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Massachusetts Man Confesses to Killing 24-Year-Old Woman in Letter: "Spun Out of Control"
Solving this decades-old cold case took one woman's courageous choice to come forward, advances in DNA technology, and some chilling words from the killer himself.
When Sophia Maynard arrived on the morning of April 16, 1992 for her usual shift as a clerk at Brittany’s Card & Gift Shoppe in Agawam, Massachusetts, she was immediately struck by something odd.
Her coworker Lisa Ziegert’s car was still in the parking lot — even though Lisa was scheduled to close up the night before.
Maynard was even more unnerved after she found the store unlocked with the lights on and Lisa’s purse still sitting behind the counter, yet there no sign of Lisa herself.
“I was pretty panicked at that point. I knew something obviously happened to her,” Maynard told Correspondent Andrea Canning in Dateline: Unforgettable. “My first instinct was to run and call the police.”
It didn’t take long for Agawam Police lead detective Wayne Macey, now retired, to determine that something terrible had happened to the 24-year-old.
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Investigators discovered that a door in the quaint card shop had what looked like a heel mark on it, suggesting it might have been kicked in during a violent struggle. In a backroom, boxes were flattened down and there was blood on some.
“We started an immediate search of the surrounding area. Dumpster areas, back alley areas — this was kind of a strip mall type area,” Macey recalled.
What Macey didn’t know then was that it would take 27 years to unravel the mystery of what happened to Lisa that fateful night and finally bring her killer to justice.
“We tell a lot of tragic stories on Dateline, but in many ways I find the most heartbreaking are the ones that go unsolved for years, like the murder of Lisa Ziegert,” Canning said of why the case stood out to her. “It would take dozens of investigators, hundreds of DNA samples and thousands of witness statements over the course of decades to finally learn the truth. And when that answer came, the people who cared about Lisa would move forward in ways that inspire me to this day.”
Who was Lisa Ziegert?
Lisa was described by those who knew her as a bubbly middle school teacher’s aide with an infectious laugh who loved art and dancing.
“We would go out, you know, to clubs and we would listen to music and dance and she had her favorites, but if we were in a car even driving and a song came on that she loved she would pull over to the side of the road into a parking lot and just turn up the radio and get out and dance,” friend Kim Murray recalled.
At 24, Lisa had a full life with a close-knit relationship with her family, dedicated boyfriend and large group of friends. Aside from working at the middle school — where her brother David Ziegert said kids loved her “silliness” — she also worked part-time at Brittany’s Card & Gift Shoppe.
Lisa Ziegert's Body Found
Shortly before she disappeared, the usually carefree Lisa told Murray one night at the shop that she had the eerie feeling she was being watched.
Then, on April 15, 1992, sometime between 8:30 p.m. and 8:50 p.m. Lisa, who was working alone, disappeared in the middle of her shift.
“There was an assault that took place in the store to gain some kind of control over Lisa,” Macey said. “There was also a side door and the side door led to an alley and they probably went out the side and just pulled the car out and left from there.”
A few days later, on Easter Sunday, someone out walking their dog stumbled upon Lisa’s body in a wooded area. She was partially clothed, had defensive wounds on her hands, and there were obvious signs of sexual assault. A medical examiner would later determine she died from multiple stab wounds to the neck.
Macey made the grim trip to notify her devastated family.
“I went down to my knees,” her mom, Dee Ziegert, remembered. “It was something I really didn’t expect to hear.”
The Investigation into Lisa Ziegert’s Death
In the days and months that would follow, investigators spent tireless days and nights tracking down leads and interviewing potential suspects.
Detectives were able to quickly rule out Lisa’s boyfriend after confirming his alibi and determining that his DNA did not match the DNA left behind on Lisa’s body by the killer. They also used DNA testing to eliminate other close male friends or acquaintances.
Over the years, authorities enlisted the help of FBI profilers, got the case featured on Unsolved Mysteries and tracked down thousands of tips.
Detectives talked to multiple women who suspected their boyfriends or husbands of carrying out the grisly crime, including an attorney representing Joyce Schara.
Joyce told her attorney, Kevin Healy, that she suspected her estranged husband, Gary Schara, may have carried out the murder.
“Any time any news came out, she said that he would be glued to the television,” Healy said. “He needed to know every single little detail about the murder and the progress of the case catching the murderer.”
Joyce also knew that Gary had been unaccounted for during the time of the murder and returned home late that night with scratches on his hands and no explanation for his whereabouts.
But Gary’s attorney claimed the couple were going through a nasty divorce and custody battle at the time and told police her claims were just part of a set up to gain the upper hand in the negotiations. Her credibility was also called into question as others described her as an alcoholic.
“At this point, we take it as far as we can and barring anything else coming in, we don’t have enough to get a search warrant or a subpoena to get Gary in and have him give us his DNA,” Macey said.
Who killed Lisa Ziegert?
For decades, detectives continued to investigate the perplexing case until they finally got the help they needed through advances in DNA technology.
Authorities sent the DNA sample they collected at the crime scene to a lab who conducted DNA phenotyping to determine physical characteristics of the killer. From that, they were able to learn that the killer had brown hair, brown eyes and was of European ancestry.
Using that description, detectives went through countless files to pull out the possible suspects who fit that description and had declined to provide DNA in the past. In 2017, a grand jury voted to compel 11 suspects in the case to produce their DNA.
Gary was one of the men on that list. Over the years, Gary had been repeatedly interviewed by authorities. He was always polite and answered their questions, but refused to provide a DNA sample, citing concerns about cloning.
Now, with a court order in hand, Massachusetts State Police Trooper Noah Pack went to visit Gary. He wasn’t home, but Pack left a message with his roommate that he had some important paperwork to deliver to Gary.
Gary never reached out, but the next night his girlfriend showed up at the state police barracks with three letters Gary had left behind for her at the house.
In them, Gary confessed to abducting, raping, and killing Lisa.
“I had no intention of killing her when I grabbed her, but events spun out of my control,” he wrote, adding that he’d had “abduction and bondage” fantasies since he was young.
He also left a note of apology for the Ziegert family.
“I can never apologize enough for taking your daughter and sibling from you,” he wrote. “I have regretted it and hated myself every day since.”
What happened to Gary Schara?
Investigators rushed to track down Gary, who was found at a Connecticut hospital after taking a large amount of pills.
He was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the decades-old case.
Although he initially pleaded not guilty, Schara changed his plea in 2019 to guilty. He was sentenced to life behind bars without the chance of parole.
After 27 years, his conviction finally brought a measure of closure to her family and the detectives who’d tirelessly worked on the case for years.
Macey — who often went to the cemetery to talk to Lisa during the investigation — brought a single rose to her grave stone after Schara was caught.
“I put a card on it. It just said ‘Lisa, it’s done. Rest in peace,’” Macey said while struggling to hold back tears. “And I put it on her stone. And it was done.”
