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Body builder had dreamed of becoming Hulk, hit man
Defendant charged in alleged murder-for-hire cites damaging steroid use
By Wendy Thomas Russell
Press-Telegram
03/12/2007
LONG BEACH - A body builder charged with the murder-for-hire of a Bixby Knolls woman told jurors
Monday that he was a fitness buff who idolized comic-book heroes, collected knives and took
excessive amounts of steroids - the basis for what could become a "roid rage" defense when the
trial wraps up today.
Nicholas Harvey, of Port Hueneme, took the stand in his own defense Monday afternoon - his 25th
birthday - and testified at length about the effects of his four-year "addiction" to anabolic
steroids, as well as his recollections from the day he killed Lynn Schockner on her back patio.
Prosecutors believe Schockner's estranged husband, Manfred, hired Harvey as a hit man to murder
his wife and make it look like burglary. Lynn Schockner, 50, was stabbed or slashed 10 times
around her neck and hands on Nov. 8, 2004, while at least six Long Beach police officers surrounded
her home to investigate a prowler call.
Harvey appeared at ease, even comfortable, on the stand in Long Beach Superior Court, especially
under questioning by his own attorney. At one point, he turned to address jurors directly while
talking about the how steroids work. And he seemed eager to offer personal information about himself,
such as his father's interest in knives and his mother's Christian faith.
"I was one of those kids that was always into the comic book heroes - the Hulk," he said. "I
always wanted to be the big guy, the strong guy."
He said he had a knife and sword collection and even named his young daughter, Katana, after a
Japanese longsword.
Harvey said he worked as a personal trainer, bouncer and loan officer after graduating from high
school but had bragged to some of his friends about wanting to become "a hit man."
His steroid use, he said, began at age 18.
"Did (the drugs) affect you mentally?" Harvey's attorney, Anthony Patalano, asked his client.
"Yeah, yeah they did," the defendant answered. "You become a lot more intense, more aggressive in
your behavior ... It intensifies everything."
Harvey said he regularly ingested and injected multiple types of illegal steroids, including those
designed only for animal use and those provided to him without labels.
"Would you say you were addicted to them?" Patalano asked.
"Yeah," Harvey answered.
Prior to taking steroids, Harvey said he didn't know there could be any negative effects, other than
"your stuff shrinking." When asked to explain, the defendant said he was referring to the penis and
testicles.
Patalano asked if the defendant had experienced such side effects.
"The penis - that's a myth," he answered. "But the testicles, yes."
At one point, Harvey laughed while describing how steroids made him quick to anger.
"You develop a very low tolerance," he said, chuckling, "for - uh, oh, I don't know how to put it -
B.S."
Harvey faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of first-degree murder, as
well as special circumstances that the murder was committed for financial gain and during the commission
of a burglary.
When asked about the killing, Harvey said he was contacted by Frankie Jaramillo, a former manager at the
LA Fitness where he was a personal trainer. Jaramillo, he said, was a charming and flashy guy who acted
as a middleman for Manfred Schockner.
"He asked me if I wanted to make some money, I believe, and I said, `Yes,' and he laid out the proposal,"
Harvey testified.
While he didn't take the job seriously at first, Harvey said he was later paid $2,500 - with the promise
of another $2,500 upon completion of the job - and that Jaramillo started getting "pushy," calling
Harvey's cell phone daily.
The defendant said he never met Manfred Schockner but had an image in his mind that he was "a guy with
money (who) knows people." He said he felt intimidated by the image enough to make two trips to Long
Beach before the day of the killing.
"I was told that they were getting impatient and wanted it done," he said.
"Did you feel pressured to do it?" Patalano asked.
"Yes," he said.
The defendant described being emotionally torn about the job he was hired to do.
He acknowledged that he bought a double-edged dagger and a stun gun, promised to pay a friend $1,000 to
drive him to Long Beach, and then hopped the fence in Schockner's backyard wearing latex gloves. He also
acknowledged that he unsheathed the dagger with the intent to jimmy the sliding-glass door and stage the
burglary.
But he also testified that he never intended to kill Schockner, that he was having second thoughts about
the job and wanted to leave when the victim walked out onto the patio and startled him.
