According to court documents John Joubert would murder 11-year-old Richard “Ricky” Stetson in Maine in 1982. In 1983 Joubert would murder Danny Joe Eberle, 13, and later the same year he would murder Christopher Walden, age 12, both in Nebraska
John Joubert would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
John Joubert would be executed by way of the electric chair on July 17 1996
John Joubert Photos
John Joubert Case
A man who said he enjoyed the “power and domination” of killing was executed in the electric chair early today for murdering two boys in 1983.
The prisoner, John J. Joubert, a former airman, repeatedly stabbed and slashed Danny Jo Eberle, 13, and Christopher Walden, 12, in Bellevue near Offutt Air Force Base, where he was stationed. He was also convicted of stabbing and strangling a boy in Maine.
In his final statement, Mr. Joubert apologized for the three murders and added, “I do not know if my death will change anything or if it will bring anyone any peace.”
In trying to explain the crimes, Mr. Joubert, 33, told The Omaha World-Herald last month: “It was the power and the domination and seeing the fear. That was more exciting than actually causing the harm.”
Mr. Joubert was caught after he tried to abduct a preschool teacher, who then noted the license plate number of his car. Mr. Joubert confessed later that day.
Judy Eberle, Danny’s mother, said Mr. Joubert deserved the death penalty not out of vengeance but because “it is the only punishment that can make sure that he will never walk the streets again.”
According to court documents during a three day period Robert Williams would murder three women and attempted to murder a fourth. Williams would murder Catherine Brooks and Patricia McGarry in Nebraska and Virginia Rowe in Iowa. The fourth women was sexually assaulted and shot in Minnesota
Robert Williams would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Robert Williams would be executed by way of the electric chair on December 2 1997
Robert Williams Photos
Robert Williams Case
In the late afternoon of August 11, 1977, the bodies of Patricia A. McGarry and Catherine M. Brooks were found in the McGarry apartment in Lincoln, Nebraska, after a search was instituted when neighbors found the 5-year-old daughter of Catherine Brooks wandering in the neighborhood looking for her mother.
The naked body of Catherine Brooks was found lying face down in the center of the living room floor. A pool of blood surrounded her head. There was a nonfatal bullet wound in her back and two bullet wounds behind her left ear. Later medical examination revealed spermatozoa in the vagina and in the rectal tract. The pathologist testified that the spermatozoa would have had to be deposited within an hour of her death.
The body of Patricia McGarry was lying in the dining room, face up, clad in a blue housecoat. She had also been shot three times, once under her right ear and twice in the neck. There was a bloody trail on the carpet from the living room into the dining room to the spot where Patricia’s body lay.
The police found an empty beer bottle with latent fingerprints on a chair. Later examination established the fingerprints as those of the defendant. The police also found a full box of .22 caliber long rifle shells on the coffee table in the living room and another unfired .22 caliber shell on the sofa. The casing of a .22 caliber shell was found on the floor of the living room. There was a bullet hole in the wall between the living and dining rooms, and a spent bullet was found in the entryway between the two rooms. Later investigation established that on August 10, 1977, at approximately 7:15 p. m., a model K-22 Smith & Wesson .22 caliber revolver and five boxes of .22 caliber long rifle shells were purchased by the defendant at a store in Lincoln.
Evidence at trial established that on August 11, 1977, at approximately 9:30 a. m., the defendant appeared at the apartment of another young woman in Lincoln, Nebraska. She had been acquainted with the defendant for approximately 6 months and he had been a babysitter for her 2-year-old daughter on occasion. The defendant told the woman that his car was broken down and asked to use her telephone. She admitted him and he then told her he needed to stay in her apartment for a while. She suggested that he stay in the storage room area of the apartment complex instead. The defendant then drew a revolver and demanded that she have sexual relations with him. She tried to lock herself in the bathroom but the defendant forced the door open and broke off the lock. He struck her in the chest and on the side of the head with the gun and threatened to blow her head off, and then raped her. The defendant remained in the apartment for several hours and raped the woman repeatedly.
