Becker man gets jail time after leaving girlfriend to die in ditch

A Sherburne County judge this week sentenced a 35-year-old Becker man to under a year of jail time for failing to help his girlfriend, who died in May after she jumped from his moving truck.

Johnathan J. Schafer was charged with one felony count of failing to stop after a traffic crash that resulted in injury or death and one misdemeanor count of DWI. He pleaded guilty in September as part of a plea deal.

On Thursday, Judge Walter Kaminsky sentenced Schafer to two years in prison and 364 days in county jail with credit for 175 days served, but stayed the prison sentence, meaning he won’t have to report to prison if he follows conditions of a three-year probation. Conditions include completing chemical dependency treatment and not using alcohol or drugs.

According to the complaint, Sherburne County received a 911 call just after 9:15 p.m. on May 15 from a woman who said her son, Schafer, told her his girlfriend jumped out of his truck. About five minutes later, another woman called 911 to say Schafer told her that his girlfriend jumped from his truck and he was at a park, the complaint states.

Becker police eventually found Schafer in his truck at a dog park. Officers “detected the very strong odor of alcohol” coming from his vehicle and saw blood on the door, door handle and Schafer’s hand, the complaint states.

Schafer agreed to travel with officers to locate the passenger, 23-year-old Julia M. Marthaler. Officers found her in the grass a few feet from a rural road in Santiago Township. She appeared to have severe head trauma and was pronounced dead a short time later, the complaint states.

Investigators learned Schafer’s phone call with his mother was a little over a minute and his phone call with the other woman lasted about 41 minutes; at no time during that window did he call 911, the complaint states.

Prosecutors argued for the aggravated two-year prison sentence because Schafer removed evidence from the scene and hid his exact location from law enforcement for an extended period of time, which caused “difficulty in locating the victim’s body.”

Public defenders for Schafer asked the judge to deny the aggravating factors because he was cooperative after his arrest and because Marthaler “leapt from the truck, under her own force, leaving Schafer to find her body, bewildered, terrified, and grief-stricken.”

Kaminsky granted the prosecutor’s request for an upward departure, noting Schafer’s “particularly cruel treatment” of Marthaler because he moved her from the side of the road into taller grass before driving away.