Episode 50 | HUMILIATED TV GUEST MURDERS Gay Friend in Rage Killing

In this podcast we are going to dig in to the tragic story of the murder of Scott Amedure. Back in the mid '90s talk shows were all the rage, and the juicier and cringier the topic the better. On an episode of the Jenny Jones show there was a segment featuring the chance for a guest to expose their crush to another guest on live national television. Scott Amedure had a big fat crush on an acquaintance named Johnathan Schmitz. Scott was gay. Johnathan wasn't. What appeared to be an awkward but fun-loving display on stage, would become a cold-blooded murder just days later. It's a shocking story that shook America and exposed some very interesting courtroom exposés.  ★Enjoy!

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Transcript

Talk show Humiliation leads to Murder of Scott Amedure 

It’s March 1995 and Jenny Jones, musician, actress, comedian, and the host of the Jenny Jones show, stands amidst her audience at the NBC studio in Chicago. Her yellow suit stands out from the mixed crowd of men and women eager to hear what new story the show had up its sleeves. And apart from a flop of a first season, when the show had started off trying to be the next Oprah!, there was always something juicy to feed the audience.

She starts the segment off with a teaser of a question: “Now which of these ways would you choose to reveal your secret crush on someone? A, will you write that person a letter? B, will you tell the person privately in case he rejects you?” or C,” she starts with a quirky smile and increases her voice for dramatic effect “will you tell the person that you’re gay and ask if he is on national television?” Behind her, and much to her delight (and that of the producers), the audience breaks into wild applause, screeches, and laughter.

It is the 90s and daytime TV is all the rage. Everyone worth their salt had their own talk show. Arguably some not worth their salt. It’s reality TV… The guests aired their laundry for viewers to revel in. The cringier the better. Do you remember the Geraldo Rivera show in 1988 when producers put white supremacists, black activists and Jewish activists together on stage? I do. It was a total shitshow. The probability of putting them together turning into an explosive powderkeg was pretty… shall we say black and white. When a skinhead on stage made a racial slur towards one of the black activists all hell broke loose and a massive brawl ensued. Furniture was tossed, fists were thrown and ole Geraldo’s nose was on the receiving end of a chair. It was a turning point in talk shows. Ratings skyrocketed. A green light was lit for anything goes in reality talk shows. 

The segment that day on Jenny’s show tagged “secret crushes” had three people sitting on the stage: Donna Riley, Scott Amedure, and Jonathan Schmitz. They all knew each other and lived as friends and neighbors in Michigan, USA. But this day, they had been flown in on NBC’s dime to be guests on that day’s smutty segment because one of them had a secret crush on the other. 

Yet, in just a few days time, one of the three guests would lay dying on the kitchen floor from two gunshot wounds, and the killer? Well that would be another one of the guests. 

It all started a month earlier when Scott Amedure decided to pay a visit to his long-time friend Donna Riley.

Scott was a 32-year old friendly and outgoing guy. He had been honorably discharged from the military three years earlier after a knee injury, had one or two bad relationships, but what Scott was most known for was his generosity. He had taken in and cared for friends who were homeless and near-death after contracting AIDS on, at least, 4 separate occasions. After working in technical communications for several years, Scott found joy as a bartender because he enjoyed working at night while also taking computer classes at a local college.  He lived in a trailer park in Michigan.

On that day at Donna’s, he happened upon the lower half of a man’s body poking out from under his friend’s car, repairing the brake lights. Shazam! He was in love and didn’t even need to see the upper half!

He asked Donna who the guy was and told him it was her friend Jonathan Schmitz. ‘Is he gay?’ She could neither confirm nor deny if he was. You’ve probably figured out by now that Scott was.

Everyone wants to fall in love and Scott Amedure was no different. For days, like a song stuck in his head, Jonnie Schmitz was all he could think about. The only thing he found to distract him outside of work was his all-time favorite past time: Talk shows.

Amedure loved these shows… the spicier the better. He reveled in knowing the intimate details of people’s lives. His neighbor Gary often got “you won’t believe what they are talking about today” updates on what juicy stuff Amedure had caught on TV. Oprah didn’t do it for him. Too straight, and bland. But, The Jenny Jones show?! Now that was his morning coffee.

