16-Year-Old Boy Killed His Father After Years of Abuse, Mom Said Family Was Living in 'Pure Hell' By Virginia Chamlee

Richard Jahnke Jr. was just 16 years old when he shot his father to death with a shotgun.

It was a dark evening in November 1982 when the teenager opened fire on his IRS agent father — Richard Jahnke Sr. — as he arrived home with his wife, Maria Gonzales Jahnke.

Per a PEOPLE article published in March 1983, the couple was returning from a dinner in Cheyenne, Wyo., after celebrating the 20th anniversary of the day they met.

Maria, 40, sat in the passenger seat of a VW Beetle while her 38-year-old husband stepped out of the car and walked up his driveway to open the garage.

PEOPLE described the elder Richard as “a short, balding, tough-faced 200-pounder” and an “IRS investigator who rarely left the house without a gun.”

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He was killed instantly by the blast, with Richard Jr. (“Richie” to friends and family) later saying, “I heard a ringing in my ears. Only it wasn’t a ringing, but my mother’s shrieks. I couldn’t bear to have her see me, to point her finger at me.”

Meanwhile, Richie’s then-17-year-old sister, Deborah, was inside the house, sitting by another gun — a high-powered rifle — ready to defend herself in case her brother had missed. Following the shooting, both Richie and Deborah escaped through a rear window.

But the ensuing trial would shed light on what Maria herself called “pure hell,” with the family members claiming that Richard Sr. had abused them all for years.

The abuse began, Maria claimed in her testimony, when the children were just 2 years old. Her husband owned an arsenal of 32 rifles, shotguns and pistols — guns, she testified, he “lived for.”

Both Richie and Deborah would go on to face possible life imprisonment: Richie, after being charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy, and Deborah, charged with conspiring with her brother to kill their father.

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At his trial, Richie testified that Deborah had inquired about his plan for their mom moments before their parents returned home, saying, “What about Mom? Are you going to shoot her too?” before adding, he claimed, “Shoot Mom.”

Maria testified too, saying in what PEOPLE described as “a barely audible voice,” that her husband “put on a good appearance to the outside world, but inside that house it was pure hell.”

Asked by District Attorney Tom Carroll why she had stood by and allowed the abuse for so long, Maria said: “I was afraid for the children and myself,” adding, “I’m no angel. When you live under such terrible fear, you do things you are ashamed of.”

But Richie’s testimony was far more gruesome, with the teen testifying for more than three hours about how much his father, he claimed, “hated” him.

“He hurt me inside. He hated me so much, he just wanted to make me miserable. He beat me all my life,” he alleged, with his attorney noting that the family’s house was half an acre from any neighbors. “He wanted to hurt me; he wanted to hurt my family. He hit me with a leather belt — ‘Stop crying, you baby, or I’ll really give you something to cry about.’ He’d only stop when his nose began to bleed; he had high blood pressure.”

Richie continued, “He used to beat my mother; sit on her, pounding away, her mouth foaming with blood, calling her ‘slut’ and ‘a fat s—.’ Last year, when my sister got acne, my dad accused her of not washing. He dragged her into the bathroom and scrubbed her face so hard she began to bleed. He showed her how to brush her teeth. He scraped her gums so hard, they bled. He pushed my sister against the wall, and to discipline her, he’d grope her breasts. I once saw him reach into my sister’s pants and feel around. My mother saw it too, but pretended she didn’t.”

Richie would go on to describe what he claimed was sexual abuse by his father against his sister, claiming their mother “got mad at my sister and said it was her fault for wearing shorts.”

“I hurt so much. My parents were always arguing. They slept in different rooms; it was a relationship without love,” Richie said in his testimony. “We lived without love, without compassion — it made me so inhuman…. we’re all trapped. There was no place to go. I remember my mother praying aloud that he’d be hit by a car — but it never happened. She wanted to leave him, but she was scared.”

Richie added that he had promised his sister he would protect her, saying, “She needed to be free. I had to free my mother and myself…free them from the pain and misery my father had caused us, and would always cause us.”

Richie’s lawyer, James Barrett, summed up the case for the jury by describing how Richard Sr. had, allegedly, “murdered his son by inches, bits and pieces, day by day, week by week. That’s the crime — slow torture.”

Following seven hours of deliberation, the seven-woman, five-man jury announced its verdict: Richard Jr. was convicted of manslaughter but acquitted of conspiracy charges and would be sentenced to five to 15 years in the state penitentiary.

Deborah, meanwhile, was found guilty of aiding and abetting voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to three to eight years in prison.

Following a public outcry over what many deemed to be harsh sentences, Wyoming Governor Edgar Herschler commuted both sentences, with Richie and Deborah both released in 1985.

Speaking to PEOPLE in 1983, Maria confided: “I swear by all that’s holy, when those shots rang out, I never thought Richie was shooting. I thought that my husband, who was so violent, was being gunned down by some enemy. I remember leaning down over his body when suddenly I felt a hand touch mine. I looked up and saw George Hain, who lives across the street, and came running over. He said, ‘I’m here if you need me.’ My whole life, I was so isolated; I knew nobody.”

“George called the police station, and when they were finished questioning me, the police said, ‘Your neighbors, the Hains, want you to spend the night with them.’ I couldn’t believe it,” she continued. “They were so kind and loving to me. And then all the neighbors started to come, to tell me how sorry they were, not only for my troubles, but for being so wrapped up in their own lives. Now they want to show how much they care about the woman down the street.”

But Maria offered an optimistic assessment of the situation, saying, “Oh, I’m going to live. I’m going to live to the hilt. My son has freed me. He has freed all of us. I hated this house with such passion, but now it is free of hate and fear.”

“My husband’s things are just as he left them, and one day, when I am ready, they will all be gone,” she continued. “It tore out my heart when I heard that Deborah wanted me to be shot, too. She has been so hurt and needs so much help. My poor children face ordeals, but now, for the first time, we have hope. We can live.”

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.