Reno police check for possible connection with 1989 Reno case

Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1998 | 9:01 a.m.

Joseph Schoenhoeft, 38, is accused of kidnapping 10- and 11-year-old boys on Saturday from a schoolyard in Fresno.

Reno police are now trying to determine where Schoenhoeft was when Charles Chia, 8, and his sister, Jennifer, 6, were kidnapped after getting off a school bus near their Reno home on Oct. 18, 1989.

The children's skeletal remains were later found in a remote area northwest of Reno.

No arrests have been made in the case.

The victims in both the Fresno and Reno cases were young Asian-American children.

"Our first focus is to help Fresno County," Deputy Reno Police Chief Jim Weston said. "Our second is to investigate the few documented abductions of Asian kids."

Schoenhoeft was a deputy sheriff in Fresno from 1983-1985 and left in good standing, Fresno Sgt. Jose Flores said.

Weston said he then moved to the San Francisco Bay area.

Records show he became a licensed chiropractor in Nevada in 1995, but also held licenses in New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona.

In the Fresno case, Schoenhoeft is accused of approaching four children at a playground Saturday and identifying himself as a security guard.

Flores said the man lured two of the boys, who are cousins, to his Volkswagen bus, told them they were under arrest and forced them inside.

A 14-year-old sister of one of the boys ran to a nearby home for help.

Two good Samaritans took off after the vehicle and were shot at when they got close, Flores said, adding that bullets shattered their windshield.

One of the victims was sexually assaulted before they were released, Flores said.

Authorities chased the Volkswagen to nearby Sanger, Calif., where Schoenhoeft was arrested after the vehicle crashed into a ravine.

Schoenhoeft remained hospitalized in critical condition on Monday.

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