In the early 90s, talk shows were all the rage. Oprah, The Montel William Show, and The Ricki Lake Show. Amedure’s favorite was The Jenny Jones show. In their first season, they had just been another Oprah rip off and the plunging ratings replicated the lack of interest in their audience. So, in the second season, the producers of the show went in another direction. They would feature compelling personal stories from real people that would elicit shock factors from both their guests and the audience. So paternity tests, out-of-control teens, confronting childhood bullies, makeovers, talent contests, feuding neighbors, strippers, celebrity impersonators, secret crushes… Think Jerry Springer meets Maury Povich meets Cheaters and everything in between. Jenny Jones once brought a woman, a married man the woman had slept with, and the wronged wife together ‘encouraging’ them to confront one another in front of her live studio audience. She w0uld have spouses reveal affairs and even do paternity tests.

It was exploitative, it was voyeuristic…  and it was a smash! America loved it! They fed on the messy reality drama salad thrusting the Jenny Jones show to the top. 

It seemed almost like kismet when Amedure saw producers were looking for gay guests who had secret crushes to come on the show. The number to call scrolled across the bottom of the screen. It was exactly the push that Scott Amedure needed. 

He made the call.

After a day sifting through the responses the show producers happened on the request of one Scott Amedure to be featured on the ‘Same-Sex Secret Crush’ segment of the show, for persons who wished to reveal their secret crushes on public television. The object of his affection was Jonathan Schmitz, a 24-year old from Michigan. They called him.

When Schmitz received the call from the show producers, he couldn’t contain his surprise. He knew the show well. "You've been identified by someone who has a secret crush on you,” he was told, finishing with “It could be a man or a woman," Whether the last phrase was included or not remains one of the many unnecessary aspects of the case that were blown out of proportion by the obsessive media. The show’s producers insist that Schmitz was told that his love interest could be from either end of the spectrum. Schmitz insists he was not. Whatever the case, Schmitz, told the person on the other end of the line that he would think about it and get back to them. Thirty minutes later, decision made, he called back and agreed to come on the show. 

His curiosity was aroused about just who the person might be. He hoped it was his ex-girlfriend who had called it quits with him just a few months earlier after they dating for four years. But, he also had another hunch. A hunch that had him popping over to the neighbor, Donna Riley’s place. Her friend Scott Amedure, was there visiting at the time. Schmitz asked them if they had any plans to be in Chicago the next Monday. And they told him no. Chicago is where The Jenny Jones show was filmed. 

That left only one person- his ex-girlfriend. Schmitz hoped it was her. He even revealed to a friend that if it was, he would do everything in his power to make it work. What he needed to do was to put his best foot forward. He forked out some money and got some new threads and shoes. Come Sunday, he was on an all-expense paid flight to Chicago. Courtesy of The Jenny Jones show. He even had a hotel room reserved to his name all on their dime.  With thoughts of reconnecting with the ex that night in the hotel, he was stoked! 

 2. Murder on set

It was Monday, March 6 1995 and Schmitz was sitting backstage at the NBC studio where the Jenny Jones Show was shot. He was sporting his new shoes, new slacks, a new tie, and a new shirt for the occasion, and a noise-canceling headset so he couldn’t hear the conversations on stage. A few moments later, the producers called him out on stage to roar of the audience. His nervous anticipation was quickly replaced by amused shock when seated there were neighbor Donna and her friend Scott. Huh? They had assured him they would be back home in Michigan.

Due to the murder a few days later, the episode never officially aired on TV, but the exchange that went on the set of The Jenny Jones Show can be found on YouTube and I’ll take you through what went on that day in the NBC studio.

Here’s how the awkward exchange went down on the show. The seating arrangement was such Donna Riley is seated to the left, Scott Amedure is seated in the middle, and beside him is a vacant seat for Schmitz. As Schmitz spots them onstage. He does appear surprised to see his hometown friends there. He first hugs Donna Riley. Amedure stretched out a hand to shake Schmitz and pulls him in for a hug but, Schmidt resists and it ends in an awkward embrace. 

