Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of September nineteenth, nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: Richard Valdez and Sharon Condon were murdered in Scott's Bluff, Nebraska.
Speaker 1: Scrolled in engine grease on the floor of their home.
Speaker 1: The letters JFF and BPE. Investigators sought out local man
Speaker 1: Jeff Boubrey, who returned from a road trip to dispel suspicion,
Speaker 1: but soon the two friends who were with him gave
Speaker 1: statements to the contrary. Jeff faced a potential death sentence,
Speaker 1: yet according to the first witness on scene, the message
Speaker 1: in engine grease that tilted the investigation toward Jeff was
Speaker 1: not there when he discovered the bodies. This is Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where this week
Speaker 1: we're going for the first time to Scott's Bluff, Nebraska,
Speaker 1: where we came across a double murder scene that appears
Speaker 1: to have been in part staged, possibly driven in part
Speaker 1: by incestuous urges or a cocaine operation involving law enforcement
Speaker 1: and calling in from a Nebraska state penitentiary. The man
Speaker 1: who had the terrible misfortune of being one of the
Speaker 1: last to buy some of that cocaine, Jeff Beauprix. Jeff,
Speaker 1: thanks for calling.
Speaker 2: In, well, thank you for what you guys are doing
Speaker 2: for the innocent and.
Speaker 1: Joining him to help make sense of this a crazy ordeal.
Speaker 1: His attorney, Tom Freericks, Tom, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: Absolutely my pleasure.
Speaker 1: So let's do what we do and start at the
Speaker 1: very beginning.
Speaker 2: I was born in Mayville, North Dakota, to Clarence Baupriy
Speaker 2: and Delores beaupri My parents were actually from a little
Speaker 2: town about seven miles from the Canadian border called Rala,
Speaker 2: North Dakota, and I got an older sister and two
Speaker 2: younger brothers. We've always been a really close family. My
Speaker 2: dad was an alcoholic, my mom was the peace maker
Speaker 2: of everything. We did move around a lot. My dad
Speaker 2: was a mechanic and was a little hot headed if
Speaker 2: he was working a job and somebody pissed him off
Speaker 2: and we were up and moving around. So we wind
Speaker 2: up moving to Grand Forks, North Dakota, Petersburg, North Dakota
Speaker 2: and then Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then we wind up
Speaker 2: moving to Nebraska. So it was a lot of adjustment,
Speaker 2: but I dealt with it. And then when I graduated,
Speaker 2: I wind up going into a roofing business until nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty four eighty five. Then I went back to college
Speaker 2: and stuff for auto body and stuff. So I'm actually
Speaker 2: an auto bout body technician painting cars and stuff. But
Speaker 2: I was in a bad accident in nineteen eighty seven
Speaker 2: where I rolled the truck working for Weathercraft Roofing, and
Speaker 2: I laid in it for an hour and a half
Speaker 2: before they cut me out of it. There is pictures
Speaker 2: of the accident, and it's probably pretty amazing that I
Speaker 2: even lived.
Speaker 1: Through that, And having seen those pictures, I can attest
Speaker 1: that it is an absolute miracle that he survived. And
Speaker 1: during his time on the Men, Jeff came into contact
Speaker 1: with a number of people involved in this case. He
Speaker 1: hired an attorney named Lenn Tabor to handle his personal
Speaker 1: injury and workers' compensation proceedings, and he began to dabble
Speaker 1: in some drugs, which brought him into contact with some
Speaker 1: other drug users, like a queen of his younger brother,
Speaker 1: Alan Neeman and Kennard Waspmer, as well as one of
Speaker 1: the victims in this case, a local drug dealer named
Speaker 1: Richard Valdez.
Speaker 2: Richard was a quiet person. He had to really get
Speaker 2: to know you before you were able to go in
Speaker 2: and buy drugs from him.
Speaker 4: And Jeff broke through that and was able to get served.
Speaker 2: But the only relationship we had was he was in
Speaker 2: the business to sell drugs when I was in this
Speaker 2: accident and trying to release some pain.
Speaker 4: Waspmer and Nieman did not know Valdez well enough, so
Speaker 4: when Wasper and Neieman wanted to get some cocaine, they
Speaker 4: would enlist Jeff's help.
Speaker 1: And then there was the other victim, Valdez's girlfriend, Sharon Condon,
Speaker 1: who had a concerning relationship to say the least, with
Speaker 1: her first cousin, a guy named John Yellowboy. Now some
Speaker 1: said Yellow Boy had an unnatural attraction to Sharon. In fact,
Speaker 1: there had been some high drama in the weeks leading
Speaker 1: up to her death.
Speaker 4: She apparently went to the hospital because she had gotten
Speaker 4: hit with the butt of a gun during his dispute
Speaker 4: with John. We pulled all of the criminal cases that
Speaker 4: existed on Yellowboy Prior to the murder, Yellow Boy was
Speaker 4: incarcerated at about fifteen for a pretty violent rape of
Speaker 4: a middle aged woman that occurred, according to the police reports,
Speaker 4: right in front of the woman's daughter. He left a
Speaker 4: code at the scene that coat belonged to a relative.
