‘My Husband’s Still Gone’: LI Nurse Speaks After Husband’s Killers Sentenced

BOHEMIA, NY — Nearly four years after Michael Hartmann, 49, was shot to death outside his Bohemia home by two armed men who prosecutors said had gone to the wrong house, his wife Kim sat in a Suffolk County courtroom and watched both men receive sentences that could keep them in prison for decades. But for her, it was not closure.

“People assume it’s just closure,” Hartmann told Patch after the Aug. 6 sentencing. “It’s hard to explain. It’s not over. They go to jail. My husband’s still gone.”

Christopher Fernandez, 29, of Sound Beach, was sentenced to 25 years to life after a jury convicted him of second-degree murder and other charges in Michael Hartmann’s Nov. 2, 2022, killing.

Oliver Schor, 24, of Miller Place, was sentenced to 22 years to life after pleading guilty to second-degree murder for his role in the crime, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.

Kim attended the sentencing with the couple’s four daughters, along with her brother, sister, brother-in-law and friends.

The sentences closed a major chapter in a case that had consumed the family for years. But Kim said her husband's absence still shows up in ordinary moments throughout the Hartmann household.

“He had old school values,” Kim said. “He was a man’s man, handy, knew how to fix anything, hard worker.”

Michael loved fitness and cars, particularly older cars, she said. He took pride in his work and in providing for his wife and daughters, and he had an instinct to protect the people around him.

“Family was his number one priority,” Kim said. “He always felt like he had to protect everyone.”

Michael had worked for Spirit Contracting Inc. for several years and was the company’s head foreman, according to a GoFundMe established for his family after his death. The company remembered him for his carpentry skills, attitude and work ethic, saying its customers and employees loved him.

Those skills followed him home. If one of his daughters had a broken dresser drawer or a window that would not open, Kim said, Michael was the person they turned to for a fix.

Michael and Kim shared four daughters: Brittany, 26; Alexa, 24; Mikayla, 18; and Skylar, 16. Kim said Michael was an “amazing” father who held high expectations for his girls. He wanted them to stay in school, make good decisions and build futures for themselves.

“He would always give them the advice of being the better person,” Kim said.

Some of Kim’s favorite memories are of the rare occasions when she could convince her husband to stop working long enough for a family vacation.

Michael worked long hours and rarely wanted to take time away, she said, so she was often the one pushing for a trip. Once they got there, however, she could watch him enjoy the rewards of all those hours at work — riding a jet ski, lying in the sun and spending time with his wife and daughters.

“He had so much more to give, so much more life to live,” Kim said. “He’s going to miss out on his daughters’ milestones.”

According to prosecutors, on the morning of Nov. 2, 2022, Fernandez mistakenly believed a cellphone that had been stolen from him was pinging from Michael’s Bohemia residence. At about 6:36 a.m., Fernandez and Schor, both armed with guns, went to the home and attempted to enter through the back door.

They encountered Michael there, prosecutors said. One of the men opened fire, shooting him multiple times before both fled. Michael was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators ultimately determined Fernandez and Schor had gone to the wrong location in a case of mistaken identity, according to the DA’s office.

Shortly before the killing, Fernandez had stolen a ski mask, gloves and a hat from a Manorville gas station, prosecutors said.

Kim had already left the house for work that morning. A nurse at South Shore University Hospital, she was at the hospital when she realized something was wrong at home.

Her daughters normally sent her a message when they woke up and began getting ready for school. That morning, no message came.

Kim began texting them. Nobody responded. She then reached out to Brittany, who had been home and witnessed the immediate aftermath of her father’s shooting, asking what was happening.

“She’s hysterically crying —something’s happened,” Kim recalled. “And I said, ‘What do you mean? What happened?’ And she said, ‘I think Daddy’s dead.’”

Kim’s nursing instincts kicked in before she fully understood what her daughter was trying to tell her. She wondered whether Michael had suffered a heart attack. She asked whether 911 had been called and whether responders were performing CPR. What Brittany told her was nearly impossible for Kim to process.

“She said, ‘I think he was shot.’ And I was just dumbfounded,” Kim recalled. “What do you mean he was shot?”

