On September 24, 1988, 36-year-old Brenda Schaefer was abducted, raped, and killed in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. The crime had been carried out by her 50-year-old ex-boyfriend Mel Ignatow and his 38-year-old girlfriend Mary Ann Shore, with the latter cooperating with authorities in exchange for a lesser charge by implicating Ignatow as the main perpetrator.
Ignatow was acquitted of Schaefer's murder in 1991, after a jury found Shore's testimony unconvincing. Less than a year later, Ignatow admitted to killing Schaefer after physical evidence was found at his home. Under the legal principle of double jeopardy, he could not be tried a second time for the murder. However, Ignatow was convicted and sentenced to a combined 17 years in prison, of which he served nearly 10 years, for several instances of perjury in his grand jury testimony for the case, in which he had repeatedly and falsely proclaimed his innocence.
Background
Brenda Schaefer
Brenda Sue Schaefer was born on April 25, 1952, in Louisville's St. Joseph neighborhood, as the youngest of six children to Essie (née Downs) and John Schaefer. She grew up in nearby St. Matthews, with her family operating a summer camp out of a log cabin near Harrods Creek. In 1971, shortly before her graduation from Waggener High School, Schaefer became engaged to her highschool sweetheart Charles "Pete" Van Pelt. The wedding was called off on May 2, 1971, when Schaefer's older brother Jack, a police officer, was gunned down in Smoketown after intervening in an attack on his patrol partner Wilbur Hayes. The two attackers, brothers Michael and Narvel Tinsley, were arrested four days later and sentenced to death that same year. Schaefer and Van Pelt subsequently married in December 1971 and moved to Clarksville, Indiana.
Schaefer worked as a sales clerk and attended training to become a nurse's aide while Van Pelt continued his job as a police dispatcher. According to Van Pelt, Schaefer was extremely shy and "terrified" of having physical intimacy beyond kissing and cuddling. The couple divorced on March 23, 1976, after around four years of marriage, due to arguments over Van Pelt's low income and spending habits. In early 1978, Schaefer entered a stable relationship with Jim Rush, a Louisville-area dentist. The couple remained together for eight years, during which Rush suggested that Schaefer had hypoactive sexual desire disorder, but eventually agreed to separate in August 1986, citing Schaefer's emotional issues and Rush's functional alcoholism. Schaefer maintained good relationships with both Van Pelt and Rush. Schaefer worked as a trained X-ray technician for William Spalding, a friend of Jim Rush, at the time of her death.
In the months leading up to Schaefer's death, her family was negatively affected by other events. Schaefer's teenage niece Jennifer Hayes was killed in a traffic collision on August 17, 1988, and on September 16, Michael and Narvel Tinsley were released on parole for the murders of Jack Schaefer and Wilbur Hayes.
Mel Ignatow
Melvin Henry Ignatow was born on March 26, 1938, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the second of three children to Virginia (née Gerdelmann) and David Ignatow. Ignatow was baptized in accordance with his mother's Catholic faith, but raised Orthodox Jewish, his father's religion. The family moved to Louisville during World War II, where Ignatow's parents ran several successive businesses, mostly grocery stores, each of which failed financially and led to the family filing bankruptcy. During Ignatow's teenage years, the family briefly relocated to Washington, Indiana, for nine months to run another grocery store that ultimately closed down. Upon returning to Louisville, Ignatow attended Atherton High School and joined the Young Men's Hebrew Association. Ignatow briefly enrolled at the University of Louisville, but dropped out without picking an academic major and instead worked for his father as a jeweler, finding employment at Medco Jewelry Company and later at Rosalco as a buyer, with a yearly income of between $50,000 to $80,000.