Once he is seated beside Amedure, Jenny Jones asks Schmitz with a smile, “do you think Donna has a crush on you?” Without a pause, Schmitz replies that he doesn’t and that he is certain that they are just good friends. 

“Well guess what?” She says with a flourish, “it’s Scott that has a crush on you!” 

With a smile and while clapping, Schmitz turns to Scott and says with a laugh, “You lied to me!” The audience breaks into whistles and laughs. 

In typical talk show fashion, Jenny Jones says, “Well, take a look at what Scott said about you before you came on stage.” And a TV facing the trio cuts to a few minutes before Schmitz’s entrance when Jenny Jones had questioned Amedure about the details of some fantasies he might have had about Schmitz.  To which Scott had bashfully said, “its stuff like whipped cream and champagne, things like that…” 

Schmitz covers his face and looks a tad embarrassed but not outraged. Jenny Jones then hints at an under-car and a hammock fantasy that Amedure had also let the audience in on. She then asks Schmitz, “did you have any idea that Scott liked you this much?”

“err…. No, no, no, I did not,” Schmitz says with a smile

“can you tell us what your status is?” Jenny asks “are you involved with anybody?”

“Errm, no,” Schmitz begins, “but I am heterosexual. I guess you could say” , 

In response, the audience broke into excited shouts and applause.

Ankle crossed over one knee, Schmitz goes into details about the very first time he had met Scott at Donna’s and how Donna had told him that Scott had told her he was cute. He said he had replied that he was flattered but-

To which Jenny inserted “you’re flattered, but there is no way, right?”

Schmitz seemed to stutter and falter over replying. Jenny addresses Amedure, “at least now you know…”

The show ended on a high note. And after the taping, Schmitz had no problem asking the show’s producers if he could fly back with Amedure and Donna Riley. Schmitz even changed his flight so he could drive them all back. The trio flew home together to Michigan, had drinks together and Schmitz even volunteered to drive them home. No one had any idea of what was coming next. Not even, I suspect, Jonathan Schmitz himself.

3. Day of the Murder

On the morning of March 9, 3 days after the taping, Johnathan returned home from a sleepover at a friend’s home to find a construction light sitting on his porch with a note attached to it. The note read simply: “You have the right tools to turn this on”.  It was unsigned but he was pretty sure who had left it.

Like that construction light being switched on, in an instant Schmitz decided to needed to kill Scott Amedure. Tell me you have a crush on me on a nationally televised show… shame on me. Write a flirtatious note to me… I kill you!

He got into his station wagon and drove to the bank where he withdrew $300. He then drove the few miles to the local hardware store. There, he bought a box of 12-gauge shotgun shells. Then he drove over to the parking lot of a strip mall that was walking distance from his home and popped into a gun shop. He picked up a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun for $249.99. As he filled out the history card, he casually said that he was going hunting with his dad. Store clerks didn’t see anything remotely threatening or angry in Schmitz’s demeanor that day. After asking for the time, he had remarked that he would be late for work. 

It was now 10.30 am. Shopping completed, Johnathan went back to his car and assembled and loaded his shiny new gun. He was a good shot and knew how to handle guns from hunting trips with his father. By his admission, he had then sat and contemplated the next steps of his plan. The decision seemingly made, Schmitz drove to the trailer park where Scott lived. He left the gun in the car and he walked up to the door of Amedure’s mobile home. When Scott answered, Schmitz asked him if he was the one that had left the note at his door. Unaware of the impending danger and sensing nothing threatening from Schmitz, Amedure had replied to the affirmative. 

Schmitz then said he had left his engine running and would return shortly. Oh God, get outta there Scott! Amedure leaned against his door and waited for him. Schmitz then walked back to Scott’s trailer, shotgun in clear view. Seeing the gun Amedure had tried to shut the door but, Schmitz shoved the mouth of the gun into the narrow opening and pushed his way into the home. He backed a terrified Amedure into the kitchen. Amedure desperately tried to protect himself with a wicker chair. No match for the ferocity of an angry 12 gauge shotgun. He shouted out to his neighbor, “Gary, help, he’s got a gun!”

But it was too late. 