Speaker 4: It's almost like he was setting him up or something.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but there are a string of just
Speaker 4: incredibly strange assault of behavior. When I met John's sister
Speaker 4: and this stuck with me, probably because of the age
Speaker 4: I grew up in, and I asked her, just give
Speaker 4: me an idea who John Yellowboy is. She paused for
Speaker 4: a moment, and then she looked at me, very directly,
Speaker 4: matter of factly, and said, have you ever seen the
Speaker 4: movie Halloween? That's basically my brother.
Speaker 1: John, and that's his sister saying that. So this is
Speaker 1: the backdrop for what happened on September eighteenth into the
Speaker 1: nineteenth of nineteen eighty eight, when Nieman Wassmer and another
Speaker 1: man Chris Ruff had asked Jeff for help. Was Richard Valdez.
Speaker 2: They asked me if I could get them some weed
Speaker 2: and some coke, and this is around ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 2: So I proceeded to go out to Valdeza's house by myself.
Speaker 2: There was no lights or nothing on at the Valdez's residence,
Speaker 2: so if you visualize, it's like on a rural road.
Speaker 2: I mean it's dark, so it's kind of spooky in
Speaker 2: a way. And I went up and I knocked on
Speaker 2: the door. Nobody was there, so then I left, and
Speaker 2: then I went to meet those guys at their trailer,
Speaker 2: and then I told him, I said, hey, I think
Speaker 2: I know where Valdez might be at. And I went
Speaker 2: to what's called Tiptop Trailer Court, and this is where
Speaker 2: John yellow Boy he asked. He came out at one
Speaker 2: of the apartments and he said that Valdez he'd be
Speaker 2: back in a little while.
Speaker 1: Jeff eventually caught up with Richard Valdez in town and
Speaker 1: bought some coke for Wasner and Nieman then traveled back
Speaker 1: and forth to Valdez's place for more cocaine that evening.
Speaker 1: The last time was around eleven thirty PM.
Speaker 2: And then that was the last time I seen Richard Valdez.
Speaker 2: And then once we were back to Kenner, Wisemuth and
Speaker 2: Allen Nemans trailer at about twelve o'clock Chris Ruff. He
Speaker 2: said he was leaving Kennard and Allen. They were pretty
Speaker 2: high that night, and so during this time, Allen and
Speaker 2: Kennard said, Hey, why don't we take a road trip.
Speaker 2: Let's go to Arizona.
Speaker 1: Jeff had a friend named Cassie who lived out in Arizona.
Speaker 1: So the three of them got some things together and
Speaker 1: got on the road. After all, cocaine is a hell
Speaker 1: of a drug. But I digress here. In the following hours,
Speaker 1: while these three were on the road, Sharon, Condon and
Speaker 1: Richard were killed. The state's narrative was that they were
Speaker 1: fatally shot around the same time inside the house, and
Speaker 1: that Richard partially wrote Jeff's name on the ground in Engine,
Speaker 1: Greece as a sort of dying declaration, and that's the theory.
Speaker 4: I don't think that's what occurred. I don't think Richard
Speaker 4: Valdez was killed inside the house. I think he was
Speaker 4: brought back in the house and staged. The stab wounds
Speaker 4: and the blood loss don't equal that he lost all
Speaker 4: of his blood in the position where his body was found.
Speaker 4: And we've now got a pathologist who says that these
Speaker 4: wounds across his neck and one of the bullet shots
Speaker 4: were post mortem, and two thousand and eighteen we went
Speaker 4: and went through all of the evidence still at the
Speaker 4: Scott's Bluff County Sheriff's department.
Speaker 3: And there we found a.
Speaker 4: Package that had negatives, not photographs, and a memorandum from
Speaker 4: a former deputy sheriff that said these were found in
Speaker 4: Alex Marino's desk in twenty twelve fourteen, I don't remember
Speaker 4: the actual date.
Speaker 3: And there's a picture of a knife.
Speaker 4: You have no idea where that knife's at, but it
Speaker 4: looks like it's in a cornfield, which this house was
Speaker 4: surrounded by cornfield. A black and white photograph of a
Speaker 4: knife that doesn't match any of the other crime scene photos.
Speaker 3: It's just insane.
Speaker 1: And that's just the beginning. And then there's Sharon's death,
Speaker 1: which was overheard by the sixteen year old girl who
Speaker 1: was with her at the time, a girl named Melissa Martinez.
Speaker 4: According to her, she's in the back bedroom and they
Speaker 4: hear people enter the house and she recognizes John Yellow
Speaker 4: Boy's voice. Sharon tells her to hide, which she does
Speaker 4: partially under the bed. The lights go out, she hears
Speaker 4: the commotion, and then she waits and waits and eventually
Speaker 4: runs out of the house, and if you look at
Speaker 4: the crime scene photos, she has to flip the mattress
Speaker 4: to get Sharon off of her. And if you look
Speaker 4: at the crime scene photos, you can see where Sharon
Speaker 4: bled out, and then you could see that her body
Speaker 4: was moved and she continued to bleed. That's never explained.
