Fort Scott man sentenced for 2004 murder

Saturday, May 3, 2008
Freeze

By Michael Glover

Herald-Tribune

Starr Marshall wore an oval-shaped picture of Karl "Rex" Schenker on her jacket. So did Kay Werling and Chad Schenker. And so did about a dozen relatives of Rex Schenker, the victim of a 2004 murder. Kohlby Freeze pleaded guilty to the murder last year.

"Just don't want him to be forgotten," Marshall said.

They wore the picture for Freeze's long-awaited sentence on Friday in Bourbon County District Court.

Sixth Judicial District Chief Judge Richard Smith sentenced 20 year-old Freeze to 22 years on a single count of second degree murder and another four years and five months on one count of battery on a correctional officer. Smith ruled the sentences run consecutively, meaning Freeze will serve a total of 26 years and 8 months. Last year, Freeze pleaded guilty to the two felony counts.

But he's not going to prison. Smith ordered Freeze to serve the time at Larned State Hospital, a facility that treats and holds people with mental illnesses, because of Freeze's long-history of mental illness.

Chad Schenker, Rex's son, thinks otherwise about Freeze's fate. "I think he should've got the death penalty," Schenker said after the sentencing.

Shortly before midnight on March 13, 2004, Freeze walked into the bedroom of a house at 609 S. Eddy St. with a high-powered rifle and shot Rex in the head, who was visiting his fiance, Karyn Freeze, Kohlby's mother.

Ed Battitori, his attorney, asked the judge to run the sentences concurrent to each other so that Freeze would only serve the murder charge sentence.

The battery on a correctional officer happened on March 28, 2006, in the Southeast Kansas Regional Correctional Center, when Freeze tackled the officer who was about to serve him a meal.

To support his argument that two charges shouldn't run consecutively, Battitori called Freeze's psychiatric, Doug Hippie, to the stand. Hippie said Freeze suffers from different forms mental illness. He said Freeze's mental state and stress level become more pronounced when he is isolated. He gets stressed out when people are more commanding toward him, Hippie said.

Battitori said the correctional center kept Freeze isolated in a small cell when he stayed at SEKRCC for the majority of his 1,384 days of incarceration. He stayed at Larned Hospital for part of the time, when he received six competency evaluations by mental health professionals. The evaluations helped draw out the case for more than four years.

"I don't believe he intended to do harm to anyone," Battitori said. Hippie agreed.

Bourbon County Attorney Terri Johnson asked Hippie if he knew exactly what Freeze's mental state was at the time of the attack. Hippie couldn't answer what kind of stresses he was under at the time. Generally, when Freeze is isolated, the stresses build, Hippie said.

"I'm sorry for what I done," Freeze said just before he was sentenced. "I don't have anything else to say."

Marshall and Werling had plenty to say. They both read powerful statements to the court. Marshall said the family has waited four years to hear the punishment of the "gruesome murder." Werling said Freeze must be placed in a controlled environment or "he will do something like this again."

After the sentence, Marshall was asked if the family had any sort of closure. "No," she simply said.