A Baltimore woman and her friend were being held on murder charges yesterday, a day after police swarmed a Bob Evans restaurant in Glen Burnie and pulled them from their window booth.
"It was quick and sudden," said Brian Sauer, the general manager of the restaurant on Ritchie Highway, near the Baltimore Beltway.
Suzanne Lucy Schoff, 27, of the 100 block of S. Calhoun St. and Terry Allen Wingler Jr., 30, were charged with criminal homicide and conspiracy in the shooting death Wednesday of Schoff's estranged husband in York County, Pa., Pennsylvania State Police said.
Wingler is also from Baltimore, police said.
Found dead
On Wednesday afternoon, police found Frank Schoff III, 27, dead from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest at a garage where he works in Fawn Township, Pa., about five miles north of the Maryland border.
A neighbor called police to report the shooting about 2:15 p.m., said Trooper Kristal M. Turner-Childs, a Pennsylvania State Police spokeswoman.
A witness told police that a gold compact car fled the garage with a driver wearing a dark mask, Turner-Childs said.
Frank Schoff's girlfriend told police that earlier in the week she overheard Suzanne Schoff tell the couple's 5-year-old son that "he would no longer have to see his father again," according to the police affidavit.
After interviewing Frank Schoff's girlfriend, Pennsylvania troopers on Wednesday called Baltimore police, who went to Suzanne Schoff's South Calhoun Street home and saw her get into a gold-colored Chevrolet Cavalier, the affidavit states.
They followed her to a Rent-A-Wreck office, where she returned the car and left in a van that had followed her there.
About 8 p.m., Schoff and Wingler were arrested by Baltimore and Anne Arundel County police at Bob Evans, in the 6600 block of Ritchie Highway.
The two were at a window table eating dinner, according to restaurant staff. The arresting officers wore pullover jackets instead of their uniforms.
"They [police] knew what they wanted," Sauer said, recounting what the night staff told him. "There wasn't a big ruckus, I can tell you that," Sauer said.
A surprise
Sauer said the restaurant staff didn't know police were coming. And they weren't told why the two customers were taken into custody. Other customers were shocked, but everyone stayed to finish their meals, Sauer said. Pennsylvania troopers interviewed Suzanne Schoff on Wednesday night.
According to the affidavit, Schoff told them that she spent Tuesday night at the Hilton hotel in Baltimore with her children and Wingler.
She told them Wingler left the hotel Wednesday in the Chevrolet Cavalier with a pistol.
When she met with Wingler on Wednesday afternoon, he told her she didn't have to "worry about Frank anymore," according to the affidavit.
Turner-Childs said Wingler and Schoff were being held yesterday in Baltimore awaiting an extradition hearing.
Sun staff writer Rona Kobell contributed to this article.