Speaker 1: Now, Melissa Martinez claims that she didn't hear Richard's death
Speaker 1: or see his body on her way out the door,
Speaker 1: which might be why this account was never included in
Speaker 1: the state's narrative. It just didn't fit. But Melissa accounts
Speaker 1: for the two spots where Sharon bled without having seen
Speaker 1: the crime scene photographs, which certainly bolsters her credibility.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, okay, back to her memory.
Speaker 4: She runs through the same doorway where Richard Valdez's body
Speaker 4: is supposedly right in the doorway. I mean she would
Speaker 4: have tripped over him. She then runs to a neighbor
Speaker 4: and is pounding on the door at two three in
Speaker 4: the morning. The neighbors confirmed that there was somebody pounding
Speaker 4: on the door that morning, and then she makes her
Speaker 4: way into town. That was about three am.
Speaker 1: So both the crime scene photos of Sharon and the
Speaker 1: neighbor's account. Robberate Melissa's version of events, and we'll explain
Speaker 1: what happens to her in a bit. So, then both
Speaker 1: bodies were discovered in the house Sharon where Melissa left her,
Speaker 1: and then Richard's was in the doorway.
Speaker 4: There's a gentleman by the name of Eddie Johnson who
Speaker 4: claims that he came there, saw the door slightly Ajar
Speaker 4: pushed the door and it pushed it into Valdez. He
Speaker 4: then kneeled down by the body, checked the body, realized
Speaker 4: he was dead. And this is before cell phones. So
Speaker 4: he then goes into Scott's Bluff and calls the police.
Speaker 4: And as he's on the phone with the police, he
Speaker 4: sees a cop driving by and flags him down. An
Speaker 4: officer by the name of Terry Hall says, look, there's
Speaker 4: a Duti's dead out here. They go to the scene,
Speaker 4: Eddie stays outside. Eddie's later shown crime scene photos twenty
Speaker 4: plus years later and says, that's not how the body
Speaker 4: was laid out. There was no grease next to the body.
Speaker 4: I would have stepped right in it. Because next to
Speaker 4: Valdez's body in crime scene.
Speaker 3: Photos are two words.
Speaker 4: In Greece, partial words j Ff and bope. According to
Speaker 4: the autopsy doctor at the time, he would have been
Speaker 4: bleeding profusely where he would have bled out very quickly
Speaker 4: within a matter of minutes, and that's from the state's
Speaker 4: own guy. But apparently in those minutes he still would
Speaker 4: have been able to grab a tube of engine grease
Speaker 4: right out Jeff and then maybe write Jeff on the
Speaker 4: wall and blood and then ironically put the tuber grease
Speaker 4: underneath him before he died. I figured that they find
Speaker 4: the two degrees. You can see it in the crime
Speaker 4: scene video. They lift his body up and go, oh,
Speaker 4: there's the two degrees. But there was a question at
Speaker 4: that time of trial whether he would have been able
Speaker 4: to do that given the wounds he had suffered. But
Speaker 4: the forensic pathologists today's in no way, not a chance
Speaker 4: is he doing that.
Speaker 1: According to the autopsy, Jeff's injuries included eight gunshot wounds
Speaker 1: and two stab wounds, one of each type happening post mortem.
Speaker 1: Either way, he was losing blood at an estimated rate
Speaker 1: of about a half a leader per minute, leaving only
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty seconds two and a half minutes
Speaker 1: until he'd experienced significant loss of his motor skills as
Speaker 1: blood flow concentrated around maintaining his vital organs, which is
Speaker 1: why the pathologists is saying, no way to the dying declaration.
Speaker 1: But if that doesn't feel definitive enough, then you have
Speaker 1: the two post mortem wounds. So not only does that,
Speaker 1: along with on accounted for blood at the scene, suggests
Speaker 1: staging of the body, but also whoever inflicted these post
Speaker 1: mortem injuries was not going to allow him to make
Speaker 1: a dying declaration, let alone apparently a second.
Speaker 4: One along the doorstop there is Jeff written in blood.
Speaker 4: After they've surrendered the crime scene back to the family,
Speaker 4: Valdez's family says, you got to get back out here.
Speaker 4: It says Jeff and blood on here, And they went, oh,
Speaker 4: but geez, we must have missed that.
Speaker 1: So maybe whoever had killed Sharon Richard or both of
Speaker 1: them was still lurking around after Eddie had discovered the
Speaker 1: bodies and then wrote Jeff's name at the crime scene,
Speaker 1: trying to send the police in Jeff's direction. So the
Speaker 1: police went straight to Jeff's and his father told them
Speaker 1: about Jeff's thirty two caliber handgun while the police searched
Speaker 1: for that. The next time Jeff called home. His dad
Speaker 1: told him what was happening.