"She just came and saw me, yelled something along the lines of `Oh my God'... and I panicked," he said.
"Did you go after her?" Patalano asked.
"Yes, he answered. "My first impulse was to keep her from screaming ... I tackled her down, and the next
thing I remember was there was a whole lot of blood. At that point, I jumped up because that was the last
thing I expected to see.
"I saw her moving still," he added about the moments after the stabbing, "I remember that."
He said the stabbing was accidental but that he decided to stage the burglary afterward anyway out of fear
of reprisal from the men who hired him.
Harvey's contention that he didn't remember the stabbing, and that it was unintentional, was the thrust of
Deputy District Attorney Cindy Barnes' cross-examination.
Using autopsy photographs as a backdrop, Barnes drilled the defendant on his previous statements to police on
Nov. 8, 9 and 10, 2004, in which he describes stabbing Schockner in the neck with one hand while trying to
cover her mouth with the other. He testified that he had lied to police in those interviews.
"You are willing to lie when it helps you?" Barnes inquired.
"At the time, yes," Harvey answered.
"You lied on Nov. 8, correct?"
"Yes."
"You lied on Nov. 9, correct?"
"Yes."
"And you lied on Nov. 10?"
"I believe so."
Now that a jury has been impaneled to make a determination of guilt, she asked, "don't you have a motive to
lie?"
"It depends on what I'm lying about," he answered.
Barnes said she found it difficult to believe that someone could stab or slash a woman 10 times accidentally.
"One. Two. Three. Four," Barnes said as she pounded her fist into her palm for effect. "Six, seven times.
Nine times. Ten times. You don't remember any of that?"
"No, ma'am," he answered.
Whether Patalano will be able to persuade a jury that the killing was unintentional or that steroids played
a large role in his client's behavior is uncertain.
Judge Gary Ferrari is set to decide this morning whether to allow one last defense witness to take the stand
before closing arguments.
That witness, Dr. Ronald Siegel, interviewed Harvey and may testify about the possibility that the defendant
suffered from a "steroid-facilitated rage reaction."
Monday was the first time that so-called "roid rage" - an outburst of violence supposedly caused by too many
steroids - was solidified as a possible defense, but it had been alluded to before.
Last week, Patalano questioned a police officer about a silver suitcase found in Harvey's car trunk after
the killing. The suitcase, which was entered as evidence, contained three vials of testosterone, five syringes
and a typewritten list of steroids.
Harvey testified Monday that he had experienced a near-physical reaction to seeing the suitcase in court after
two and a half years. He said it surprised him to find that he missed it that much.
"You crave it?" Patalano said.
"Yeah," he answered.
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Hit man guilty in Schockner killing
Panel needs only half an hour to convict man in alleged murder-for-hire plot of husband
By Wendy Thomas Russell
Press-Telegram
03/13/2007
LONG BEACH - Faced with what they described as "overwhelming evidence," Long Beach Superior Court
jurors deliberated for less than 35 minutes Tuesday before convicting an inexperienced hit man of
first-degree murder for financial gain in the 2004 slaying of a Bixby Knolls woman.
Nicholas Harvey, 25, appeared sullen but showed no other emotion as the seven-woman, five-man jury
returned its verdict just as the courthouse was closing for the day. In the audience behind him,
Harvey's family sobbed quietly and held their faces in their hands.
In addition to murder for financial gain, the Port Hueneme body builder was convicted of
first-degree burglary as well as special allegations that he personally used a knife and caused
great bodily injury. He faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole when
he returns to court next month.
The quick verdict stunned attorneys, court staff and the victim's brothers - who attended every
day of the trial but missed the verdict because they were slated to fly back to their respective
homes in Georgia and North Carolina after closing arguments Tuesday.
"We are gratified and appreciative of the thoughtful and incisive verdict delivered by the fine
men and women of the jury," brother Mark Jicha said by phone Tuesday evening. "I had hoped I would
be able to be there to thank each and every one of them personally."
