VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. -- A Deltona mother of two accused of stabbing and strangling her neighbor before dismembering and cooking him has been convicted of first-degree murder in his death, the State Attorney's Office announced Friday.
It took a jury three hours to convict Angela Faye Stoldt, 42, of first-degree murder, abuse of a human body and tampering with physical evidence in the slaying of 36-year-old neighbor James Sheaffer who went missing in April of 2013, prosecutors said.
Stoldt was sentenced Friday to life in prison for the murder count, followed by 15 years for the second count and 5 years for the third count.
Stoldt drugged Sheaffer with a muscle relaxer, stabbed him in the eye with an ice pick and then strangled him with a wire, prosecutors said. Afterward, she took his body to her home where she cut it up with a hack saw and, in an apparent effort to conceal the crime, boiled and cooked his remains.
So far, investigators have only recovered 56 of the victim's 206 bones.
Deputies launched an investigation into Sheaffer's disappearance after the victim's father, Thomas Sheaffer, called the Volusia County Sheriff's Office, saying he hadn't heard from his son since April 1, 2013, court documents show.
That's when deputies reached out to the victim's longtime girlfriend, Candy Medina, who told investigators she had last seen Sheaffer when he was leaving for work April 2. At some point, she did receive a text message from Sheaffer's phone, saying he had to hide out from someone, but he was okay, according to redacted court records.
Investigators followed up with the limousine service where Sheaffer worked. One of his co-workers said he'd seen Sheaffer about 4 a.m. April 3, before he reportedly got into a dark-colored vehicle with another person.
When investigators spoke with Stoldt, who lives across the street from Sheaffer, she said she'd seen him as recently as April 3, when he met with her to reimburse Stoldt for money he'd overdrawn from their joint bank account, court documents show. The documents don't explain why the pair shared a bank account.
During a follow-up interview April 15, Stoldt told investigators that Sheaffer had come by her home on April 5 -- a day after she'd initially spoken with investigators about his reported disappearance.
It wasn't until a week later that investigators got a break in the case. Deputies were called to a Deltona home April 21, where Stoldt's sister told them Stoldt had confessed to killing Sheaffer in her car, according to court documents. Stoldt had come by to drop off her two children because she was planning to take her own life, her sister told investigators at the time.
At some point, investigators armed with a search warrant raided Stoldt's home and found several pieces of evidence that suggested a crime had taken place inside the home, according to court records.
Stoldt later led investigators to where she said she had gotten rid of Sheaffer's body. That's where they found human remains along with clothing matching the description of what Sheaffer had worn to work the night he went missing.