At approximately 4 p. m., the defendant ordered the woman to bring her 2-year-old child and go to his car with him. As they approached the curb he told her she was free to go. She immediately went to a neighbor’s home and called the police.
The woman testified that during the time the defendant had been with her, he drank one beer and smoked a joint of marijuana but appeared normal and did not appear to be intoxicated. Other witnesses who had been with the defendant on August 10, and one as late as 1:30 a. m., on August 11, 1977, testified that on those occasions the defendant *22 appeared normal in speech and actions and did not appear to be intoxicated, although he had been drinking.
The evidence at trial established that defendant left the woman’s apartment in Lincoln about 4 p. m., August 11, 1977, and about an hour later was seen at a service station in Fremont, Nebraska, some 50 miles away, where he stopped and purchased gasoline. The station attendant testified that the defendant’s speech and coordination appeared to be normal, although he smelled alcohol on the defendant’s breath.
At approximately 10:15 p. m., on August 11, 1977, a deputy sheriff observed and checked the defendant’s car at a park and rest area in Cherokee County, Iowa, and checked it periodically thereafter through the night. At 6:15 a. m., the deputy had the car towed away. Upon examination of the car, the deputies discovered a packaging box for a Smith & Wesson K-22 revolver; a box of .22 caliber long rifle cartridges from which six cartridges had been removed; a bag of marijuana; and some gas cans with negroid hairs on them.
Shortly after 6 a. m., on August 12, 1977, Mrs. Jack Montgomery, who lived 1½ miles west of the park and rest area in which defendant’s car had been found, discovered that her car was missing from the garage. There was a blanket in the car and another blanket was also missing. She also found a checkbook with the name of the defendant imprinted on the checks lying in the driveway in front of the garage. At approximately 10 o’clock the same morning the Montgomery car was found abandoned in a ditch about 20 miles northeast of the Montgomery farm.
A little after 7 a. m., on the same morning, Elbert Bredvick was standing in his farmyard approximately 5 miles southwest of the point at which the Montgomery car had been abandoned. Bredvick observed the defendant approaching carrying two blankets draped over his shoulder. The defendant asked for directions to the nearest town. Bredvick gave the defendant directions which led defendant past the Wayne Rowe farmhouse one-half mile to the west, and the defendant departed in that direction.
On the morning of August 12, 1977, Mrs. Wayne Rowe left the farm home at 7:45 a. m., for an appointment at her hairdresser. Wayne Rowe left the house about 8:15 a. m., and returned shortly after noon, expecting his wife to be home. He observed that his wife’s car was gone and when he entered the house he saw his wife’s purse on the chair and the morning mail on the table. About that time an Iowa state trooper arrived and Rowe and the trooper went upstairs and found Mrs. Rowe’s naked body on the bed. There was a shotgun wound in her side and another in her back, and there was a wound in her neck from a .22 caliber bullet. Later examination established that she had also been sexually assaulted.
Negroid hairs were found in her hand and on the bedspread which compared favorably in diameter, coloration, pigment distribution, scale patterns, and medullation to samples taken from the defendant and the hairs found on the gas cans in his car. A .22 caliber bullet was found in the fibers of the bedspread which matched the bullets recovered from the bodies of Catherine Brooks and Patricia McGarry. A shotgun which had been kept in the Rowe home was missing and the telephone line had been cut.
In the bushes behind the Rowe garage officers found the blankets which were identified by Bredvick as the blankets that had been draped over the defendant’s shoulder earlier that morning. The Rowe car was found later in St. Paul, Minnesota. Inside the car was a live round of .22 caliber ammunition and a misfired cartridge with a firing pin impression which matched a casing found at the murder scene.
On August 13, 1977, at approximately 1:30 p. m., in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, the defendant confronted Walter Behun at gunpoint in the Behun yard and ordered Behun to drive him to St. Paul. They drove around for some time, ending at a railroad freight yard, where the defendant tied Behun up with belts and a sweat shirt, gagged him, and left him in a caboose. Behun *23 testified that the defendant did not appear to be intoxicated.
