A man was sentenced to four life sentences on Monday for the 2004 murders of a mother, her young son, and their dog in Virginia Beach. Richard Stoner pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced by Judge Steven C. Frucci, who called Stoner’s confession “like a horror story.” The judge stated that the maximum sentence he could give felt insufficient.
Stoner was charged with aggravated murder and first-degree murder for shooting and killing Lois Schmidt and her son, Jonathan Vetrano. He was also charged with torturing and mutilating their family pet and aggravated malicious wounding for shooting Morgan Bloise, Schmidt’s brother.
Prosecutors claim that Stoner was hired by Christopher Schmidt, Lois’ estranged and still-married husband, to kill her in exchange for $10,000. The case remained cold until 2018, when Stoner confessed, leading to his guilty plea in 2019. He agreed to testify against Schmidt after prosecutors promised not to seek the death penalty.
However, when Virginia abolished capital punishment in 2021, Stoner asked to withdraw his guilty pleas, and the judge agreed, making the plea deal invalid. Prosecutors did not believe they had enough evidence to win a conviction against Schmidt without Stoner’s testimony, and he was released when the charges were withdrawn.
In February 2023, Stoner pleaded guilty for the second time to the double homicide. Prosecutors revealed that Stoner had waited outside Louis’ house with an instruction manual on how to kill her, allegedly provided by Chris Schmidt. He then knocked on the door, introduced himself as a high school friend, and shot Louis and the dog when she went to check the electricity panel.
