Not Everyone Died at the Hands of the Bathtub Killer — Where Is Dale Scheanette Now?

Dale Schneatte never showed a hint of remorse for what he had done. Some think he deserved his punishment.

Jun. 7 2024, Published 2:16 p.m. ET

If you need support, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or visit RAINN.org to chat online one-on-one with a support specialist at any time.

Content warning: This article contains mentions of sexual assault and murder.

According to the visitors website for Arlington, Texas, the city that sits between Dallas and Ft. Worth has a little bit of something for everyone. It was a popular destination for gambling in the 1930s and 1940s and even beat out Las Vegas in that regard. If you're a fan of the kind of nachos one can buy at a baseball game, you have Arlington Stadium to thank for their creation. Also, folks who are obsessed with dinosaurs should really take a trip to the Arlington Archosaur Site for all fossil needs.

Sadly you can also find tragedy in Arlington. In the mid-1990s, its citizens were held hostage by a serial rapist who eventually worked his way up to murder. He would later be dubbed the "Bathtub Killer" although not everyone he targeted ended up dying by his hands. Where is Dale Scheanette now?

Dale Scheanette is now in a place where he can't hurt anyone.

On Feb. 10, 2009, reported that Scheanette had been executed and was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m. When asked if he had any last words, Scheanette said, "My only statement is that no cases ever tried have been error-free. Those are my words. No cases are error-free." It sounds as if he refused to take responsibility for what he had done, up to the very end. Scheanette had been responsible for the deaths of two women. Six of their family members were witnesses at the execution.

Former Tarrant County district attorney Greg Miller prosecuted Scheanette in 2003. He told the outlet, "I've been doing this 35, 36 years. I've had others who have killed and done bad things. But he's at the top of the list." While in prison, Scheanette acted as his own attorney and filed numerous appeals with the federal appeals courts. They, along with clemency, were denied.

What did Dale Scheanette do?

Between September and December 1996, the bodies of two women were found in their apartments, per the Clark County Prosecutor's Office. Both had been bound by duct tape and were left lying face down in their bathtubs. Each had been sexually assaulted and both died by strangulation. What added to these already upsetting crimes is the fact that they lived in the same apartment building and were killed mere feet from each other.

Christine Vu, age 26, and Wendie Prescott, age 22, didn't know each other but now they were connected in an unimaginable way. Vu taught third grade at Moore Elementary and though her life was cut tragically short, her sister told WFAA that teaching had been a lifelong dream for Vu. Prescott was murdered on Christmas Eve and like Vu, worked as a teacher's aide at another elementary school. She had also just enrolled in beauty college.

There was evidence left at both scenes. In Vu's apartment, police found a fingerprint and collected DNA samples. Law enforcement officers were able to gather more from Prescott's bathroom such as a "high-quality fingerprint from a television stand," as well as sperm samples. Sadly no matches were found in any databases. Four years would pass before an arrest was made.

In the summer of 2000, police widened their search by submitting the fingerprint from Prescott's TV stand to an FBI database. A match came back and it belonged to Schneatte who had been in their system for less than a year. After he was arrested, law enforcement officers were able to obtain a sample of Scheanette's saliva which matched the sperm sample that had been sitting in evidence for nearly five years. It was a match.

It was later discovered that Scheanette was also responsible for the sexual assaults of four other women in their apartments in the Dallas-Fort Worth area from September 1998 to October 1999, per the Clark County Prosector's Office. One of those women was Adrienne Fields who spoke with KVUE in February 2015.

It happened on Oct. 26, 1999, in Fields's apartment in Grand Prairie, Texas. She woke up at 3:00 a.m. to find Scheanette in her bedroom wearing a nylon stocking over his face, pointing a gun at her. She recalled him saying, "The devil keeps making me do it." He also said, "You are not like the others." That's when she understood this wasn't the first time he had raped a woman. It lasted for two hours and for reasons she may never know, Scheanette left after he was done. He was executed on her birthday.

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