About 3 p. m., on August 13, 1977, a young woman was returning to her car in a parking lot in St. Paul, Minnesota. She opened the car door and placed her purchase on the floor. The defendant came up behind her and ordered her to get into the car or he would shoot her. Before she had time to do so, he shot her once in the arm and again later behind her left ear. The defendant pushed her into the car, demanded the keys, and drove to a remote country area where he raped her. After the assault, the defendant tied her hands and legs and drove off in her car. She managed to untie herself, got to a farmhouse and was taken to the hospital, where she ultimately recovered.
The evidence indicates that after August 13, 1977, the defendant went to Chicago, Illinois, and then back to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he was arrested in the railroad yards on the early morning of August 18, 1977.
Aubrey Trail was sentenced to death by the State of Nebraska for the murder of Sydney Loofe
According to court documents Aubrey Trail and his girlfriend Bailey Boswell lured Sydney Loofe over to their home and asked her to join their cult. When Sydney Loofe refused she would be brutally murdered.
Aubrey Trail would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. His girlfriend Bailey Boswell was sentenced to life in prison without parole
Aubrey Trail Photos
Aubrey Trail Now
Committed Name
Last:
TRAIL
First:
AUBREY
Middle:
C
Suffix:
Legal Name
Last:
First:
Middle:
Suffix:
Details
Gender:
MALE
Race:
WHITE
Date of Birth:
09/07/1966
Facility:
TECUMSEH STATE COR INSTITUTION
Bailey Boswell Photos
Bailey Boswell Now
Committed Name
Last:
BOSWELL
First:
BAILEY
Middle:
M
Suffix:
Legal Name
Last:
First:
Middle:
Suffix:
Details
Gender:
FEMALE
Race:
WHITE
Date of Birth:
02/26/1994
Facility:
NEBRASKA CORR CENTER FOR WOMEN
Aubrey Trail Case
Sentencing was handed down Wednesday for a man convicted of killing a woman whose dismembered remains were later found in trash bags along rural Nebraska roads.
Convicted killer Aubrey Trail entered Saline County district courtroom facing life in prison or the death penalty.
A three-judge panel sentenced Trail to death.
Trail, 54, and Bailey Boswell, 26, were convicted of the 2017 murder of Lincoln store clerk Sydney Loofe, 24.
On Wednesday, Trail said he wanted to set the record straight and addressed Loofe’s family whom were seated in the courtroom.
“I won’t say I’m sorry, is that would be an insult to you after what I’ve put you through. And I won’t ask for forgiveness. As I don’t believe there is such a thing,” Trail said.
He said that Loofe was not part of his ring of sex and crime.
“Sydney did nothing but threaten to expose my lifestyle and I killed her for it,” Trail said.
He said the murder was a spur of the moment and not planned for days.
Trail said Boswell lured Loofe using the dating app Tinder.
When Loofe got their apartment in Wilber, she “freaked out.”
He said he had no doubt she would tell authorities about “their lifestyle,” so he strangled her with an electrical cord.
“I have done some terrible things in my life but this is the only thing I have ever done that I feel real regret about,” Trail said.
Before announcing the sentence, District Court Judge Vicky Johnson said Trail used exceptional depravity in selecting and coldly planning the murder of Loofe. Exceptional depravity is one of the circumstances required for the death penalty.
Johnson asserted that Loofe’s death was planned in advance.
Trail and Boswell purchase tools to dismember and dispose of Loofe’s body before Boswell brought her to the apartment.
Johnson said during the trial, there was testimony that Trail enjoyed bragging about the murder and joking that he drank Loofe’s blood.
The judge said Loofe was “needlessly” dismembered to satisfy Trail’s desires and so he did not have to hide the body. Unnecessary mutilation is one factor considered when establishing exceptional depravity.
Johnson said Trail is not low-functioning and was not intoxicated when the murder occurred. She said his attempt to dispose of Loofe’s remains proves he understands the wrongfulness of murder.
