DA: Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz Killed Daughter With "Religious Whips" for Mispronouncing Word

By: Edecio Martinez
Topics: Daily Blotter

(CBS/KOVR)

CHICO, Calif. (CBS/KOVR) Three years ago, Kevin Schatz and his wife Elizabeth did something so noble, a local television station featured them; the pair decided to adopt three children from Liberia. Now, they're accused of killing one of the children because she mispronounced a word.

Photo: Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz.

Prosecutors say that the California couple used quarter-inch plastic tubing to beat their seven-year-old adopted daughter to death.

Apparently, they got the idea from a fundamentalist Christian group, which promotes this as a way of training children to be obedient.

Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey says for several hours the 7-year-old was held down by Elizabeth and beaten dozens of times by Kevin on the back of her body which caused massive tissue damage.

"It was torture," says Ramsey.

Another 11-year-old adopted child was allegedly critically beaten for "being a liar and a bad influence on the 7-year-old."

The District Attorney points to a book written by a Tennessee evangelist named Michael Pearl, who the Schatz's have told police they were following.

Pearl's website, nogreaterjoy.org, suggests "A swift whack with the plastic tubing would sting but not bruise. Give ten licks at a time, more if the child resists."

"This is not a good ole' fashion spanking, it certainly is way beyond that," says Ramsey.

The alleged beating happened on a piece of property in Paradise, Calif., where the three adopted children and the Schatz's six biological children were homeschooled. Paradise is 90 miles north of Sacramento.

The family rarely left, and they even grew their own food there.

If convicted, Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz face life in prison.

Story Contributed by CBS Affiliate KOVR

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by robixqueen@yahoo.com November 7, 2011 4:31 PM EST: Wow, how tradgic! This sets back adoption and different race adoption decades. What was done to that little girl sounds like things done during slavery, pre-civil war. They may not have been racist but if the shoe fits....; Reply to this comment


by margroks August 22, 2011 3:01 PM EDT: There is no excuse for hitting a child with an implement like a belt or a oiece of tubbing and I don't care who claims it's a good idea. It's torture plain and simple. These people are idiots to pay attention to these morons who claim to be religious.

In fact, there is no excuse for hitting your children at all. The law considers it a crime to hit your spouse. How can you possibly justify hitting a child-smaller than and adult and unable to defend him or her self? It's crazy and inexcusable. There is no need for corporal punishment. My daughter turned out just fine and she was treated with respect and love all her life. Anyone who thinks it's okay to hit children is a rotten parent.; Reply to this comment


by beffie1963 August 22, 2011 1:03 PM EDT: Burn in hell, Shatzes.; Reply to this comment


by Harden_Tar August 22, 2011 12:41 PM EDT: If EVER an eye for an eye was called for, here it is. Tie these 2 down and beat them within an inch of their lives with plastic tubing. Every year on the anniversary of their crime.; Reply to this comment

by wilder125 August 19, 2011 10:14 PM EDT

Discipline should never put the child in fear of dying. much less kill the child.

I grew up on spankings with a belt. Spankings. That I voluntarily bent over for.

Holding a child down and beating her until she dies is not discipline. Heck, a parent in biblical times that did it would probably have been put to death by christians.

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by AnnieDanny August 20, 2011 4:57 AM EDT: Yes, we got some spankings too but only when we Really deserved it. And we weren't terrified of such discipline. It didn't even hurt much: it was just the fact of being disciplined that made the biggest impression. I've always thought my parents handled it properly.

What happened to these adopted children sounds like a nightmare, a real horror story. It's very sad and tragic, I'm so sorry for the kids.


by celticshrew August 19, 2011 10:02 PM EDT: I've just discovered this story and read through the comments.

Never, in any context of any bible verse, do the christian god or messiah give permission or acceptance to the abuse, torture or murder of a child in the name of "obedience." The "spare the rod" proverb is an old testament excuse slapped liberally on these cases to try and justify appalling, unthinkably unchristian behavior toward helpless, bullied, terrified children.

The god of the christian stories would condemn such people and his son would forsake them for bastardizing his teachings.; Reply to this comment


by linfinster August 19, 2011 9:15 PM EDT: They better be convicted and they better be sent away for life! How twisted and horrible!; Reply to this comment

by homeschoolingmomof3 March 19, 2010 8:28 PM EDT

As a homeschooling parent, cases like this ARE the exception. Please don't think that homeschoolers are being abused just because they're homeschooled. These parents who did this and follow that Pearl book are not Christians they are in a cult!! No where does it say in the Bible to beat your child!! What a sick group of people who think this is how to raise a child. My kids are well behaved, respectful and are all performing several grades above their peers. And guess what? We don't spank them. We love them, we discipline them but beating them is NOT an option for us. And they are wonderful people!! Gee, guess spanking, I mean beating isn't the way to raise good kids.

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by 1JulieBeth March 25, 2010 8:06 PM EDT: Actually the Bible does say to beat our children, in the sense of physical discipline, not the context that people beat a child to injure them or out of anger.