Speaker 2: I had a passport to leave the country, and he said,
Speaker 2: you want me to send this. I said no, I said,
Speaker 2: I'm coming back. I'm innocent. I didn't do this when
Speaker 2: I made this trip back and I got arrested. And
Speaker 2: Leonard Taylor was my attorney. All he really worked on
Speaker 2: was workman's comp cases and dwi's. This was actually his
Speaker 2: first murder trial that he ever participated in.
Speaker 1: Already, this is a bad sign. And then things get
Speaker 1: worse when they questioned Waspmer and Neemen.
Speaker 3: During the recorded interview.
Speaker 4: Neemen is denying any knowledge about Anythingniemen's there with a
Speaker 4: public defender. The public defender tells Neeman, look, you're gonna
Speaker 4: be in just fan shape with these fan gentlemen, and leaves.
Speaker 4: That's one the Atturneyniemen was specifically told that if he
Speaker 4: didn't give a story blaming bou Prix, he was going
Speaker 4: to be charged with the murder. Neiman then comes up
Speaker 4: with a story that you know, bou pri went in
Speaker 4: and then he heard a gunshot, and then beaupre grabbed
Speaker 4: a few things inside the house and brought him out,
Speaker 4: and Neiman then goes in and supposedly steals in camera,
Speaker 4: and that's ultimately what he pleads guilty to.
Speaker 1: So he pleads guilty to theft. The problem is that
Speaker 1: Sharon's camera was a really nice one, while the one
Speaker 1: that Nieman pled guilty to stealing was cheap piece of junk. Additionally,
Speaker 1: not only were there tens of thousands of dollars worth
Speaker 1: of cash and drugs in the house, but Richard had
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars worth of cocaine in his pocket, which
Speaker 1: makes this deaf motive totally unbelievable, not to mention that
Speaker 1: this statement was made under the threat of a potential
Speaker 1: death sentence, and then Wassmer got similar treatment. So he
Speaker 1: said that he overheard Jeff and Allen talking about the
Speaker 1: murder and then he helped to get rid of Jeff's
Speaker 1: thirty two caliber handgun.
Speaker 4: On the way to Arizona, they obtained the record of
Speaker 4: the firearm that Jeff had bought before they ever found
Speaker 4: the firearm to know what kind of firearm it was,
Speaker 4: and then changed that so, I don't know, we didn't
Speaker 4: get those records. Then we got him months later, Wasmer says.
Speaker 4: Then he disassembles the gun and throws it out in
Speaker 4: different parts along the way, but they found a gun
Speaker 4: not disassembled.
Speaker 1: Which would have ruled out Wassmer's statement. It just didn't match.
Speaker 2: They say that we jumped over a fence and threw
Speaker 2: it in a mud hole. I'm like, where are they
Speaker 2: getting this?
Speaker 1: So a thirty two caliber handgun was presented as Jeff's gun,
Speaker 1: allegedly found somewhere outside of Gallup, New Mexico, and it
Speaker 1: was missing the thumb safety, which would have held in
Speaker 1: the cartridge in this gun. Then the disconnector as well
Speaker 1: as the hammer pin, which could have been used to
Speaker 1: most accurately identify this weapon as Jeff's or not. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: the narrative had congealed around this weapon and the two statements.
Speaker 1: But then they got wind of sixteen year old Melissa
Speaker 1: Martinez talking about the murder with her classmates.
Speaker 2: We found out about her in nineteen ninety two a
Speaker 2: lady named Mellie Estada. Melly was a dispatch for the
Speaker 2: Sheriff's Department. I think her daughter, Patty, told her that
Speaker 2: Melissa had told this story at school. So she went
Speaker 2: to State Patrol and they took a statement from Patty
Speaker 2: and they said that they didn't believe her.
Speaker 1: So by September twenty ninth, nineteen eighty eight, police had
Speaker 1: spoken with Melissa. According to her affidavits many years later,
Speaker 1: she told them about her experience that night. She knew
Speaker 1: John Yello boy, don't forget. She told them that she
Speaker 1: heard his voice in the trailer right before Sharon was killed.
Speaker 1: And then there's the rest of her memory about running out,
Speaker 1: not seeing Richard's body, and banging on the neighbor's door.
Speaker 1: Of course, this all ran counter to the narrative from
Speaker 1: Neemon and wasper They.
Speaker 4: Take Melissa and scuttle her around in different juvenile placements
Speaker 4: and get her out of.
Speaker 1: Town along with her brand new living arrangements. A state
Speaker 1: police report was submitted into evidence alleging that Melissa admitted
Speaker 1: to fabricating the story. So that's all that the defense
Speaker 1: was privy to a trial, and again things continued to
Speaker 1: get worse.
Speaker 2: The whole process was kind of shady from the beginning,
Speaker 2: because if you look at the rules of the courts,
Speaker 2: now that I understand it, you pick a jury one
Speaker 2: day two days before you actually go to trial. They
Speaker 2: had picked my jury like seventeen days out. There was
Speaker 2: no sub question of the jury or nothing like that,
Speaker 2: so they got to see all the evidence that was
Speaker 2: playing out in the media.
