Hemy Neuman convicted in Ga. daycare killing of co-worker's husband
(CBS/AP) DECATUR, Ga. - Hemy Neuman was found guilty but mentally ill on Thursday of killing the husband of a female subordinate outside of a suburban Atlanta preschool.
He was sentenced to life without parole.
Neuman, a corporate engineer and father of three, was charged with murder in the 2010 shooting death of Russell Sneiderman. Prosecutors and defense attorneys said Neuman was having an affair with Sneiderman's wife Andrea, though she repeatedly denied those allegations.
The jury's 'guilty but mentally ill' verdict means Neuman will go to prison but he will get mental health treatment.
DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gregory Adams Thursday called the killing a "planned execution" with no justification.
Neuman was a high-ranking manager at General Electric, where he supervised Andrea Sneiderman. He had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
Neuman told mental health examiners he was visited by a demon whose voice sounded like Barry White and an angel who looked like Olivia Newton-John. The angel ordered him to fatally shoot Sneiderman, Neuman said in one interview.
Russell Sneiderman, a Harvard-educated entrepreneur, was killed shortly after he dropped off the couple's 2-year-old son at a daycare facility in Dunwoody, a wealthy suburb north of Atlanta. Police said a bearded man in a hoodie resembling Neuman fired four shots at the 36-year-old Sneiderman and sped away, blending in with rush hour traffic.
Neuman's lawyers said the engineer had fallen so hopelessly in love with Andrea Sneiderman that he believed he was the father of her two children and that the only way to protect them was to kill her husband. Defense attorney Doug Peters called her a tease and an adulterer who took advantage of Neuman's deteriorating mental condition to get her husband's $2 million life insurance policy.
Andrea Sneiderman testified that Neuman attacked her husband after she refused many advances, and that she didn't air her suspicions that Neuman killed her husband because it sounded unbelievable.