The judge stated that Trail’s poor upbringing does not constitute a mitigating factor.
Trail’s attorneys said they were surprised by Trail’s statement but not surprised by the sentence.
“When you get a guy who slashes his throat in front of a jury and you still don’t get a mistrial you get a flavor of how these things are going to go,” Ben Murray said.
Trail made national headlines during a 2019 court appearance when he attempted to take his own life.
Shortly after a witness was sworn in, Trail reportedly shouted “Bailey is innocent and I curse you all!”
Trail then attempted to cut his own throat.
Death penalty sentences are automatically appealed.
Joe Murray said that will be one of the issues raised.
“After the incident with the razor, I think this case was over,” Joe Murray said.
Loofe’s family did not want to say anything as they left the courthouse.
Trail showed little emotion during the hearing. He said he was not looking for mercy or forgiveness.
“To be quite frank and no disrespect to intended to the court, I could care less what you do here to me today,” Trail said.
Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson called the three-judge panel’s order well-reasoned.
In a statement Peterson said, “The panel did an extensive job of setting forth the gruesome details of the murder of Sydney Loofe and explained why the death penalty is appropriate under the language of the Nebraska statutes and the history of Nebraska case law where the death penalty was upheld.”
Investigators say Boswell arranged a date with Loofe through the dating app Tinder for Nov. 15, 2017 — the same day officials say Loofe was killed. Loofe was reported missing by her family, and a massive search was launched. Her remains weren’t found until Dec. 4, when her dismembered body was found stuffed into garbage bags that had been dumped in a field near Edgar, about 90 miles southwest of Lincoln.
Trail previously told several news outlets that Loofe’s death was accidental. In the unsealed arrest affidavit, though, investigators said Trail and Boswell were captured on video at a Home Depot in Lincoln on Nov. 15 buying tools used to dismember Loofe, hours before Loofe’s death and while she was still at work.
A jury convicted Boswell of first degree murder Oct 14, 2020.
She is scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
If also sentenced to die, Boswell could become the first woman sent to death row in Nebraska.
Raymond Mata was sentenced to death by the State of Nebraska for the murder of three year old Adam Gomez
According to court documents Raymond Mata was upset that his girlfriend was pregnant with another man’s child. Mata would kidnap her three year old son Adam Gomez. Mata would later return without the child. Police would find the body of Adam Gomez at Mata’s sisters apartment wrapped up in a package. The little boy had his skull crushed and was dismembered
Raymond Mata would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Raymond Mata Photos
Raymond Mata Now
Committed Name
Last:
MATA
First:
RAYMOND
Middle:
Suffix:
Legal Name
Last:
First:
Middle:
Suffix:
Details
Gender:
MALE
Race:
HISPANIC
Date of Birth:
02/07/1973
Facility:
TECUMSEH STATE COR INSTITUTION
Raymond Mata Case
Adam was the son of Patricia Gomez (Patricia) and Robert Billie, who had lived together for 5 years before Billie moved out of their Scottsbluff, Nebraska, residence in September 1998. Adam remained with Patricia, although there was no legal custody arrangement. Patricia and Mata began dating shortly thereafter, and Mata moved in with Patricia and Adam in October or November. Patricia later told police that although Mata did not treat Adam badly, Mata consistently expressed resentment of Adam and thought that Adam was “in the way all the time.”
Mata moved out of Patricia’s residence on February 10, 1999, and moved in with his sister, Monica Mata (Monica). Monica was also Patricia’s best friend. That evening, Patricia and Billie spent the night together and had sexual relations. Patricia obtained a restraining order against Mata on February 11, but continued to see Mata, and on February 14, Patricia and Mata had sexual relations.
In late February, Patricia found out that she was pregnant. She told Monica, who in turn told Mata. Mata instructed Monica to accompany Patricia to Patricia’s doctor’s appointment, to find out when the child was conceived. Patricia was told that the child was conceived between February 7 and 10. Monica told Mata, who told Monica that the child was not his. On March 8, Mata confronted Billie at a party regarding Billie’s relationship with Patricia, and on the next afternoon, Mata confronted Patricia, who told Mata about her sexual encounter with Billie.