Schmitz shot the defenseless Amedure, once. Amedure fell to his knees, hands grasping at the gunshot wound. Then Schmitz shot again and Amedure crumpled face-down onto the kitchen floor. Schmitz left him to die and returned to his car. He then drove to a local gas station. There, he used a payphone to make a call to 9-1-1. "Uh, ma'am, I just, uh, I think I just shot a man," he said. When the 911 operator asked him why, he replied in near hysterics, "Because he played a very {expletive} bad thing on me. He took me on Jenny Jones."

Jonathan Schmitz was arrested.

4. Arrest and Trial

On the outside, this appears like a clear-cut and dry first-degree murder. 

Schmitz had seen the letter, made a trip to the bank, he had then gone shopping - first for bullets and then a gun. He then assembled his new purchase and loaded it. After which, by his very own admission, he had stayed in his car and considered whether he would go through with committing the murder. It was after this he had gone to Scott’s trailer to confirm if indeed he was the one that had left the note at his door. With that cleared up he retrieved his gun from his car and shot Scott Amedure.

But his defense wanted the charge diminished to manslaughter and they had three aces up their sleeves to get the reduced charge, despite Schmitz’s confession. 

First, they argued that Johnathan suffered from manic depression and Grave’s disease which made him unaware of the consequences of his actions. Therefore, they thought that due to Johnathan’s fragile mental health, his feelings of humiliation from being on The Jenny Jones Show became so overwhelming for him that he became irrational and violent.  They called up Schmitz’s father would paint Schmitz as leading a troubled life where he was depressed, suicidal, and was on medication and antidepressants. But Schmitz held a job and supported himself. Not exactly great grounds to present the fragile image they wanted to paint. 

Enter, ace two: The Gay Panic Defense. This was the 90s, and being gay elicited a lot more violence than it does today so incredibly, arguments like the gay panic defense existed. It states that an individual could commit a violent crime due to temporary insanity related to unwanted sexual advances by someone of the same sex. Yup! You heard that right. It has since been banned in many states but some still allow it… Like Michigan, the state where Schmitz’s trial would be held. There is also an updated version of this law called the The trans panic defense which according to wikipedia, ‘is a closely related legal strategy applied in cases of assault, manslaughter, or murder of a transgender individual with whom the assailant(s) had engaged in or were close to engaging in sexual relations with the victim and claim to have been unaware that the victim was transgender,’

And when all else failed, they pulled their third and most important card: Blame someone else, namely The Jenny Jones Show. The defense claimed that if the Jenny Jones show had not brought these two men together, Schmitz would not have felt humiliated enough to defend his honor by killing Scott Amedure. Many jurors, reporters, and viewers at home felt sympathetic for Schmitz and angry at Jenny Jones and her talk show for being the catalyst to Scott Amedure’s demise. 

During the trial, Jenny Jones herself became the star of the show. In a white suit and looking a far cry from the confident, happy figure she had cut just the year before, the defense called her up to the stand for cross-examination. They wanted to prove to the jury that the producers of the show had deceived Schmitz by suggesting the secret admirer in question was a woman and not a man.

Their plan was simple, portray Schmitz as a gentleman, who had been manipulated and triggered to kill Amedure because of the Jenny Jones show. Oh, everyone else was at fault except for the person who had pulled the trigger. Lovely. And no surprise, America was lapping it up... the jury and the media collectively felt sorry for Schmitz and cast Jenny Jones as the true culprits who had humiliated Schmitz on national TV, even though the episode never aired. That’s right, they pulled the episode from broadcast due to the murder. What’s more, the prosecution nearly botched their case by buying into the defense narrative that the Jenny Jones show was the main culprit and Jonathan Schmitz was just a regular, man reacting the way any other man would have and should have sans consequence.

They could have focused more on the fact that Amedure was dead because he was gay. Especially when it had come to the surface about the kind of family dynamic Johnathan was raised in. His father was homophobic, abrasive, and abusive towards him. Even while on the witness stand in court, when he tried to deny suggestions that his attitude towards homosexuality might have contributed to Schmitz’s anxiety about being seen on the program, he couldn’t hide his true color for long. A direct quote he asked the lawyer on the stand was: “How would you feel if somebody thought you were a homosexual?” 