Speaker 1: Which all potentially biased the jury going into trial. In
Speaker 1: early March nineteen eighty nine, when Alan Neeman testified that
Speaker 1: Jeff suggested robbing and killing Richard on their multiple trips
Speaker 1: to buy cocaine, Nieman claimed that Jeff had stopped at
Speaker 1: his house, perhaps to get his gun before their final
Speaker 1: trip to Richards, at which point he said that Jeff
Speaker 1: shot Richard when he came to the door, suggesting a
Speaker 1: forensically very improbable angle. Then said that they both stole
Speaker 1: things from the house, including a ca and drug scales,
Speaker 1: before Jeff went back inside, and Neeman said he heard
Speaker 1: a woman's voice followed by gunshots.
Speaker 2: Alan Neman, he testifies, he can't motion to me. You
Speaker 2: could read his lips where he was saying he was
Speaker 2: sorry of what he was saying.
Speaker 1: Despite whatever little good that did. Another state's witness named
Speaker 1: rich Zog, claimed that Jeff had suggested robbing Richard on
Speaker 1: multiple occasions, but again, there were tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars in drugs and cash left behind that made this
Speaker 1: whole robbery story sound ludicrous. So moving on, they presented
Speaker 1: wasmer with his bit about disassembling the gun and tossing
Speaker 1: it away.
Speaker 4: Then there's a fun guy named Mike Knu, a jailhouse snitch,
Speaker 4: who testifies that Jeff confessed.
Speaker 2: I think he said that I told him that you
Speaker 2: should have heard the bit compleet for life and some
Speaker 2: other stuff about val Daz kind of wrote nothing because
Speaker 2: he was bleeding too much.
Speaker 1: So the state it's own witness dispels the idea that
Speaker 1: this was a dying declaration, while also assigning a consciousness
Speaker 1: of guilt to Jeff.
Speaker 4: Now, Jeff lawyer Taber also represented the jail house snitch,
Speaker 4: but he never disclosed that he actually represented him. He
Speaker 4: was serving time on a drunk driving case. It's unclear
Speaker 4: what he got, although I mean he obviously was let
Speaker 4: out of jail.
Speaker 2: Well, I was being held at in jail. I was
Speaker 2: like segregated from everybody else. So he apparently got out,
Speaker 2: and then he came back in January, and he was
Speaker 2: a trustee, so he started saying, Hey, I'm going to
Speaker 2: a with your father. You want anything to say. I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: tell my dad I love him and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And that was probably the extent of any of our conversations.
Speaker 2: But when he got on the stand and started saying
Speaker 2: that he sept by my cell and I told him
Speaker 2: the whole story, I'm like, this has to be a
Speaker 2: plant from Silverman.
Speaker 1: Or perhaps indirectly Leonard Tabor. Maybe he was told to
Speaker 1: approach the head DA Silverman to offer his testimony for
Speaker 1: leniency in the charges for which Tabor was representing him.
Speaker 1: We can't know the specifics, but one thing I do
Speaker 1: know is that this shit freaking stinks.
Speaker 2: The jailers even got on the stand that testified said
Speaker 2: that there was canvas pointing at my cell. They could
Speaker 2: have seen all that stuff if somebody sit in front
Speaker 2: of my cell and I told him for an hour
Speaker 2: or so to tell them my story. So two of
Speaker 2: the jailers got up on a stand and testified to
Speaker 2: the fact that this never happened.
Speaker 1: In addition to the jailers, Tabor had prepared expert witnesses
Speaker 1: to battle both the States pathologists who claimed that Valdez
Speaker 1: could have mustered the strength to write two dying declarations,
Speaker 1: as well as the ballistics expert who called the gun
Speaker 1: allegedly found in the desert a match.
Speaker 2: The guy that they had was Mark Bahadi. His story
Speaker 2: has changed now too. But our expert Kwood said that
Speaker 2: he couldn't even test fire the gun and that there
Speaker 2: was no way that this was the weapon. And then
Speaker 2: our pathologist, he said there's no way. He was losing
Speaker 2: too much blood in all this sudden stuff. And they
Speaker 2: believed the state's pathologists that didn't have a quarter of
Speaker 2: the experience that the pathologists that we hired out of Omaha.
Speaker 1: And maybe with the battle of experts and shaky witnesses,
Speaker 1: there was a nudge in the wrong direction from one
Speaker 1: of the defense's own witnesses, John Yellowboy.
Speaker 4: He's called as a defense witness. Why, I have no idea,
Speaker 4: but he does end up throwing dirt on Jeff.
Speaker 1: He said that he was president at the scene that
Speaker 1: night and saw Jeff Beaupriy there, But at what time?
Speaker 1: After all, Jeff had gone out to Richards several times
Speaker 1: that night, plus yellow Boy appears to have had his
Speaker 1: own motivations as a potential suspect. Either way, this couldn't
Speaker 1: have helped Jeff.
Speaker 2: The jury went in to deliberate, and they came back
Speaker 2: nine and half hours or so later with the guilty verdict.
