Weddings are usually happy occasions, but one in Illinois turned deadly when a man shot and killed his daughter-in-law because he was upset she was about to divorce his son, according to police.
Officers from the Village of Schaumburg, a Chicago suburb, responded to the Marriott on North Martingale Road around 10:15 p.m. Friday and found a gunshot victim in the parking lot, according to a press release. Police reported that she had a bullet wound to the head. Paramedics took her to the hospital, where she died.
Cops discovered that a citizen had apprehended the alleged shooter, 76-year-old Roland Schmidt, and confiscated the gun. Schmidt and his daughter-in-law, 45-year-old Christine Moyer of Ohio, were attending a wedding at the hotel, according to detectives. According to police, Schmidt followed Moyer outside and shot her in the head as she left the event.
“Through the investigation, it was discovered Schmidt was upset with Moyer over divorce paperwork which was filed against his son,” according to police reports.
Schmidt, of Stillman Valley, about 13 miles southwest of Rockford, is now charged with first-degree murder, according to police. Cops transported him to the Cook County Jail. He is scheduled to appear in front of a judge on Monday.
Flory Sommers had just entered the hotel with her friends when the shooting occurred.
“I was inside by the ATM and I heard some people calling ‘gunshot!’ and then the manager said ‘was there a gunshot,’ and he said he was calling the ambulance, and then I just saw people move quickly to the elevator to the lobby,” Sommers told WFLD, a local Fox television station.