On March 11, 1999, Patricia and Billie took Adam to a doctor’s appointment; they were seen by an acquaintance of Mata who told Mata that the three had been together. Mata made repeated attempts that day to compel Patricia to come to Monica’s residence to visit him. Patricia refused, so that evening, Mata went to Patricia’s residence. Adam was watching television until Mata sent him to bed. According to Patricia’s testimony, she fell asleep on the loveseat in the living room while Mata watched television. Patricia said that when she woke up, Adam and Mata were gone, as was the sleeping bag that Adam had been using as a blanket.
Patricia telephoned Mata on his cellular telephone at 3:37 a.m. Raymond Mata told Patricia that he did not know where Adam was. Mata came to Patricia’s residence immediately. According to Patricia, Mata told her that Adam was probably with Billie or Patricia’s mother. Patricia went back to sleep, and Mata spent the night. Patricia testified that she attempted to contact Billie and her mother the next day, but was unable to do so immediately. When Patricia’s mother called her and asked how Adam was, Patricia told her mother that Adam was fine. Patricia later spoke to Billie, and Billie said that Adam was not with him. Patricia also asked Monica if she knew where Adam was, and Monica said she did not know. Patricia said that at this point, she still thought Adam was with Billie, because Billie had been complaining about not having enough time with Adam. Patricia testified that Mata told her not to call the police, “because they couldn’t do anything anyways ‘til after 24 hours.”
On the following day, Saturday, March 13, 1999, Mata took Patricia to Grand Island, Nebraska, and the two did not return to Scottsbluff until Sunday morning. Sunday night, Mata asked Monica to go to Cheyenne, Wyoming, accompanied by Jesse Lopez, who was the father of Monica’s son and who was staying with Monica at the time. They agreed and departed at about 11 p.m., leaving Raymond Mata alone in the residence. Monica was unable to locate the person Mata asked her to meet in Cheyenne, and she and Lopez returned home at about 4:30 on the morning of Monday, March 15. After returning, Monica found that the sewerline from the residence was clogged.
That afternoon, Patricia spoke with her sister, who came to Patricia’s residence. Raymond Mata was there when Patricia’s sister arrived. Patricia decided to call the police and report Adam’s disappearance. Patricia testified that Mata insisted that she not call the police until after Mata had left “because how I knew he had a warrant for his arrest, just for me to wait ‘til he left.” Scottsbluff police were finally notified that Adam was missing at approximately 4 p.m. on March 15, 1999.
Police searching for Adam went to Monica’s residence to speak to Mata, but the occupants refused to answer the door. Monica testified that Raymond Mata told her not to answer the door because there were warrants out for his arrest. Police discovered a sealed garbage bag in a dumpster behind Monica’s residence. When the bag was torn open, police found Adam’s sleeping bag and the clothing Adam had been wearing when he was last seen by Patricia. The bag also contained trash identified as being from Monica’s residence, including a towel and a boning knife that Monica had not thrown away.
A search warrant was obtained for Monica’s residence and executed on March 16, 1999. (The residence had been searched pursuant to a warrant earlier that morning, but the results of the search were suppressed by the district court; the first search is not pertinent to this appeal.) Mata went to the police station to answer questions while the warrant was executed. Mata’s mother, Ynez Cruz, picked him up from the police station, dropped him off at a friend’s house, and went with Monica to retrieve some of Monica’s clothing. The home was still being searched, and the police asked Monica to remove a dog from the residence. Monica and Cruz took the dog and also picked up Mata from the friend’s house. Cruz testified that en route to a nearby town, Mata was talking to the dog, telling the dog that it “was being well taken care of and [Mata] was feeding [it] and that he was [its] friend.”