Speaker 2: They were seeking the death penalty on me, and the
Speaker 2: report from the judges said that one thing that saved
Speaker 2: me from the death penalty is that I actually come
Speaker 2: back to be questioned because I knew I was innocent.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't have nothing to hide.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he faced the death penalty, but I think the
Speaker 4: recommendation was made by the jury life without the possibility
Speaker 4: a probe.
Speaker 2: So I was thankful that I didn't get the death penalty,
Speaker 2: but I still got two licences running consecutively, and then
Speaker 2: six and two thirds to twenty two times for the
Speaker 2: firearm charges, and then two eight to fifteen that were
Speaker 2: running concurrent that was for the robberies.
Speaker 1: So just in case you're immortal enough to live out
Speaker 1: two entire life sentences, they could still hold you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I thought that the justice system would work
Speaker 2: itself out. Maybe it's going to take five years to
Speaker 2: get this undone. I never ever dreamt that I'd still
Speaker 2: be fighting it after thirty seven years. I was always
Speaker 2: told from older inmates, don't gamble, don't borrow anything, just
Speaker 2: the simple things. Keep busy, don't get in other people's
Speaker 2: business and stuff like that. So I kind of did
Speaker 2: that my whole incarceration and I've done enough time where
Speaker 2: people kind of respect you. Now. Some of them call
Speaker 2: me old timer because I am a little older than
Speaker 2: I was when I came in. But I made myself
Speaker 2: busy right away. I got into hobby. I'm I legal
Speaker 2: aid here. I'd had to learn how to type, I
Speaker 2: had to learn how to run the computers. I had
Speaker 2: to do all that on my own. I didn't know
Speaker 2: none of that when I first came to him. So
Speaker 2: I mean, I just keep tugging away and never thought
Speaker 2: that I would still be imprisoned after thirty seven years.
Speaker 1: Especially since he got some great support from a private
Speaker 1: investigator named Denny Whalen. Soon after his conviction.
Speaker 2: Denny Whalen, a lady sent him a letter saying, hey,
Speaker 2: you need to check this case out, and he talked
Speaker 2: to her for several hours. Then he came in and
Speaker 2: I went through the story with him, and then he left,
Speaker 2: and then he came back a couple days later. And
Speaker 2: it had me answer almost the same question to see
Speaker 2: if I was lying or not. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And one thing I will never forget Denny Whalen. He says,
Speaker 2: I believe you're innocent. He says, I'm gonna do everything
Speaker 2: in my power to get you out of there. He
Speaker 2: actually mortgaged his house a couple of times. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was like a father to me. I believe Alan
Speaker 2: Neeman came first. Denny Whalen went down and interviewed him,
Speaker 2: and then he recanted. I want to say eighty nine.
Speaker 2: We found out about Melissa in nineteen ninety two. She
Speaker 2: talked about Yellow Boy and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And she tells the same story that she told her
Speaker 1: classmates immediately after the murder, then to the police, only
Speaker 1: to have a December nineteen eighty eight police report claim
Speaker 1: that she had made it all up before being sent
Speaker 1: off to some juvenile placement in Colorado. And remember, her
Speaker 1: original account critically was corroborated by Sharon Condon's bleeding pattern,
Speaker 1: as well as the neighbors who heard her knocking on
Speaker 1: the door at three am. She also added that she
Speaker 1: knew Jeff she heard three male voices that night and
Speaker 1: that he was not one of them. So they filed
Speaker 1: a motion for a new trial based on the new
Speaker 1: evidence and a Brady violation in the form of Melissa Martinez.
Speaker 1: But again, Melissa Martinez never made it to the witness stand.
Speaker 4: So they don't really get Melissa Martinez, but they get
Speaker 4: a police report where she's scribbled this is true, this
Speaker 4: is true, this is true, all of which tredicted the
Speaker 4: sworn statement that she gave, the bulk of which is
Speaker 4: statement she ended up going to her grave with. And
Speaker 4: then basically Niemen's the same thing. They have a state
Speaker 4: trooper sa I talked to him and he denied it all.
Speaker 4: They don't bring Neemen back to testifying, mind you, and
Speaker 4: they allow this guy to give the hearsay testimony that
Speaker 4: he retracted his recantation. It's strange because Neiman said the
Speaker 4: only person that actually came to visit him in prison
Speaker 4: was Silverman.
Speaker 1: Who, in all likelihood threatened him again with the murder charge, perjury,
Speaker 1: the whole kitchen sinke, Yeah, you sure.
Speaker 3: You want to face murder charges?
Speaker 4: He signed something, but it's not a true affidavit, sworn affidavit.
Speaker 3: But I was accepted. And how was that?
Speaker 1: The court ruled that, in addition to the retractions, that Martinez's
Speaker 1: account did not put her in a position to prove
Speaker 1: Jeff's citizens, so the motion was denied. Then came an
Speaker 1: ineffective council post conviction filing in nineteen ninety five, claiming
Speaker 1: that councils should have investigated alternate suspects.
