronic back pain plus dilaudid muscle relaxers, a blood pressure med, testosterone. Dut was a walking pharmacy. Later, they'd find out that he had an incontinence problem, the result of a surgery to take out a kidney stone.

That explained the diaper. The officers had called for an ambulance. and as the paramedics worked on him, they found one of the fentanyl patches stuck to his arm. Later, they'd find one under his diaper, double dose. And by the way, there's some dispute about that incontinence issue. In the trial, the prosecution's theory was that he put that diaper on so that he wouldn't have to take bathroom breaks during the home invasion, so he wouldn't have to let himself out of their sight.

And I think that's actually worth considering. Yeah, I think that's a good point. You see that a lot? Oh, yeah. I've seen it twice in cases like this, which I feel like is a lot. It's like that two nickels audio. It's like it's weird that it's happened twice with the astronaut stalker, you know? Mm-hmm.

The driver, of course, was Alicia Schmull. The cops deposited her in the backseat of one of their cruisers while they searched the SUV. I don't know why, but people in the back of cop cars never. seemed to remember that they're being recorded. Alone in the back of the car, Alicia dropped her head and said, oh, God, the computer. The officers made a mental note to look for a laptop. Thanks, Alicia. The Schmull's SUV was a gold mine of evidence.

Like, if this was a movie, a choir of angels would have started singing as soon as they opened the driver's side door. Yeah. Like, it would have probably glowed like the briefcase. Oh, yeah. Yeah. An investigator couldn't ask for more. They found the taser, the gun, the bloodstained knife, Andrew's bloody clothes, which he'd soaked in ammonia in a pathetic attempt to clean them.

They found zip ties and rubber gloves. They found nylon rope. In the pocket of the shirt Andrew had tossed on the floorboard, they found a length of wire with the ends tied in knots and black electrical tape wrapped around the knots. A garot? Jesus, Murphy, that's creepy. Yeah, that's what it sounds like. Yeah, I can't think what else it could be. They also found a list in Andrew's handwriting.

Handcuffs, two bottles Nyquil, two packs Benadryl, one adult diaper. I guess that was for him. Two adult sleeping masks. And I think that kind of gives credence to the theory that the diaper was so he wouldn't have to leave them. Because why didn't he already have some? Yeah. And why would he add that to the list of his creepy kidnapping list, home invasion list? Absolutely.

Like if that was just something he regularly did and had. Yeah, totally. And okay, this part, if I had to have a favorite thing about a home invasion, this would be it. Okay. They found that badge, Andrew had flashed at Sue. The badge itself was plastic, the kind you get for like a bachelor at party. it said pecker inspector department of erections it had a dick on it oh my god wow okay well you know if you're gonna commit a crime you want to do it with some dignity right you want to give it some gravitas nah do it like they would in the next installment of the hangover movie like okay so they've already found a bunch of

stuff, but they found a ton of other stuff too, like mountains of evidence pointing to both of them. So you get the idea. Basically, Andrew and Alicia might as well have gift wrapped the SUV and said, here's everything you need to convict us. Go nuts. And then there's this. Two days before the home invasion, a CCTV camera caught Miss Alicia buying that taser with cash so as to not leave a paper trail. Of course. At a different store, she bought NyQuil, Benadryl and adult diapers. Andrew bought a couple of burner phones for them to communicate with, so yeah, these two were going down and going down hard. In case you were wondering, Leo Fisher and Sue Duncan both survived the attack after a lot of painful medical care,

and they would be the star witnesses at trial. Now, I know we all thought their love was eternal, but it didn't take long for Alicia and Andrew to turn on each other. I know, it's heartbreaking. Each blamed the other for masterminding the attack. Each accused the other of nasty behavior. Alicia claimed Andrew was controlling and abusive, and Andrew claimed Alicia had drugged him on the night of the attack. Because they were going after each other, the prosecution decided to try them separately.

At his trial, Andrew's defense attorney argued that he did, in fact, carry out the home invasion. But it wasn't his fault, though, because he was delirious from his meds and didn't remember most of it. involuntary intoxication. Bitch, please. And listen, I've literally been on a couple of the meds he was on years ago, like for a while. And there is no way in hell. You might be sleepy.

You might be a little out of it. But you are not going to be a zombie just primed to be a killing robot at somebody else's behest. That is not what those meds do. And that's basically what they were suggesting. They called Andrew a suffering veteran and argued that Alicia was. quote, an aggressive person who sought out confrontation. Why didn't she get her ass in there and do it then? Andrew's mom testified that she'd seen Alicia hit and kick Andrew. And of course, this was

Alicia's beef. She was the one who got fired from Bean Kenny and Corman. She was the one with all the inside baseball on the firm and its partners. Andrew didn't know any of that stuff without her. He was just stoned to the gills and it made him scared and paranoid and suggestible. Both Sue Duncan and Leo Fisher took the stand to relive their nightmare for the jury. They did a great job of countering the defense's argument about Andrew's medication delirium. He was completely fine, they said, totally in control of himself. When they saw a video of him in the cop car after the attack, though, they could see that he looked pretty blitzed at that point. Of course, he could easily have just taken a handful of pills and slapped on those two fentanyl patches. As completely bizarre as this attack was,

the Indiana Jones hat, the pecker inspector badge, all that weird stuff about the Virginia SEC. There was plenty of evidence that it was premeditated. And at least some evidence that he knew he might end up killing Leo and Sue. Why else would you bring a loaded gun, a knife, a friggin' garot? And you know, I have huge sympathy for anybody with back pain because I have it myself and it's fucking awful. It sucks on a good day and on a bad day you'd just hate in life. But guess what, Andrew, Leo Fisher didn't push you down on that icy sidewalk and make you hurt your spine. Leo didn't ask your dumb-ass wife to commit mortgage fraud. You did. And your frickin' meds did not turn you into a mindless killing machine programmed by Alicia.

