A Teenager Strangled a 92-Year-Old World War I Vet to Death with His Neckties

On a quiet night in June 1983, Edmund Schreiber lay struggling for breath in the bedroom of his modest Buffalo, N.Y., home. Unknown assailants had hogtied him and strangled Schreiber with his brightly colored neckties. As the frail 92-year-old World War I hero lost consciousness, the assailants ransacked his home, searching for cash and valuables. By the time authorities found Schreiber, he was dead of strangulation–and his killers were long gone.

Local news stations breathlessly covered the story of the slain Purple Heart recipient who was brutally murdered with his own neckties, leaving a stunned community cowering in fear. Police publicly vowed to bring the killer—or killers—to justice. But because detectives lacked the forensic tools in 1983 to identify any suspects, the case frustratingly went cold.

But more than three decades after the murder, a new set of investigators reopened the file, hoping that the latest advances in forensic science would help them find the killers. As they retested the evidence collected at the scene, they found DNA on a necktie and fingerprints on a dresser, enough to lead them to a woman they hadn’t previously suspected: Saundra Adams, a former neighbor who was just 17 at the time of the murder.

On September 7, 2016, more than 33 years after the murder, authorities arrested and charged Adams with second-degree murder in the death of the elderly man.

Adams, then 50, acknowledged that she had lived down the street from Schreiber but denied involvement in his death. Her attorney emphasized that she was now an upstanding citizen: She had worked in the Buffalo college library and was raising two children. She had not gotten into any further trouble over the past three decades.

“Her arrest was a big surprise to me,” her former colleague, Danielle Meadows, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “She was so soft-spoken and pleasant. Never got any indication at all that she could be violent. So I guess I didn’t believe it.”

But Adams later changed her tune, admitting to taking part in the midnight break-in but insisting that she was simply along for the ride.

According to prosecutors, she said that she and two unnamed accomplices invaded Schreiber’s home as part of a botched robbery. Adams claimed that the accomplices tied him up and she pulled some of his neckties out of his closet, but she left the house before they killed him.

Adams agreed to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter. She faced up to 25 years in prison.

During her sentencing hearing, Adams expressed remorse for her actions on that brutal summer night in 1983. “If I could do it over, I wouldn't have been there,” she told State Supreme Court Justice Christopher J. Burns as she wiped away her tears. “I made a bad choice and I tried to get my life right since then. I am so sorry.”

But the prosecution insisted that Adams’ regret was not sufficient to keep her out of prison—and that Adams was not as innocent as she claimed. According to court records, Assistant Erie County District Attorney Eugene Partridge told the court that Adams had entered the elderly man’s home with violent intent.

“She admitted as part of her guilty plea that she intended to cause him serious physical injury,” Partridge told the court. “This isn’t a case where she went in not wanting to hurt anybody, or not knowing what was about to happen. By her own admission, she did this with the attempt to hurt him. Her neighbor. A man she knew was vulnerable.”

While Adams wiped away tears, Schreiber’s granddaughter urged the judge to give her the harshest possible sentence. “Ms. Adams not only murdered our grandfather, but her actions dramatically changed our family,” Tracie Noll told the court. “If the intent was to rob my grandpa, they could have done it any day during the week when he routinely went to the senior center for lunch.”

In the end, Judge Burns sentenced Adams to seven to 21 years in prison, less than the maximum sentence, but enough to ensure that she’d spent several years behind bars.

“It is true that the defendant was 17 at the time and was not the only participant in this crime, and in fairness, she was probably the third-most culpable person there,” Burns said in his ruling.“But still, Ms. Adams, you are culpable for this. The mitigating factors are greatly outweighed by the cruelty inflicted on this honorable man.”

Adams was booked at Albion Correctional Facility in Western New York. There is no record of disciplinary action or violations during her prison term, where she worked in the prison library and regularly attended religious meetings.

“I was surprised when I found out what she did,” fellow inmate Edy Beltran, who served time with Adams from 2019 to 2022, tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “She was everyone’s mom. Not the type you’d think would do something so violent.”

In November 2023, Adams became eligible for parole after seven years behind bars. Speaking to the parole board, she emphasized her youth at the time of the crime, and her subsequent attempts to get her life on track.

In a surprise decision, the parole board granted her release after her first request. Six months later, Adams walked out of prison. She will remain on probation until 2035.

Since her release, Adams has kept a low profile. While her current location is undisclosed, the New York State Parole Division confirms to A&E Crime + Investigation that Adams continues to fulfill all requirements of her release, and she checks in regularly with her parole board. Adams did not return A&E Crime + Investigation’s request for comment.