By Brian Anderson
Contra Costa Newspapers

March 20, 2002

OAKLAND —A motorist who stopped to stretch his legs while driving on Highway 88 in December 1997 told an Alameda County jury Wednesday that he spotted a body face down in the snow and called for help.

In recalling the day he discovered Vanessa Lei Samson in a rural part of Alpine County, John Schoettgen said he rushed to a pay phone three miles away, thinking the person who was lying just off the road still might be alive.

"I hollered 'Are you OK?' or something like that," said Schoettgen, a transportation manager who traveled Highway 88 once a week. "I guess I kind of panicked, got in my car and drove to a pay phone and called 911."

He offered to return to the site, but was told by a sheriff's department dispatcher to continue on his way. Wondering whether the person he found was still alive, he called authorities later that day to learn that Samson was dead.

"I was hoping that they were still alive," said Schoettgen, who received a hug from the victim's mother, Christina Samson, outside the courtroom.

James Daveggio and Michelle Michaud are accused of killing Samson and dumping her where Schoettgen said he discovered her Dec. 4.

The body of the 22-year-old Pleasanton woman was found two days after she disappeared while walking to her job at SCJ Insurance.

Heidi Wolfe, Samson's supervisor, told jurors Wednesday that the young woman usually arrived at work about 7:50 a.m. When Samson did not arrive on the morning of Dec. 2, Wolfe said she talked to the personnel department, then left a message on an answering machine at the Samson home.

She never saw Vanessa Samson again, Wolfe said.

Michaud, 41, and Daveggio, 43, face the death penalty if convicted of the slaying.