Police searching Monica’s residence found human remains in the basement room occupied by Raymond Mata. Hidden in the ceiling was a package wrapped in plastic and duct tape, which contained a crushed human skull. The skull was fractured in several places by blunt force trauma that had occurred at or near the time of death. The head had been severed from the body by a sharp object, at or near the time of death. No evidence of strangulation could be found, although strangulation, smothering, and blunt force trauma could be neither ruled in nor ruled out as the cause of death.
In the kitchen refrigerator of the residence, police found a foil-wrapped package of human flesh. Raymond Mata’s fingerprint was found on the foil. Human remains were also found on a toilet plunger and were found to be clogging the sewerline from the residence. Human flesh, both cooked and raw, was found in the dogfood bowl and in a bag of dogfood. Human bone fragments were recovered from the dog’s digestive tract.
All of the recovered remains were later identified, by DNA analysis, as those of Adam. Adam’s blood was also found on Raymond Mata’s boots. No blood was found on Adam’s clothing, or the sheets of Adam’s bed at Patricia’s residence.
At trial, the defense did not deny Raymond Mata’s attempt to dispose of Adam’s body. The defense’s theory of the case was that Adam had been killed by Patricia at Patricia’s home on Friday, March 12, 1999, and that Mata only attempted to help Patricia dispose of Adam’s body and explain his disappearance. Mata did not testify.
The jury found Raymond Mata guilty of first degree premeditated murder, first degree felony murder, and kidnapping. A three-judge sentencing panel was convened. The sentencing panel found one statutory aggravating circumstance: that the murder was “ ‘especially heinous, atrocious, cruel, or manifested exceptional depravity by ordinary standards of morality and intelligence.’ ”
John Lotter was sentenced to death by the State of Nebraska for the murder of Brandon Teena
According to court documents John Lotter learned that Brandon Teena was actually a female portraying a male would react violently. Brandon Teena was savagely sexually assaulted and would be murdered. Lotter would also murder Lisa Marie Lambert, 24; and Phillip DeVine, 19 for they witnessed the Brandon Teena murder
This murder case made National headlines and was portrayed in the movie Boys Don’t Cry
John Lotter would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
John Lotter Photos
John Lotter Now
Committed Name Last: LOTTER First: JOHN Middle: L Suffix: Legal Name Last: First: Middle: Suffix: Details Gender: MALE Race: WHITE Date of Birth: 05/31/1971 Facility: TECUMSEH STATE COR INSTITUTION
John Lotter Case
Twenty years ago in a little Nebraskan town called Falls City, a handsome 21-year-old transman with big blue eyes was brutally beaten, raped and murdered in one of the most heinous hate crimes in American history.
His name was Brandon Teena.
Though his murder immediately made headlines, it was Kimberly Peirce’s film dramatization Boys Don’t Cry in 1999 that made Brandon’s story familiar to millions of Americans—and won Hilary Swank an Oscar for her moving portrayal of him.
Brandon left his hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska, for Falls City at the age of 20, hoping to start a new life in a community where no one knew him. He started dating Lana Tisdel, and found a family of sorts in her inner circle of friends, including John Lotter and Marvin “Tom” Nissen. But upon discovering Brandon was a biological female, Lotter and Nissen became obsessed with proving his anatomy to Lana, forcibly disrobing him in a bathroom on Christmas Eve, and hours later, raping him. On New Years Eve, to prevent him from ever pressing charges, they killed him and two bystanders.
Today, Lotter remains on death row at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution, having been convicted of the killings with Nissen’s testimony. Nissen is serving three life sentences at the Lincoln Correctional Center. In 2007, he recanted his original testimony and now admits he murdered the three victims with Lotter as his accomplice.
But another figure in this horrifying story remains free.
On December 25, mere hours after being sexually assaulted, Brandon faced a demeaning and dehumanizing line of questioning from the Richardson County Sheriff, Charles Laux, when reporting his attackers. In a recent interview from her L.A. office, director Peirce called it “a third rape.”
C: [A]fter he pulled your pants down and seen you was a girl, what did he do? Did he fondle you any?