Those who follow the Biblical admonition to train up their children in the way they should go rarely have to adminster physical discipline because the children have been taught God's wisdom, find joy in obedience, and we parents don't provoke our children to anger.

See what God's Word says about child discipline:

Withhold not correction from the child: for you beat him with the rod, he shall not die [physically and spiritually]. You shall beat him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul from hell. Proverbs 23:13-14

He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly. Proverbs 13:21

Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of correction will drive it far from him. Proverbs 22:15

The rod and rebuke give wisdom, But a child left to his own ways brings shame to his mother. Proverbs 29:14


by gracie_allan October 7, 2010 10:09 PM EDT: 1JulieBeth,
I used to agree with you, but if you look carefully at what the Bible describes, it is nothing like a traditional spanking. If you try to apply it literally, you will find yourself beating up and down the backs of your disobedient children with sticks. I hope you don't do that. The reason I don't think the Bible teaches you to do either is because Proverbs 23:13 says "if thou beat him with the rod, he shall not die." Since, obviously, a child can die by either of the methods we've been describing, whatever the Bible is talking about is not a physical beating.


by canthDecided August 19, 2011 2:20 AM EDT: Withhold not correction from the child: for you beat him with the rod, he shall not die [physically and spiritually]. You shall beat him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul from hell. Proverbs 23:13-14

He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly. Proverbs 13:21

Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of correction will drive it far from him. Proverbs 22:15

The rod and rebuke give wisdom, But a child left to his own ways brings shame to his mother. Proverbs 29:14

I heard these quotes continually from my father as he beat me, sometimes almost to unconsciousness, in Tennessee.
Today, I am 40 years old, and only yesterday I woke screaming my boyfriend's name, over and over, soaked in sweat from horrifying nightmares of my father. Then, I got up, ran to the bathroom, and vomited from the emotional trauma I re-experienced while in the dream.
I was delivered into hell by the rod and the rebuke. I could do nothing good enough. Nothing well enough. I was sin. I was, since I was female, responsible for for everyone going to hell, because someone who was alive long before I was born, who was the same gender I was, did something.

I went to the call of the altar in church dozens of times and prayed for Jesus to help me to stop doing whatever it was I was doing to make him beat me.

Nothing I did was good enough to stop him.
Nothing I did was good enough to get Jesus to stop him.
Nothing I did was good enough to get God to stop him.

And neither God, nor Jesus, did anything to stop these animals from brutalizing their innocent, helpless children. Even though these things were done in their name, it's not God's justice these people are facing. Their punishment will be at the hands of human beings. And that punishment will never be severe enough.

You Christians disgust me.
Your all powerful God did nothing to save me, those little children, or any of the other countless other little children who die from disease, famine, and wars fought in his name.

Where is God, people?
Try looking under all the bodies.

I have lived my entire life in agony and sickness because of what you Christians did to me by chanting the platitudes that are quoted above as being some kind of 'higher learning' that teaches people to be right and good, when what taught me to be right and good was to behave the exact opposite of how he behaved.
By telling my father he was right and good to beat me. To psychologically destroy me. To berate and belittle and torture me.
And telling these people they were right.

You are all participating in a massive delusion, a delusion that tells you it's ok to enslave women, children, Hittites, and Cannanites.
That it's ok to sell your daughter into slavery.
A book in which it's only the women who are infertile, barren.
And when God opens their wombs, they bear only baby boys.

A book written over the course of four centuries after the death of its so-called hero, and translated and edited hundreds of times.

You're all using a 2,000 game of Telephone to tell you how to treat people.
No wonder the entire middle east is in a state of continuous violence, just like it was back then.

God and Jesus are lies.

And I stopped my father's abuse myself. He will never, ever see me again.

He has his God, who he is supposed to love more than me anyhow.
That God can be his daughter.
I'm sure all the corpses he has to look under won't bother him in the least.
Denial is an awesome shield.


by homeschoolingmomof3 March 19, 2010 8:25 PM EDT: As a homeschooling parent, cases like this ARE the exception. Please don't think that homeschoolers are being abused just because they're homeschooled. These parents who did this and follow that Pearl book are not Christians they are in a cult!! No where does it say in the Bible to beat your child!! What a sick group of people who think this is how to raise a child. My kids are well behaved, respectful and are all performing several grades above their peers. And guess what? We don't spank them. We love them, we discipline them but beating them is NOT an option for us. And they are wonderful people!! Gee, guess spanking, I mean beating isn't the way to raise good kids.; Reply to this comment


by Wildwood1966 March 19, 2010 10:49 AM EDT: I don't know why I am amazed 6 children of their own and adopt 3 more????? How sad for the child that thought she was being adopted bya fine family - I agree this "homeschool" with the wrong family can get way out of hand - Put the couple in jail Let God deal with them and pray these other 8 find a good home.; Reply to this comment