After becoming engaged, Ignatow exerted increasing control over the relationship, demanding that Schaefer, who was devoutly Catholic, participate in anal intercourse, group sex, and bondage. While at work, Ignatow expected Schaefer to be available via phone at specific times, screaming at her if she ever deviated from this. At home, Ignatow was easily enraged whenever Schaefer failed to abide by his meticulous rules, such as tearing toilet paper incorrectly or turned water faucets off without putting them in an even position, causing Schaefer to sleep primarily at her mother's house. In December 1987, Ignatow became more irritable after he was fired from his job at Rosalco and had to live off his $48,000 pension. Throughout early to mid 1988, Schaefer's demeanor became more nervous and her performance at work worsened. She confided Ignatow's abuse to family and friends, telling them that he forced Schaefer to take "sex tablets", which resulted in her losing consciousness and awakening nude. Schaefer recalled a specific incident during a motel stay in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where she had once awoken to find Ignatow leaning down at her with a chlorofom-soaked rag, which he claimed was to "help her sleep". In the weeks preceding her murder, Schaefer began being less compliant with Ignatow's demands after a friend recommended her the self-help book Women Who Love Too Much. At the same time, Ignatow continued to meet Shore for sex, though telling her that he and Shore were no longer dating. Shore developed a dislike for Schaefer over being "dumped", with Ignatow continuing to speak more favorably of Schaefer's appearance and sexual performance compared to Shore whenever they were together. He asked his former girlfriend, Mary Ann Shore, to help him plan and carry out the murder. They spent several weeks making extensive preparations. Shore testified they had "scream tested" her house and dug a grave in the woods behind it. Schaefer told Ignatow about the break-up two days before her murder. Shore claimed that Ignatow framed the later murder as a "sex therapy" meeting to help mend the relationship between Schaefer and Ignatow, and that the grave was only meant to be a scare tactic. For the act, Ignatow prepared gloves, duct tape, rope, several plastic bags, a bottle of chloroform, a wooden fraternity paddle, a camera, extra roll film, an electric vibrator, and lubricant jelly.
In early January 1990, Shore was called to testify in front of a grand jury regarding Schaefer's disappearance, during which she first claimed to have met Schaefer only once, but later contradicted herself by inquiring in response to a question by U.S. Attorney Scott Cox if he meant "the last time" Shore had seen her. On January 9, 1990, Shore confessed to the FBI that she was present during Schaefer's murder, and to taking pictures of Ignatow as he tortured and abused Schaefer. FBI and Jefferson County investigators were led to the grave site by Shore, where Schaefer's badly decomposed body had been buried for over a year.
Trial
Based on this recording, Ignatow was tried for murder, kidnapping, sodomy, sexual abuse, robbery, and tampering with evidence, between early 1990 and December 1991.
After testifying in Ignatow's trial, Mary Ann Shore-Inlow pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence on December 2, 1991. On January 8, 1992, a federal grand jury indicted Ignatow for perjury and inducing Shore to commit perjury.
On October 23, 1997, Ignatow was indicted on state perjury charges. He was released from federal prison on October 31, 1997. The state later prosecuted him on perjury charges for testimony he gave in a case against Schaefer's employer, Dr. William Spalding, for threatening to kill Ignatow if he did not reveal where Schaefer was. Spalding had been convicted of terroristic threatening and fined $300 after Ignatow falsely proclaimed that he and Schaefer had parted on good terms. He was sentenced to nine years in prison for perjury as a second degree persistent felony offender in January 2002. Ignatow's sentence was reduced for time served.
In April 2002, Ignatow was denied release on shock probation. He converted to Christianity during his incarceration and unsuccessfully appealed beginning December 2002. Ignatow was denied release a final time in June 2003, after described his perjury during the Schaefer murder trial as "self defense". He was originally slated for release in December 2007, He returned to Louisville, living in a home from the house where he murdered Schaefer.
Author Bob Hill wrote a book on the case called Double Jeopardy, which became a bestseller and provoked widespread interest in the case.
On September 1, 2008, Ignatow was found dead in his apartment. He was 70 years old. An autopsy determined that Ignatow died from an accidental fall that lacerated his head or his arm, and had eventually bled to death. The neighbor who found his body stated that "It just looked like he had fell... and he tried to go to the kitchen, and there was a blood trail that way, and then it looked like he tried to make it to his room, before he made it to his room, that's where they found his body at."
Investigation Discovery series, Evil Lives Here (S10 Ep4), had an episode about the case titled "He Got Away With Murder", which originally aired on August 8, 2021.