Closing statements heard in the Longmont postal shooting case

Sep. 26—A Boulder County jury on Tuesday heard closing statements in the trial of a man charged in the 2021 fatal shooting of a Longmont postal employee.

In their statements, Boulder County prosecutors argued that Andrew "AJ" Ritchie, 36, was the "eyes and ears" for Devan Schreiner, 28, who was found guilty in March of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for shooting and killing Jason Schaefer, 33. Schaefer was killed on Oct. 13, 2021, while on his postal route in Longmont.

Ritchie is charged with first-degree murder after deliberation.

During the trial, evidence was presented of Ritchie's cell phone being tracked along Schaefer's route, before he was seen on surveillance footage at a Loveland Hooters at the time of Schaefer's death. Prosecutors argued Tuesday that Ritchie assisted Schreiner in making a plan to kill Schaefer which included setting up an alibi for Schreiner and tracking Schaefer over the course of his route to inform Schreiner of his whereabouts.

Prosecutors said Ritchie also encouraged Schreiner to murder Schaefer and presented a text message to the jury from Ritchie to Schreiner that read, "you could just kill them both and make it look like they killed each other."

At the time of the murder Ritchie, who had a wife, was having an affair with Schreiner. Schreiner had a child with her ex, Schafer, who had begun dating Schreiner's 19-year-old sister. Schreiner and Schaefer were in a custody dispute at the time of the shooting, and two employees at the post office asked police at the scene of the shooting if the shooter was Schreiner.

Two days before the shooting, Schaefer had filed a request to modify parenting time, and witnesses said Schreiner appeared upset that Schaefer was dating Schreiner's sister, according to an affidavit.

Prosecutors said that during his police interview, Ritchie lied to police multiple times about his whereabouts on the day of the murder; however, defense attorneys argued that Ritchie lied in order to "salvage his marriage." They also argued that Schreiner and Ritchie's relationship was solely physical and that Ritchie wasn't invested enough in Schreiner to kill her ex.

Defense and prosecution also disagreed on whether Ritchie gave Schaefer a warning that Schneider was planning on killing him. Prosecutors on the case argued that Ritchie telling Schaefer that Schneider was "unstable" and "might hurt you" was not enough of a warning for Schaefer to know his life was in danger. Defense attorneys argued that Ritchie's lack of detail in recalling when he told Schaefer about Schneider shows it was not a part of a plan but a genuine warning.

According to an affidavit, just after 12:30 p.m. Oct.13, 2021, Schaefer was shot three times next to his postal delivery van, near a cluster of mailboxes on Heatherhill Street just west of Renaissance Drive.

According to the affidavit, detectives said that on the morning of the shooting,cell phone data showed Schreiner and Ritchie were both at her Fort Collins apartment before they drove to Ritchie's home in Loveland.

At that point it appeared that Ritchie took Schreiner to the Loveland post office, after which Schreiner began her route as a Loveland postal carrier and Ritchie drove into Longmont and began following Schaefer on his route.

A rideshare vehicle used by the Englewood prison where Ritchie worked as a guard was seen on camera several times following Schaefer's postal van, and Ritchie's cell phone data and GPS data from Schaefer's postal scanner also appeared to be in the same location for most of the morning, the affidavit states.

Shortly before the murder, Schneider is suspected of parking at Ritchie's house, where her phone remained stagnant for the next couple of hours.

Surveillance cameras then detected Schreiner's SUV — identifiable by a missing hubcap on its passenger side — driving into the neighborhood of the shooting, ultimately parking on Renaissance Drive south of the shooting scene.

Security cameras picked up a person walking from the area of the SUV north toward Schaefer. Another security camera picked up the person approaching Schaefer's van, picked up the sound of gunshots, and then showed the person running from the area, according to the affidavit.

Security cameras then captured the person running south before Schreiner's SUV was again seen, this time leaving the area.

The suspect in the videos was originally described as a man in a dark hoodie, wearing a blue mask. But detectives said a photo later recovered from Ritchie's phone depicts Schreiner in a similar outfit.