The Tina Lohman case ended with Bradley Yohn convicted on all six felony counts for the November 9, 2021 attack on 77-year-old Christine “Tina” Lohman Schmitt of Quincy, Illinois, and sentenced to 130 years in prison. Schmitt was sexually assaulted, kidnapped, and beaten in her own home after her car broke down on a rural road; she died 33 days later. In May 2026, an Illinois appellate court affirmed Yohn’s convictions.1
What Happened on November 9, 2021
Tina Lohman Schmitt was driving home from American Building Supply in Adams County that evening when her car started giving her trouble. Daylight Saving Time had just ended, and she was struggling with the headlights in the dark. She pulled over on Bottom Road, close to home.
Prosecutors said Bradley Yohn and Karen Blackledge approached her stopped vehicle. Yohn forced his way in and sexually assaulted her. He then made her drive to a nearby area known as the North Bottoms, where he assaulted her again. Schmitt told the two she had money and jewelry at her house, apparently trying to end the violence. When they reached her home on North Bottom Road, Yohn and Blackledge came in through the garage. Schmitt managed to lock herself inside, but Yohn kicked in the door and attacked her again. Before fleeing, he sprayed her with carpet cleaning products.
Her husband, Timothy Schmitt, came home around 5:00 p.m. to find the garage door open, his wife’s car gone, and tire tracks across the lawn. Inside, Tina was sitting on a bloody quilt. She told him, “They raped me.” He gave her a gun because she was afraid the attackers would return, then stepped into the garage to call 911.
At Blessing Hospital, medical staff documented bruising on her arms, hands, buttocks, and knees, chemical burns in her mouth, and three vaginal tears. A week later she still appeared to be in shock. Tina Lohman Schmitt died on December 12, 2021, at Hannibal Regional Hospital. Prosecutors did not allege at trial that Yohn caused her death directly.
How Yohn Was Identified and Arrested
Tina had given a description of her attacker the night of the assault: a white man with red, scruffy hair and a scruffy beard. Around 8:00 p.m. that same evening, a worker at a Phillips 66 gas station in Hannibal, Missouri, spotted a man matching that description behind the wheel of a white Toyota Avalon, the car stolen from Schmitt. Security footage caught him carrying a purse and a plastic bag stuffed with cash.
Adams County Sheriff’s Department investigators traced the vehicle and connected Yohn and Blackledge to other incidents earlier that night, including a vehicle theft at a local bar. On November 10, 2021, the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force arrested the pair at a house on East Cornell Street in Springfield, Illinois.
Officers recovered a substantial amount of evidence from the arrest scene, including Schmitt’s purse with her voter ID and checks inside, $8,345 in cash, a rosary, women’s jewelry Yohn was wearing on his arm, a chainsaw, a hedge trimmer, and a Star Trek pin belonging to Tim Schmitt. Forensic evidence tied Yohn directly to the crime scene. A size 12 white Reebok on his foot matched shoe impressions on the kicked-in door and elsewhere in the home. His fingerprints came off a can of carpet cleaner at the scene and off the stolen Toyota. Y-STR DNA testing on male DNA found on a garment worn by the victim came back 310 times more likely to belong to Yohn than to an unrelated person.
Karen Blackledge’s Guilty Plea
Blackledge resolved her case well before Yohn went to trial. On April 1, 2022, she pleaded guilty in Adams County Circuit Court to two Class X felonies, home invasion and aggravated criminal sexual assault, charged under an accountability theory for her role alongside Yohn. Three other counts were dropped in the plea: a second home invasion count, aggravated kidnapping, and aggravated vehicular hijacking.
On May 5, 2022, she was sentenced to two consecutive 20-year prison terms, 40 years in total. Under Illinois Truth in Sentencing rules, she must serve 50 percent of the home invasion sentence and 85 percent of the sexual assault sentence. She later tried to withdraw her plea, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel, but Adams County Judge Amy Lannerd denied the motion.
Yohn’s Trial
Yohn cycled through court-appointed public defenders and eventually chose to represent himself. Judge Roger Thomson, who presided, appointed Chief Public Defender Todd Nelson as standby counsel, telling Yohn he had a constitutional right to self-representation but “no right to standby counsel.” Nelson’s role was voluntary and limited to answering legal questions. Yohn was removed from the courtroom more than once during pretrial hearings after clashes with the bench.
Jury selection began around June 30, 2023, and trial proceedings ran from roughly July 10 through July 17. Prosecutors Josh Jones and Laura Keck called 17 witnesses, including Tim Schmitt, investigators, forensic scientists, a sexual assault nurse examiner, and the Phillips 66 employee who had spotted Yohn the night of the attack.
