Rat in the Oven

James Sheaffer was thirty-six and lived in Deltona, a city in Volusia County, Florida. Angela Faye Stoldt, a mother of two in her early forties, lived across the street. The two were neighbors with money tied up between them, and prosecutors later said money was the reason for what followed.

In April 2013, Sheaffer’s father reported him missing. According to prosecutors, Stoldt had given Sheaffer a muscle relaxer, then strangled him with a rope and drove an ice pick into his eye. Back at her home she cut his body apart with a hacksaw and tried to get rid of it by boiling and baking the remains, then bagged what was left and scattered it across Volusia County. Investigators recovered only 56 of his 206 bones. The case broke open when Stoldt’s sister called police, and Stoldt then confessed to the lead investigator.

Stoldt was first charged with second-degree murder, and in November 2014 a grand jury raised the charge to first-degree murder. At trial she claimed Sheaffer had attacked her and that she acted in self-defense, but jurors found her testimony did not match what she had earlier told investigators. On December 5, 2014, after several hours of deliberation, they convicted her. She was sentenced to life in prison plus twenty consecutive years.