A former high school football player has been jailed for life after stabbing his ex-girlfriend more than a dozen times, leaving her paralyzed

Spencer Pearson, 20, of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, was told at St. Johns County Circuit Court that he would spend the remainder of his life behind bars for the frenzied attack on 17-year-old Madison Schemitz. She was a star softball player at Ponte Vedra High School, but she was left partly paralyzed and reliant on a cane to walk as a result of the attack, which dealt significant injuries to her spinal cord.

Pearson attempted to take his own life after the 2023 attack, which also saw him stab a bystander and Schemitz’s mother, Jacki Roge. Pearson stabbed himself in the neck and sat in court bearing a gruesome scar.

Pearson pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder with a weapon and aggravated battery causing serious bodily injury with a weapon at a hearing in July, and he sat emotionless in court as his parents watched him receive his life sentence on Friday.

Roge had reported Pearson to police less than a week before the attack, accusing him of stalking and harassing his daughter. But on June 3, 2023, they noticed Pearson sitting at a nearby table at Mr. Chubby’s Wings in Pinte Vedra Beach.

Schemitz and her mother chose to leave the restaurant, but they were pursued by Pearson, who charged at the 17-year-old. “The defendant held the juvenile victim with one arm and stabbed her approximately fifteen times,” a witness told the court.

Pearson bowed his head as he received his sentence

Pearson bowed his head as he received his sentence ( 

Image:

First Coast News/YouTube)

Roge attempted to intervene but suffered stab wounds to the forehead and leg as she tried to pull Pearson off her daughter. A bystander in the parking lot was also injured after trying to pull Pearson away.

Prior to the sentencing, the court was informed of Pearson’s mental health problems after he and Schemitz had separated, including an incident when he attempted to take his own life.

Pearson’s family and legal team also told the court he had sustained CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) as a result of playing football. CTE is a degenerative disease that typically stems from repeated blows to the head and can lead to behavioral and mental health problems. It can only be diagnosed posthumously as it requires the brain to be cut open.

Pearson was a defensive end, and his father told the court his son had suffered “roughly” 10,000 blows to the head from a decade of playing football. Although Judge R. Lee Smith recognized the mitigating factors in the case, he determined life imprisonment was the only fitting punishment for Pearson’s crimes.

The judge said: “This defendant launched a vicious attack on a 17-year-old girl who had done nothing but show him love and only weeks earlier had done her part to try to save his life when he attempted suicide. The same person who had tried to save his life, he violently and viciously attacked.

“This court does not impose a sentence based on vengeance. There are just certain crimes that are committed that merit the maximum sentence possible and this court finds that this is one of them.”

Schemitz took to the stand during the sentencing, telling the court: “I’ve thought about this day, this moment, this statement for the last 538 days, living in true torment.”