B: No.
C: He didn’t fondle you any, huh. Didn’t that kind of amaze you?…Doesn’t that kind of, ah, get your attention somehow that he would’ve put his hands in your pants and play with you a little bit?
…
C: [Y]ou were all half-ass drunk….I can’t believe that if he pulled your pants down and you are a female that he didn’t stick his hand in you or his finger in you.
B: Well, he didn’t.
C: I can’t believe he didn’t.
…
C:…Did he have a hard on when he got back there or what?
B: I don’t know. I didn’t look.
C: You didn’t look. Did he take a little time working it up, or what? Did you work it up for him?
B: No, I didn’t.
C: You didn’t work it up for him?
B: No.
C: Then you think he had it worked up on his own, or what?
B: I guess so, I don’t know.
C: You don’t know…Did, when he got in the back seat you were already spread out back there ready for him, waiting on him.
B: No, I was sitting up when he got back there.
….
C: And you had never had sex before?
B: No.
C: How old are you?
B: 21.
C: And if you’re 21, you think you’d have, you’d have, trouble getting it in?
….
C: Why do you run around with girls instead of, ah, guys being you are a girl yourself?
B: Why do I what?
C: Why do you run around with girls instead of guys being you’re a girl yourself?
B: I haven’t the slightest idea.
C: You haven’t the slightest idea? You go around kissing other girls?….[T]he girls that don’t know about you, thinks [sic] you are a guy. Do you kiss them?
….
B: …I have a sexual identity crisis.
C: A what?
B: I have a sexual identity crisis.
C: You want to explain that?
B: I don’t know if I can even talk about it….
I recently re-watched Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir’s Emmy-nominated 1998 documentary The Brandon Teena Story, which unearthed this excruciating exchange. The duo spent more than five years researching and reporting the case, even moving into an apartment in Falls City to attend all the trials and sentencings. Without their excellent investigative journalism we would have never learned of the extreme misconduct and inhumanity Brandon suffered from Laux. Hearing his cruelty anew, it finally occurred to me why he seems the cruelest in this cast of characters: There’s something particularly perverse about a man entrusted with the duty to protect choosing instead to hurt and humiliate.
Peirce, who also spent more than half a decade researching and making her film, chose to underscore the disturbing and participatory nature of Laux’s questions about the crime by playing out the rape scene in flashback with Swank’s voiceover, as she gets grilled by Laux. When I recently spoke with Peirce, she noted “a level of provocation and pleasure [that Laux derived] out of making Brandon relive his own torture.”
Despite ample evidence, Laux neglected to apprehend and charge Lotter and Nissen, giving them the opportunity to plan and execute Brandon’s murder twenty years ago today on December 31, 1993. JoAnn Brandon, Brandon’s mother, was eventually awarded $5000 for wrongful death, $7000 for intentional infliction of emotional distress, $80,000 for “mental suffering” and $6,223.20 for funeral expenses.
I wondered if the stain of Laux’s legacy still lingered in Falls City’s Sheriff’s Office, or if they’d made procedural efforts to improve their dealings with LGBT populations. After all, transgender rights and visibility have increased significantly since 1993.
To find out how much progress has made its way to the Richardson County Sheriff’s Office, I reached out to the current sheriff, Randy Houser, an affable 61-year-old from Omaha. I first asked Houser if he could get me in touch with Laux, wondering whether he has any regret about the way he handled things.
“I’m pretty sure he will not speak with you,” Houser wrote in an email. He encouraged me, however, to give it a try. When my letter requesting an interview went unanswered, I called Laux’s home in Dawson. “You know, you people are a pain in the ass!” he yelled, upon hearing why I was calling, and hung up.
“That’s ‘our Charlie’!” Houser said. “He has rationalized his role to the point where he’s blameless. I’m sure it’s a defense mechanism.” Houser updated me on Laux’s life since 1993. Just a few years after the tragedy, he was voted commissioner of Richardson County. When his term ended, he took a job as a corrections officer at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, where Lotter sits on death row. As recently as 2010, he even served on his community’s Village Board. Now retired, he drives a school bus.