Given that Schmitz’s father had no qualms about making this statement in a packed courtroom and had also been heard saying that his son had killed Amedure to prove he was not a homosexual… and with Schmitz stating that he had called his parents to give them the details of his appearance at the show.  The mind boggles to imagine what his father might have said to him behind closed doors.  After all, this was a man who had admitted to whipping Schmitz with a belt in front of his classmates for getting poor grades.

One can imagine Schmitz, off his meds and getting tipped over the edge by this homophobic thought process. Because his behavior after the show: changing his flight plans to sync with Amedure and Donna, going for drinks with them, driving them home, were all totally at odds with the cold, calculated murder of Scott Amedure.

But it was the 90s and America was ripe with homophobia. 

To make matters worse, the prosecution was informed that they were not allowed to use Johnathan’s recorded confessions from the payphone or the police station because they interfered with his Miranda Rights. Apparently, in a pretrial hearing, the judge ruled the oral confession was inadmissible because Schmitz hadn’t yet been read his Miranda rights. The videotaped confession also got the same ruling because it was made while his right to counsel was being violated. 

The odds were stacked against them. 

Eventually, Johnathan would be found guilty of illegal possession of a firearm and second-degree murder. This held him accountable for the murder but didn’t see it as premeditated… Hmmm then what would constitute premeditated? Schmitz, withdrawing money, buying a gun, buying bullets, sitting in his car to load the weapon, approaching Amedure to confirm he was the sick bastard that had written the note, going back to his car to grab the shotgun and then killing Amedure .. that did not define premeditation!?

He was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years and a maximum of 50 years in prison. His conviction was overturned on appeal but, a retrial a year later would find him guilty of the same charges and his sentence was upheld.

In 1999, the Amedure family sued The Jenny Jones show, Warner Brothers, and Tele pictures for what was termed ‘ambush interview tactics’ that had resulted in the death of Scott Amedure. The family was at first awarded about $29 million finding the show was both responsible and negligent for intentionally creating an explosive situation without concern for the possible consequences. But this judgment was later overturned by the Michigan Court of Appeals in 2009. They ruled that the producers and the show were not responsible for what happened to guests after their appearance on the show. Jenny Jones was exonerated!

Though they were removed from the lineup of CBS shows, they would continue to run for almost a decade more before getting canceled for low ratings in 2013. In a 350-page tome titled ‘Jenny Jones: My story’, she wrote of the murder’s aftermath: “I didn’t know we were going to be vilified: me, the show, and everyone who works on the show. I didn’t think it would go that way because we didn’t do anything wrong.” Most people still hold her accountable for Scott Amedure’s death and felt they had profited off his death.

As for the man who did it all, Jonathan Schmitz, he was released on parole in 2017 after 22 years in prison on good behavior at the age of 47 and by 2019, he was a free man. Amedure’s brother, Frank was not pleased about the decision, “I wanted assurance that the parole board’s decision was not based on just good behavior in prison. I’d like to know that he learned something, that he’s a changed man, is no longer homophobic, and has gotten psychological care.”

And he is right to say so. Outside of all the bells and whistles that surround this case. The murder of Scott Amedure boiled down to one thing - homophobia. Jonathan Schmitz had had an idea his crush was Amedure, he had even asked him the night before his flight to Chicago. A colleague of his had also testified at trial that he had told Schmitz Amedure was very likely to be his crush. At the taping, Schmitz had not walked off the stage horrified or even been stand-offish. Instead, he had been composed, he laughed and was engaged in the conversation. Changing his return flight to align with Amedure and Donna’s, driving them home from the airport, even stopping for drinks... none of this points to the displeasure and embarrassment his defense tried to claim he was suffering from. And folks, here’s the nuclear bombshell… At trial, Amedure’s mother had even testified that her son had told her that he and Schmitz had been intimate after the show. Whoa! 

Considering Schmitz had rebuffed Amedure just three days before, his mother’s claims would explain why Amedure had felt confident leaving that suggestive note on Schmitz's doorstep. When you stir that in with whatever Schmitz’s homophobic father might have said to him days before, you see a paper trail that would make sense to a homophobe, and why he had chosen to end the life of Scott Amedure: it was an honor killing to preserve his egg-shell ego and warped sense of dignity.