And exactly none of your problems were Leo's fault or sues. And the jury agreed. They convicted Andrew of seven charges, abduction, burglary, firearms charges, malicious wounding, and others. The judge sentenced him to two. consecutive life sentences, adding up to 98 years. My dude will never see daylight again. One other interesting thing that came out at Andrew's trial, a former co-worker of Andrew and Alicia's at Bean Kenny and Corman told the jury that Andrew told him he'd hurt his back

when an IED explosive device went off. So, you know, like I was wounded in the line of duty and, you know, big dramatic story like from a movie or something. In reality, he'd slipped on some ice, okay? He slipped on ice. And whereas Andrew had testified about his horrific incapacitating chronic pain, the co-worker told the jury about playing in a softball game with Andrew and watching him haul ass around the bases. He played just fine, no sign of pain or disability whatsoever. Interesting.

For her part, Alicia claimed she had no idea what Andrew was doing inside Leo and Sue's house that night. She was just waiting in the car outside, blissfully ignorant. Andrew had told her he was just going to try and negotiate her. her a new contract, which is why he needed to be wearing a freaking weird hat pulled down over his face and carrying a taser. Yeah, it all makes perfect sense. Sure, Jan. I think after watching Andrew get absolutely pounded into dust at his trial, Alicia realized she was cooked. She ended up pleading guilty to two counts of aggravated malicious wounding, two counts of abduction, and one count of burglary with a deadly weapon. The judge gave her 45 years in prison. She cried at her sentencing

hearing said she wish she could have done something to stop the attack. Mm-hmm. Sitting in the gallery, Leo and Sue didn't seem impressed by her tears. Leo had lost 30 to 40% of his total blood volume in the attack, and when he got to the hospital, he was bleeding profusely. Blood was pouring out of his mouth. He was in hemorrhagic shock and needed an emergency transfusion. The doctor who treated Leo on the night of the attack said that it was a case where a minute

matters. Leo came very close to dying that night. The doctor also said he'd never seen a wound like the one in Leo's neck. The attacker, he said, must have held Mr. Fisher down and moved the knife back and forth across his throat. The surgeon had to do a tracheostomy. It was an uncommonly violent attack. Yeah, it doesn't really sound like somebody who's barely sentient on drugs, does it? Sue was more stable when she arrived at the ER, but she was still in rough shape. The doctors had to put staples in her head.

Later, she said she'd never forget the sound that made. As the night wore on, Sue's condition deteriorated. In addition to the gunshot wound, she'd been stabbed at seven times, and they couldn't seem to stop the bleeding. Andrew's knife had severed her external jugular

vein. If an excellent trauma surgeon hadn't gotten to her in time, she would have died. Both Leo and Sue would have ongoing medical problems because of what Andrew did to them. Terrible scars, limited range of motion in different parts of their bodies, Sue in her neck, Leo in one of his arms. Before the attack, Sue had been getting treatment for arthritis, and she'd been doing a lot better. After the attack, all that progress was ruined.

One side of Leo's mouth drooped slightly when he smiles, and he has trouble eating because the left side of his tongue is numb from nerve damage. Damage is most likely permanent. He struggles to speak sometimes. And that's just the physical stuff. After Andrew's trial, Leo Fisher gave a statement. Sue and I are enormously grateful that the jury has convicted Andrew Schmoul on all charges brought against him, that he has received in an appropriate prison sentence.

He told the press, We simply want our lives back. We never wanted to become thought of as people who were attacked by these criminals. I don't blame you. Yeah, and, you know, we can and should talk about how. amazing Leo and Sue were that night. How brave and strong and how they kept their cool and saved themselves and each other. And you can see from every part of that story how much they loved each other. We can see this in some lights as a story of human triumph. And it's really

tempting to do that and just leave it at that because it makes us feel good. Like it's all been put right. But the thing is, that kind of shuts the book on the story, doesn't it? Like, look what a couple of badass survivors. Good for them. I'm so glad they've written off into the sunset. Leo and Sue lived, after multiple surgeries, after reliving their horror in court, having to sit and watch the man who tried to kill them, get up on the stand, and pretend like he didn't remember any of it. They lived, but they didn't get to ride off into the sunset. In court, Leo said that he didn't used to be the kind of person who hated anybody. But once Andrew and Alicia Schmuel got done with him, he was. They left a roiling pit of rage in his heart,

and he didn't know what to do with it. Sometimes, he said he just wanted to scream. Sue, who had once been a social person, didn't have any interest in going out anymore or seeing her friends. She had nightmares about home invasion and murder, a man coming to kill her in the night. What we're getting at is, what they went through at the hands of their attackers changed them,

inside and out, left deep scars. And that's something they've had to live with every day since. We get to walk away from this story and feel glad that some degree of justice was served, but the survivors got, in a way, a life sentence. I hope very, very much that they're doing a million times better now than they were at the time of the trial. And as for Andrew and Alicia, I think the best we can hope for is that they've had the time to confront their own demons, that they've learned to take accountability for what they did. I hate to say it, but I'm not holding my breath.

so that was a wild one right campers you know we'll have another one for you next week but for now lock your doors light your lights and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire and if you haven't booked your spot yet on the crime wave true crime cruise from november 3rd through november 7th you really got to get on it they have like so few rooms left so if you want to go and you've been putting it off go get your tickets join katie and me plus last podcast on the left scared to death and sinisterhood for an amazing time at see We had a call with the cruise folks last night, and we are so excited. It's going to be so much fun.

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