Speaker 4: I don't raise oddly, during the first and effective claim
Speaker 4: that he also represented this jailhouse snitch, which a second
Speaker 4: year law student knows you can't do that. You can't
Speaker 4: represent the jail house snitch testifying against your client.
Speaker 1: By this time, Danny Whalen's son, Lawrence, was representing Jeff
Speaker 1: pro Bono, who found additional exculpatory evidence surrounding the alleged
Speaker 1: dying declaration that had been written on the floor in
Speaker 1: Engine Greece.
Speaker 4: They found that the door to Valdez's place had a
Speaker 4: curtain rod and a curtain hanger, And as they're talking
Speaker 4: about it, while they're filming it, as they're going through it,
Speaker 4: they're saying, jeez, that looks like blood and grease on
Speaker 4: the curtain hanger. Which if there was grease on it,
Speaker 4: that's a pretty big deal, right, because how did Valdez
Speaker 4: get all the way to the curtain Did he peek
Speaker 4: out with the grease after and then lay down? It
Speaker 4: doesn't make any sense that curtain disappeared.
Speaker 1: And the post conviction motion was denied in two thousand
Speaker 1: and two, so the Whalen sought to expand their support
Speaker 1: and begin DNA tech.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you ever heard of Reuben Hurricane Carter.
Speaker 2: So I got to speak to Ruben and Danny and
Speaker 2: his son had went to Canada for them guys to
Speaker 2: endorse the case and then win where she got ahold
Speaker 2: of Colin starter from the IP and then they got
Speaker 2: the DNA started on it.
Speaker 1: The Innocent Project in New York was able to do
Speaker 1: DNA testing on some of the crime scene evidence, including
Speaker 1: a bloodstain near the door handle.
Speaker 4: Right and on the door they find John yellow Boy's
Speaker 4: DNA blood DNA, and a judge makes finding that John
Speaker 4: Yellow Boy was a frequent visitor at the residence and
Speaker 4: that explains away his blood DNA on the door blood DNA.
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to give them a ten out
Speaker 1: of ten for these intellectual gymnastics. I suppose they could
Speaker 1: also argue that even if Yellow Boy was there, that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean that Jeff was not.
Speaker 4: Not according to Alan Neman, the theory of the case
Speaker 4: was Alan Neiman, and yellow Boy is not part of that,
Speaker 4: and his blood on the door doesn't fit that narrative.
Speaker 3: The narrative that was used to convict it all either way.
Speaker 1: These preceding stretched from two thousand and five all the
Speaker 1: way through twenty twelve, at which point Jeff's team began
Speaker 1: tracking down a woman named Sheila Janis who had told
Speaker 1: Melissa Martinez about her past with John Yellowboy, and the
Speaker 1: team finally found her in twenty seventeen. Apparently she had
Speaker 1: disappeared after a horrific ongoing abduction scenario that began in
Speaker 1: the immediate aftermath of the murders in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 4: John Yellow Boy had beaten her severely and taken her
Speaker 4: to the house where the murder occurred, and she knew
Speaker 4: it was the house because the floor was cut out,
Speaker 4: which is a detail that he probably wouldn't know. I mean,
Speaker 4: they cut a section of the floor out where this
Speaker 4: writing in Greece was, and the police picked the floor
Speaker 4: with him, and she recalls being in the house being
Speaker 4: repeatedly raped while John Yellowboy Boy is talking to Sharon
Speaker 4: and Richard saying things like why did you make me
Speaker 4: do this?
Speaker 3: Why? Why did you have to do this? You were mine?
Speaker 4: Crazy weird things. Valdez was supposedly leaving town and had
Speaker 4: sold most of his worldly possessions. As he was getting
Speaker 4: ready to leave, he thought his life was in danger.
Speaker 4: Told several people that.
Speaker 1: And we'll get to why he may have been in
Speaker 1: fear for his life. But this certainly sets up the
Speaker 1: motive for Yellowboy. According to Janice, Yellowboy, referring to Sharon
Speaker 1: his confession, also said, quote she thought she could get
Speaker 1: away with that Mexican bastard end quote before Yellowboy continued
Speaker 1: to beat Sheila nearly to death. In fact, it seems
Speaker 1: like he thought that he had actually killed her.
Speaker 4: Yellow Boy, he's looking for sheilav after finding out that
Speaker 4: she had survived. Sheila shows up.
Speaker 3: At another woman's house. Sandra stands. She's called the police.
Speaker 4: Sandra gave an affidavit when we found her that Sheila
Speaker 4: showed up.
Speaker 3: I called the police.
Speaker 4: Took her to the bathroom, and while she was helping
Speaker 4: Sheila clean up, she was startled by John Yellow Boy,
Speaker 4: who simply appeared behind me over my shoulder.
Speaker 1: There's those Michael Myers vibes.
Speaker 4: She's startled by him being there, and what the hell
Speaker 4: are you doing in my house? She pushed him out
Speaker 4: the bathroom door and shut it. The police arrived, She
Speaker 4: answered the door, and the police said where is he?
