Rose Hill dad sentenced for role in abuse, fraud tied to 6-year-old’s murder
A 53-year-old Rose Hill man was sentenced Wednesday to four years of probation, plus 60 consecutive days in jail, for his role in a horrific child abuse and fraud case where his wife killed their 6-year-old adopted daughter and buried her body in their backyard.
Joseph Schroer pleaded no contest in October to two counts of aggravated child endangerment for his treatment of a surviving minor daughter and one count of Medicaid fraud for continuing to accept payments after he knew his adopted daughter, Kennedy Jean Schroer, was no longer in his home.
Schroer’s wife, Crystina Schroer, was sentenced last month to more than 17 years in prison after pleading no contest in July to second-degree murder in Kennedy’s death, child abuse, making false information and welfare fraud. Authorities have said she tortured her adopted children and lied to the state about their behavior so she would get larger reimbursements, likely to help fund a multi-million dollar gambling addiction.
Rose Hill police found Kennedy’s body wrapped in plastic trash bags, buried three feet deep under a master bedroom window of the Schroer’s home after Crystina Schroer tried to overdose on pills on Sept. 10, 2024. Initially, Crystina Schroer blamed Kennedy’s death on another child.
But during their interviews, investigators discovered a brutal pattern of abuse and torture that included rationing meals so the children lost weight, camera monitoring of their movements throughout the home, isolation from the outside world, neglect and extreme physical punishments.
When Crystina Schroer became angry with her adopted children, she would make them stay in a closet and use a bucket as a toilet, force medications, confine them in dog crates overnight, and trap them in plastic storage crates or cardboard boxes, court records show.
Kennedy, whose birth name was Natalie Garcia, died in one of those cardboard boxes in December 2020 during one of her adopted mother’s fits of rage after the little girl moved in bed. Police have said Crystina Schroer was angrier than usual when she forced Kennedy into the box, piled heavy blankets and other objects on top and made her sister watch for any movement.
When the sister told her mother she feared Kennedy had died, Crystina kicked the box and the little girl’s limp body fell out. She told police she drove around with Kennedy’s body in her car before burying her in the backyard and then convinced her family that the girl had been taken away to a psychiatric facility for choking a sibling, court records say.
The ruse fell apart when a social worker showed up at the Schroer’s home after receiving a report that a child had killed another child there.
Crystina Schroer has said her husband knew nothing of Kennedy’s death. His lawyer told the sentencing judge on Wednesday that she kept the homicide a secret from everyone and characterized Joseph as a passive, kind and fun dad who was the victim of his overbearing and violent wife’s manipulations.
But the Butler County attorney pushed back, saying that while Joseph Schroer may not have known about Kennedy’s murder, he “actively participated in the continued torture of other children in the home, in concert with his wife.”
Joseph Schroer’s probation carries an underlying prison sentence of 14 months. He could be ordered to serve that if he violates any conditions of his probation, including a ban on contact with all children. He must also repay $13,413.82 to the state of Kansas and Medicaid.