That Laux could have garnered enough votes to hold any office—and cart children to school—surprised me. “Well,” Houser laughed, “these aren’t exactly offices of high reward!”
He joked that Falls City “is a few miles from the ends of the earth,” but assured me that he and his compatriots “are a lot more evolved than you might expect.” Many law enforcement officials at the time thought Laux’s behavior was “appalling,” he said. “A series of bad decisions were made by the guy at the top and that won’t be me if something like this happens again. Things are not the same.”
Today, police vehicles are equipped with in-car videos and officers are outfitted with wireless microphones so they are monitored and held accountable for their actions. Also, basic law-enforcement training is an intense 16 weeks at the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center in Grand Island, where the curriculum includes a viewing and discussion of the The Brandon Teena Story and staged sexual-assault and domestic-violence scenarios between straight and gay couples
Not to justify his wrongdoing, but to partially explain Laux’s ignorance, Houser told me that Laux’s training was far inferior to what officers receive today: “Charlie was in his third 4-year term as sheriff in 1993. He was a cop for years prior to that. His basic training experience was probably in the late 70’s or early 80’s, when it lasted all of six weeks.”
Today, Brandon Teena’s experience would be different, Houser said. Richardson County now has access to services from Project Response, a support advocacy group based out of Omaha and Lincoln that assists with domestic violence and sexual assault cases. “If there was strong evidence of witness intimidation or reprisal as there was in this case,” Houser explained, “we would link up with Project Response and that person would be put in a safe house, given a cell phone that can only dial 911 and their personal phone would be taken away from them so their perpetrators can’t track them down.”
“A rape,” he continued, “especially one involving kidnapping, physical assault and death threats was as rare then as it is today. The majority of our caseload is protection order violations, DUIs, driving under suspension and domestic violence. [A case like Brandon’s] would be an emergency, a drop-everything situation—and it would probably be handed over to state patrol investigators, who have more resources.”
Houser lives with his wife of 33 years, Julie, eight blocks from the courthouse. In modern-day Falls City—population 4,300—conservatism comes in the form of “mind your own business, live your own life,” he told me. While he’s sure there are some gays in town, “they’re not overt about it. There’s not saying, ‘I’m gay!’”
I couldn’t quite tell if he meant it approvingly—as if gays should avoid public displays of affection—or if he was just reporting. But that he could use some LGBT-awareness training is clear: He referred to Brandon as “she,” called being transgender a “lifestyle,” and suggested discrimination towards gay people was non-existent in Falls City.
I asked, hypothetically, if he’d be willing to do a LGBT-sensitivity training session with PFLAG, a queer advocacy group founded in 1972 that has done significant law enforcement outreach in the past, as a way to acknowledge the mishandling of Brandon’s case and firmly close that chapter on Falls City’s history.
“Oh absolutely!” he responded. “That goes without saying.”
PFLAG was happy to help out when I explained the idea. Liz Owen, the communications director of PFLAG National in Washington D.C., arranged for Ellen James of the Omaha chapter to train Houser and his staff.
“We have a training session scheduled on Jan 18th,” Houser wrote to me two weeks later. “I also invited our local police department and neighboring Sheriff to attend.”
James, a lawyer with a transgender daughter, will be covering a lot of ground, according to Owen: “Basic education about the LGBT community—defining and explaining the differences in biology, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. She will also cover the terminology in the transgender community; facts about homeless youth and research on family acceptance; and best practices for officers in interacting with members of the transgender community.”
“I was discussing the upcoming presentation with one of my deputies,” Houser wrote to me in one of our last email exchanges, “and he asked: ‘What is the definition of a transgender person?’ I struggled to define it, but I basically came to the conclusion that a transgender person is whatever they say they are.”
It’s a simple concept—honoring however people want to define themselves—but it requires a leap of imagination Lotter, Nissen and Laux couldn’t make—and it would have made all the difference.
