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The confession of 51 year old Adam Christopher Sheafe to the gruesome murder of Pastor William “Bill” Schonemann in Arizona is a gut punch to the soul of a nation already wrestling with its demons. Sheafe, a drifter with a rap sheet as long as a desert road, admitted to crucifying the 76 year old preacher in his New River home, nailing his hands to the wall and crowning him with thorns crafted from desert scrub.
He called it “Operation First Commandment,” a twisted mission to purge pastors he deemed guilty of preaching “the opposite of what God said.” But as the layers of this macabre case peel back, questions arise about the forces that shaped Sheafe’s fractured mind. Was his descent into fanaticism born solely of personal conviction, or could darker influences, perhaps even the shadowy specter of MKUltra, the CIA’s infamous mind control program, have twisted his psyche? And what role did his troubled upbringing and early religious beliefs play in forging a killer who sees himself as God’s executioner?
Sheafe’s early life, pieced together from family accounts and court records cited by Arizona Family, was a crucible of instability. Born in Riverside, California, in 1974, he grew up in a working class household fractured by domestic strife. His father, Chris Sheafe, a mechanic, and his mother, Linda, a part time nurse, divorced when Adam was seven, leaving him shuttling between homes.
