Local mail carriers vow not to let the community forget about their good-natured colleague and softball teammate Jason Schaefer, shot and killed while delivering mail in west Longmont neighborhoods shortly after noon Wednesday.
“He was nice to everyone,” Alicia Thompson said Friday at an impromptu memorial led by Schafer’s United States Postal Service co-workers and residents of Somerset Meadows. Flowers, signs and a new signed softball ― brought by Thompson — were placed near the postal boxes at Heatherhill Street near Renaissance Drive..
“There was not a mean bone in his body,” Thompson said. “He was kind, he would do anything for everyone.”
“He had the purest soul,” she said.
Schaefer was allegedly shot by his estranged girlfriend, 26-year-old Devan Schreiner, who is now facing a first-degree murder charge. Schreiner’s first court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 19 in Boulder District Court.
Court documents say the 33-year-old Schaefer and Schreiner had been fighting over visitation to the couple’s son.
Schreiner worked at the Longmont post office until she was fired two weeks ago after an incident between her and Schaefer, according to an arrest affidavit. She then started working at the Loveland post office as a letter carrier.
She was arrested Wednesday evening after coming in to speak to detectives in Longmont.
Thompson said Schaefer was a leader on the Longmont postal service’s summer softball team, which won a championship. Few balls got past Schaefer, who played shortstop.
“He was good, really good,” said Thompson, who plays catcher. “But most of all he was a great teammate.”
Local members of the USPS held a procession Thursday morning to remember Schaefer. His softball team will also hold a remembrance for Schaefer Friday night at Garden Acres Park.
On Friday morning, a steady stream of residents dropped off flowers and offered condolences to Thompson and another USPS mail carrier at the mail boxes. “You deliver mail to these neighborhoods and people start to really know you,” said the mail carrier, who asked that her name not be used. “What happened to Jason affects them too,” she said.
David Rupert, communications manager for the postal service, said during a press conference Wednesday that USPS carriers were hit hard by Schaefer’s death.
“This has impacted us very deeply,” Rupert said. “It’s tragic, it’s terrible and it hurts us all very deeply.”
