A pre-trial hearing has been set for next week for Darrell Kastel, the second defendant in the 1979 slaying of supermarket supervisor Julius Schnoll.
Darrel Kastel was scheduled to go to trial this Monday, but the prosecution gave additional discovery evidence to the defense attorney and the trial was adjourned. At a hearing today, Kastel was given a new pre-trial hearing date of May 4, 2010, before Oakland Circuit Judge Rae Lee Chabot.
Darrel Kastel, 56, is charged with first-degree felony murder in the Jan. 27, 1979, shooting death of 62-year-old Julius Schnoll, a supervisor of a Great Scott supermarket at 10 Mile and Orchard Lake roads in Farmington. Investigators said Kastel and co-defendant William Hess snuck into the building through air ducts and tied up the store’s employees before Hess shot Schnoll after Schnoll failed to open a safe during a robbery attempt. Hess was convicted in March of first-degree premeditated murder and first-degree felony murder. He has been sentenced to life in prison without chance for parole.
Prosecutor Greg Townsend said that the two men killed 62-year-old Julius Schnoll on Jan. 27, 1979, during a botched robbery at the Great Scott supermarket at 10 Mile and Orchard Lake roads. Police said on the day of the killing, Hess and Kastel, both from Highland Park, climbed in through the store’s air-conditioning duct early in the morning, herded the four night-shift workers into the break room and hog-tied them with dog leashes and cellophane.
Schnoll, who was a night manager and traveled between two stores, was ordered to open the safe, but Schnoll didn’t know the combination because only the day manager had that information. When the robbers realized Schnoll couldn’t open the safe, he was shot in the head inside of the break room in front of the rest of the employees.