Kim and Brittany both addressed the court at the Aug. 6 sentencing.

“His absence bears a heavy weight on our lives every single day,” Kim said of the message they delivered. “There’s not a day that goes by we don’t think of him or be reminded of him or that day.”

Brittany also addressed the men responsible for her father’s death, Kim said.

“You will never be forgiven, ever, not by us anyway,” Kim recalled her daughter saying. “You took our whole lives away.”

Fernandez had been convicted March 6 following a jury trial before State Supreme Court Justice Steven A. Pilewski. The jury found him guilty of second-degree murder, first-degree attempted burglary, second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, second-degree criminal use of a firearm and petit larceny.

Schor pleaded guilty before Pilewski on March 18 to second-degree murder.

The legal resolution followed what Kim described as years of uncertainty.

“It was terrible. It was just a drag-out, never-ending nightmare,” she said.

Kim said the family waited roughly two years before learning who investigators believed was responsible. She credited Suffolk County homicide detectives with continuing to work the case despite having few obvious leads.

Before the mistaken-identity circumstances became clear, Kim said she and her daughters also had to contend with rumors about Michael.

Neighbors and others assumed the shooting must have been targeted, she said. Some speculated Michael had been involved in drugs or had some secret lifestyle unknown to his family.

Kim said those theories were completely inconsistent with the man she knew. The speculation also reached the Hartmann daughters. Kim said children heard conversations among adults and carried those assumptions into school, leaving the girls exposed not only to grief but to suggestions that their father must have done something to cause his own killing.

For nearly four years, Kim said, the family found itself “defending his name,” even as she and her daughters knew the rumors bore no resemblance to Michael’s life.

The eventual determination that the gunmen had simply gone to the wrong house answered one of the most painful questions hanging over the family.

Kim praised the Homicide Squad for how its members dealt with her family even while investigators necessarily considered numerous possible explanations for the killing.

“They really treated us with dignity and respect,” she said.

She also praised Assistant District Attorneys Frank Schroeder and Kirsten Reilly, who prosecuted the case, saying they “went above and beyond” to keep the family informed to the extent they were able.

Kim said residents did not rally around her family after the killing, something she attributes at least partly to fear and the belief that Michael had been deliberately targeted. Help did come from his workplace.

Frankie Del Vecchio organized a GoFundMe for Kimberly Hartmann after the killing, and the fundraiser was presented on behalf of the team at Spirit Contracting Inc.

The company said the money would go to Michael’s wife and daughters.

The need was immediate, Kim said, because there was no life insurance policy and the family had suddenly lost Michael’s income while confronting funeral and other expenses.

“We’re a middle-class family living paycheck to paycheck,” she said.

Almost four years later, the financial repercussions remain. Kim said she has taken on more work as a nurse to help replace the income the family lost when Michael died.

“I try to work more now to supplement the salary,” she said. “I’m left alone to take care of my family and my home bills.”

The couple’s daughters are also building lives and careers that Michael had hoped to see unfold. Brittany, 26, is now a nurse; Alexa, 24, is continuing her education with hopes of becoming a teacher; Mikayla, 18, is entering her second year of college; and Skylar, 16, is beginning her final year of high school, Kim said.

As of Monday, the GoFundMe had raised $11,012 from 90 donations toward a $20,000 goal.

The Hartmanns are still trying to figure out what life after the court cases will look like. Kim knows what she believes her husband would tell them.

“To keep on living life, to keep traveling, try to be happy,” she said. “Continue with our goals of making sure our kids are taken care of, and try to smile every once in a while.”

Doing so remains difficult. Asked whether the family has been able to return to the trips and experiences Michael loved, Kim said the loss changed the entire dynamic of the household.

“Everybody’s angry and still trying to work through their feelings,” she said.

What Kim hopes will change now is how people remember the man at the center of the case.

“He was a good human being, and he would have given you a shirt off his back if he could have,” Kim said. “He was like a book of knowledge. He knew a little bit about everything.”

More often than not, she said, Michael was right.

“I just loved his old school values,” she said.

To support the Hartmann family, visit the GoFundMe organized by Michael’s former coworkers at Spirit Contracting Inc.