Penryn, Reno men sentenced to lengthy prison terms

Two men involved in a Penryn torture and murder case were handed lengthy prison sentences Friday. Donald Hugh Sherman, 44, of Penryn, and Peter Daniel Schoemig, 32, of Reno were sentenced in a Roseville courtroom Friday morning for their hand in the September 2006 murder of Reno resident and Sherman's cousin Guy Farmer. Sherman was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for his conviction of first-degree murder with special circumstances of murder by torture and murder by poison. Judge Richard Couzens also handed Sherman a consecutive life imprisonment term for torture and additional 17 years and 8 months in prison for drug possession convictions. Schoemig was sentenced to 25-to-life in prison for a first-degree murder conviction in the case. The two men were tried together late in 2009 for the crime in front of two different juries. Over Labor Day weekend 2006, Sherman and several others reportedly tied and bound Farmer in Sherman's garage after Farmer was blamed for stealing several chemicals used to make methamphetamine. Farmer was beaten with hammers and a blowtorch and injected with methamphetamine to keep him awake during the interrogation. He was later killed by an overdose of prescription pills and his body was left in an abandoned horizontal mineshaft outside of Reno. The trial lasted about three months and included about 55 witnesses. ~ Jenifer Gee