Lynn Schockner, 50, was stabbed to death on the back porch of her house on the morning of Nov. 8,
2004, as part of a murder plot allegedly masterminded by her estranged husband, Manfred, with
whom she shared a 14-year-old son.
$5,000 for hit?
Prosecutors have alleged that Manfred Schockner, now 66, promised Harvey $5,000 to stage a
burglary and kill his wife to prevent her from taking money in their pending divorce. Manfred
Schockner and an alleged middleman named Frankie Jaramillo are slated to be tried separately this
spring.
Jurors interviewed after Tuesday's verdict said they felt no need to draw out the deliberations
after being dispatched to the jury room about 3:40 p.m., following closing arguments in the four-day
trial.
Shortly before 4:15 p.m., a bailiff entered the room to tell jurors they could go home and was
informed that the jury had managed to reach a verdict.
"The evidence was overwhelming," said juror No. 1, a Torrance man who spoke on condition of
anonymity. "It was overwhelming."
He said jurors "tippy-toed" around the issue for a few minutes after convening, then re-read a
few specific jury instructions before polling themselves for the first time. It was immediately
clear, he said, that further deliberations were unnecessary.
"There was no one who had a qualm about it," he said. "It was unanimous."
During his closing argument Tuesday, defense attorney Anthony Patalano painted his client as a
naive young man who was pressured into becoming a hit man by his two alleged conspirators who took
advantage of the fact that Harvey's heavy steroid use had transformed him into an aggressive,
would-be "junior commando."
"They abused his abuse of steroids," Patalano argued.
Patalano had prepared to argue that his client was suffering from a so-called "steroid-facilitated
rage reaction," as was reported by his expert witness, Dr. Ronald Siegel, a psychopharmacologist
and associate research professor at UCLA.
But after questioning out of the jury's presence Tuesday morning, Judge Gary Ferrari limited the
scope of Siegel's testimony, saying the doctor could speak about his knowledge of steroids in
general but make no determinations regarding Harvey specifically.
On the stand, Siegel acknowledged that steroids can alter a person's mental state but fell far
short of testifying that steroids could incite someone to commit a killing.
Deputy District Attorney Cindy Barnes dismissed Siegel's testimony as irrelevant and described
Harvey as a man who has repeatedly lied to police, as well as the jury, in an attempt to place
himself in the best possible light. She pointed out that, by his own admission during his
testimony in the trial, he was a wannabe hit man who idolized comic-book characters, such as
the Hulk, and bragged about his ability to beat up three to five men at one time.
"This is not some naive, innocent kid who was manipulated by two older men," she said. "He took
steroids to get get bigger, stronger, faster, meaner, and that's what he did."
Own testimony hurts
Jurors interviewed said the defendant's contention on the stand that he didn't remember the killing,
that it was unintentional and that he was influenced to participate in the murder-for-hire because
of his 4-year addiction to anabolic steroids, were simply not credible.
"If you put yourself in certain situations, you've got to live with the consequences," said a San
Pedro man who identified himself only as juror No. 5.
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Man gets life in prison in Long Beach murder-for-hire case
AP
Press-Telegram
April 5, 2007
LONG BEACH A bodybuilder convicted of stabbing a woman to death as police stood outside her
front door was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors had decided not to seek the death penalty against Nicholas Harvey, 25, of
Port Hueneme, who authorities allege was hired by Manfred Schockner to kill his wife, Lynn.
Lynn Schockner, 50, was stabbed to death on the back porch of her house in November 2004
as police officers waited for her to unlock a back gate. A neighbor had called police about
a suspicious man in the area.
Harvey was arrested as he was leaving Schockner's yard. He was convicted last month of
first-degree murder, residential burglary and other special circumstance allegations.
It was a horrific crime and you're going to have to pay a pretty horrific penalty as
well, Los Angeles Superior Court judge Gary J. Ferrari told Harvey.
Defense attorney Anthony Patalano has already filed an appeal.
Manfred Schockner and another man have been charged in the case. They are scheduled for
trial next month.
Prosecutors allege Manfred Schockner, now 66, agreed to pay Harvey $5,000 to stage a
burglary and kill his wife to prevent her from taking money in their pending divorce.
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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
