THE FATHER WHO SOLVED HIS SON’S MURDER
A LOOK AT NETFLIX’S FASCINATING NEW DOCUSERIES, THE PHARMACIST
The Family operated in near secrecy for decades.
Dan Schneider was from a regular churchgoing, middle-class, Mississippi family. His father, esteemed pharmacist Daniel Sr, described his son as “good natured, compassionate kid”.
But towards the end of his final year of college, Dan struggled with his grades and his sister Kristi said he got “lost”.
“I think Danny was just struggling with what to do with himself,” Kristi said in the new Netflix docuseries, The Pharmacist.
“I COULDN’T STAND TO THINK MY SON’S MURDERER WOULD GET AWAY WITH IT ... OR KILL AGAIN”
In 1991, at the age of 22, Dan told his parents he was going out and would be back soon. Tragically, Dan never returned.
He was shot in the head in his Ford pick-up truck as he held some crumpled-up cash in his hands. Authorities believed Dan was trying to buy some crack at the time and had unwittingly become involved in a fatal shootout.
Dan’s parents had no idea he was taking drugs at the time. “Some people would say these were warning signs, but we didn’t see it at the time,” his father Daniel admitted. “One out of every 200 dope deals, somebody gets stupid and somebody gets shot,” said police sergeant Addie Fanguy, who dealt with the case. “I’m telling you the kid didn’t give the money to the guy.”
After several failed leads, Daniel became frustrated with the investigation into his son’s death and took the matter into his own hands.
“Like most people, when my son was murdered, I expected the police to do their job,” he told TV station WDSU. “But it didn’t really work out that way.
“I couldn’t stand to think not only would my son’s [murderer] get away with it, but he might kill again.
“I wasn’t thrilled with the job the police did, but I have some compassion for them. They have a big job and without the community helping them, we’re not going to cut down on these murders and
car robberies, so stand up.”
What he uncovered was not only a growing opioid crisis, but also the eyewitness whose evidence would lead to the eventual conviction of his son’s killer.
Daniel, through his meticulous questioning and door knocking within the local neighbourhood, was led to a woman named Shane Redding, who says she saw who killed his son. It turned out to be Jeffrey Hall, who police originally believed was in jail the night the murder took place.
Jeffrey Hall later pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2000 and spent 13 years of his 15-year sentence in prison.
Shane was placed in witness protection and after the conviction, Daniel read out a statement thanking her.
“In this not-so-perfect world,” he said, his voice
breaking with emotion, “it’s people like our witness – one by one – telling the truth about what they have seen that will truly make a difference.”
But Daniel’s findings didn’t just end there. What he later unearthed was the answer to what possibly drove his son to the underworld of drugs.
While investigating his son’s murder, Daniel discovered an alarming number of young people coming into his pharmacy with Oxycontin prescriptions. It soon lead him to Dr Jacqueline Cleggett, a pain management doctor from New Orleans, who was prescribing the highly addictive opioid illegally.
Eventually, Daniel found enough evidence to have her licence revoked and caused Purdue Pharma, a main supplier of Oxycontin, to file for bankruptcy in 2019.
“I realised how blind I had been to the addiction problem,” Daniel says.
Now, having found an answer to his son’s murder and cracking open the opioid crisis, Daniel continues to push on.
“That I could make a difference, or be a part of something that can make a difference, may very well be a reality,” he said.