Because Tina had died before trial, the State relied heavily on what she told her husband and an Adams County sheriff’s deputy on the night of November 9. Tim Schmitt testified for about two hours, recounting what his wife described about the assault, the kidnapping, and the home invasion. Yohn, acting as his own lawyer, filed motions seeking help interviewing potential witnesses in the Adams County Jail, including Blackledge and his own father; the judge denied several of those requests. He delivered his own closing argument, in which he denied being a “creep” who sexually assaulted a 77-year-old great-grandmother.
The jury deliberated two hours and 45 minutes before convicting Yohn on all six counts: two counts of home invasion, one count each of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated vehicular hijacking, aggravated criminal sexual assault, and residential burglary. All six were Class X felonies. Yohn asked that each juror be polled; every one confirmed the verdict. Asked whether he had anything to say, Yohn replied, “No your honor. I’m at a loss.”
The 130-Year Sentence
On September 25, 2023, Judge Thomson sentenced Yohn to 130 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. The sentence was built from consecutive terms: 30 years each on three counts and 40 years on the aggravated criminal sexual assault count. Thomson explained that consecutive sentencing was mandatory under Illinois law for Class X home invasion with a weapon and for aggravated criminal sexual assault involving great bodily harm. Under Illinois rules requiring him to serve 85 percent, Yohn faces a minimum of roughly 110 years.
Standby counsel Todd Nelson told the court that losing his mother at 16 had been difficult for Yohn and might have contributed to his behavior. Thomson was unmoved. He told Yohn, “I believe you’re narcissistic and unable to appreciate that, because to admit that, would be admitting a fault and in your mind you are perfect,” and later called him “the most reprehensible person I’ve ever had in front of me.”
Prosecutor Josh Jones said afterward that the State had planned to seek at least 70 years and possibly 90 to 100. He described the roughly 19 months of litigation as exhausting: “Frankly, I was tired of Mr. Yohn. We were tired of his antics. We were tired of his stupid conspiracy theories.” Laura Keck called the sentence “the equivalent of a life sentence.” Jones described Tina Lohman Schmitt as “sunshine personified” and a “survivor.”
The Post-Conviction Motions and 2026 Appeal
Yohn’s first motion for a new trial was denied the day of sentencing. He then sent the court a pro se letter alleging that his post-trial counsel had been ineffective. Springfield attorney Mark Wykoff Sr. was appointed, with Judge Thomson confirming the appointment on January 3, 2025.
Wykoff filed an amended motion for a new trial arguing that Todd Nelson had been ineffective in the post-trial phase by failing to convert preserved trial errors into a proper post-trial motion. He also filed a motion to reconsider the sentence, arguing that the court had discretion to run terms concurrently and that 130 years was effectively life. Yohn himself contributed a 72-page filing that the court folded into the amended motion.
Judge Thomson denied the amended motion for a new trial in a written order on March 5, 2025. At a March 28, 2025 hearing on the sentencing motion, he upheld the 130 years, noting that even if some counts were set aside, the minimum sentence for the remaining Class X convictions would still be 120 years. Yohn was again disruptive and was removed from the courtroom.
On May 26, 2026, the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fourth District, affirmed the convictions in People v. Yohn. Yohn’s central argument was that Tina Lohman Schmitt’s out-of-court statements to her husband and to the responding deputy were inadmissible hearsay and violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses, since she had died before trial. The appellate court rejected both arguments, holding that the statements qualified as excited utterances made under the stress of an ongoing emergency and were nontestimonial, so admitting them did not violate the Confrontation Clause. The court noted Yohn retains the right to seek further review.
Who Tina Lohman Schmitt Was
Born Christine F. Brown on March 30, 1944, in Berkeley, California, Tina studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and attended the London School of Economics before settling in the Quincy area, where she worked as office manager at American Builders Supply. She married Timothy Schmitt on March 1, 2019. She was Catholic and left behind four children — Heidi Young, Michael “Chip” Lohman, Derek Lohman, and Ilsa Terrell — along with 17 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.
Her family described her as a “true woman of class” with “poise and strength.” She loved to travel, loved red wine, and started playing Christmas music as early as November. Her obituary called her an “exuberant, joyful soul,” and memorial gifts were directed to an educational fund for her great-grandchildren. After the July 2023 verdict, her children said they had not been able to mourn her properly until the trial was over.