Deltona Man Arrested In 2004 Double Murder Case

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Deltona, FL - Two law enforcement agencies team up to arrest a Deltona man for a double murder over a decade ago.

46-year-old Christopher Schmidt faces a first-degree murder charge after the Volusia County Sheriff's Office used a search warrant to enter his Nardello Drive residence late Monday night.

VCSO tells us that warrant came at the behest of the Virginia Beach (VA) Police Department in a cold case from June 2004 where a 29-year-old woman and her 7-year-old son were shot dead.

According to a release from VBPD, Lois Schmidt and Jonathan Vetrano's bodies were pulled from a burning home minutes after first responders found another man outside that home with a gunshot wound.

Three pets were also found in that burning home, with two of them - both dogs - being shot. One of them eventually died as well, according to the incident report.

VBPD detectives there had been working the case ever since, but were only recently able to move forward with two arrests - including Christopher Schmidt's - after uncovering new information.

The other man is 43-year-old Richard Stoner of Logansport, Indiana. He's facing two first-degree murder counts after being taken into custody over the weekend.

Stoner and Schmidt will be extradited to Virginia while prosecutors decide how many charges to file against them and what kind to file.

It's not clear at this time what - if any - relationship Schmidt and Stoner had with the victims.

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