Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Police: Man shot 10 times by retired detective during supervised visit with son

Pamela Schoening

Metro Police

Pamela Bordeaux, also known as Pamela Schoening

Updated Tuesday, April 23, 2019 | 7:30 p.m.

Each of the three years after the divorce, the father was granted less than 60 hours of supervised visits with his son, who was just a baby at the time his parents split.

That meant that Sean Richard Babbitt was allowed to see his child for an hour a week at his ex-mother-in-law’s Las Vegas house, according to Clark County Family Court documents.

The weekly arrangement had just concluded Monday morning when the former mother-in-law, Pamela Schoening, 55 — a retired Metro Police detective — shot Babbitt 10 times at her home in the 8500 block of Honey Vine Avenue, near Durango Drive and El Capitan Way.

Babbitt’s ex-wife, who was upstairs with the boy when gunshots blasted, called 911 at about 8 a.m., Metro Lt. Ray Spencer said.

After the “totality of the circumstances” was evaluated Monday afternoon, Schoening was jailed at the Clark County Detention Center on one count of murder.

It wasn’t clear on Tuesday what exactly transpired before Schoening allegedly pulled the trigger, and a copy of her arrest report wasn’t available. It was unclear if there was a physical altercation before shots rang out, Spencer said.

In a partial interview broadcast online, Babbitt’s stepfather grew emotional as he spoke about the man at the Las Vegas Justice Court building.

Motioning with his hands, Daniel Mandarino said authorities had told the family that most of Babbitt’s wounds were defensive, and that bullets had blown his fingers off.

Babbitt, 32, and his ex-wife had been married a little over seven years when the woman filed for divorce on Dec. 23, 2015. Their child was 4 months old.

The split was finalized in March the following year, and a decree of divorce outlined child support fees and the visitation schedule.

Babbitt was ordered to pay $800 a month. Mandarino said that his stepson had been working two jobs to fulfill the agreement.

If Babbitt attended a weekly therapy session, he was allowed to see the boy one hour a week, court records show. On the man’s birthday and Father’s Day, he got an additional two-hour visit.

It wasn’t clear what type of therapy Babbitt was ordered to attend. Around the day of his death, Mandarino said, Babbitt had gone with a lawyer to try to petition the court for more visitation time with the child.

Schoening, who went by the name of Pamela Bordeaux when she was an officer from 1993 to May 2017, is being held without bond, jail logs show.

Her daughter, who lives at a different address from where the shooting occurred, cooperated with authorities, Spencer said.

Mandarino described his stepson as “very lovely” and “passive.”

A Facebook account under Babbitt’s name shows a film aficionado; a man who played the guitar, listened to metal music and enjoyed Dungeons and Dragons.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.