Speaker 4: She was too afraid to say anything, but was able
Speaker 4: to move and adjust her eyes in one direction, like
Speaker 4: he's right here, And they busted in and they grabbed him, but.
Speaker 3: Didn't get arrested.
Speaker 4: What so, I think you need to understand some of
Speaker 4: the baseline racism that exists in Scott's Bluff County. And
Speaker 4: it's not the typical racism that I grew up in Waterloo, Iowa.
Speaker 4: It's not while you're blacked, I should be afraid of
Speaker 4: you and distrustful of you. It's racism against the Native
Speaker 4: American community and that race. The system was not of
Speaker 4: you're a bad person, it's you're not even a person.
Speaker 4: So these people would be victims of crime, and probably
Speaker 4: because there was an issue at times and getting those
Speaker 4: people to show up to actually prosecute crimes, the police
Speaker 4: never arrested.
Speaker 3: Anybody in those situations.
Speaker 4: They just say, well, if you want to press chargers
Speaker 4: to go to the county attorney's office. It's kind of
Speaker 4: a test to say are you going to pursue this
Speaker 4: thing or not.
Speaker 3: But it also sent the message that we don't really care.
Speaker 1: So John Yellowboy was free to assault Shila he regularly kidnapped, raped,
Speaker 1: and beat her, and he did so continuously for months
Speaker 1: until his arrest for a rape in Colorado. And it
Speaker 1: turned out that while Yellow Boy had kidnapped s Sheila
Speaker 1: to Colorado, they stayed with none other than Melissa Martinez,
Speaker 1: both of whom Yellow Boy claimed ownership over. They shared
Speaker 1: their experiences, Melissa's ear witness account of Sharon's murder, yellow
Speaker 1: Boy's confession to Shila, and the ongoing of duction and
Speaker 1: sexual torture, and Sheila claims that he kept her compliant
Speaker 1: by making threats.
Speaker 4: John Yellowboy said, I'm going to kill your mother. I'm
Speaker 4: going to kill anybody that's related to you if you
Speaker 4: talk about this or mention me or anything. And lo
Speaker 4: and behold, Sheila's mother's found dead and they said it's
Speaker 4: an accidental drowning in a foot half of water.
Speaker 1: This is when she fled to her sisters out.
Speaker 4: Of state, and then he pretty much snatched her back in.
Speaker 4: She was present when he committed the rape in Colorado,
Speaker 4: and that's how she got away.
Speaker 1: So Sheila basically disappeared until the team found her in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. And even though Yellow Boy seemed capable of
Speaker 1: killing Richard too. There are so many inexplicable elements of
Speaker 1: this crime scene that suggests that Richard was murdered somewhere else.
Speaker 1: The discrepancy with how much blood Richard actually spilled it,
Speaker 1: the scene that according to Melissa Martinez, Richard's body was
Speaker 1: not there when she left. That according to Eddie Johnson,
Speaker 1: the pathologist and his post more to wounds, that his
Speaker 1: body and dying declaration appear to have been staged. So
Speaker 1: maybe after Sharon was killed, the body was discovered, and
Speaker 1: his business partners thought it was prudent to tie up
Speaker 1: the loose end before Richard got a chance to leave town.
Speaker 4: The police chief of Gearing, which is a city that's
Speaker 4: basically connected to Scott's Bluff. They're almost like small twin cities.
Speaker 4: Okay went to the FBI with his suspicions that Brian
Speaker 4: Silverman was behind a large cocaine distribution network in the
Speaker 4: Scott's Bluff area. Brian Silverman was the guy who prosecuted Jeff.
Speaker 1: Bo Prix, and we're not suggesting that Silverman was responsible,
Speaker 1: but a potential proximity to power for the cocaine operation
Speaker 1: in Scott's Bluff can make sense of how the investigation
Speaker 1: and prosecution ignored the evidence suggesting separate murder scenes, staging,
Speaker 1: and potentially other culprits, as well as how quickly Melissa
Speaker 1: Martinez was reassigned to juvenile placement, out of state and
Speaker 1: out of reach when her statement threatened to impeach the
Speaker 1: entire narrative.
Speaker 2: We got another affidavit from Melissa in twenty seventeen. She
Speaker 2: said she was just heartbroken that I was still locked
Speaker 2: up for Valdez in Condon's murders when she knows that
Speaker 2: I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: So with a more full account from Melissa Martinez, Sheila
Speaker 1: Janis's story, the evidence of a separate crime scene, founded
Speaker 1: Detective Marino's files, the potential shady dealings of the district attorney,
Speaker 1: as well as new expert testimony about how at least
Speaker 1: two of the wounds were inflicted post mortem and that
Speaker 1: according to the autopsy, there's no chance that Richard Valdez
Speaker 1: had anything to do with writing on the wall or door,
Speaker 1: which is supported by the way by Eddie Johnson. They
Speaker 1: went ahead and filed a new post conviction motion and
Speaker 1: emotion for a new trial back in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: To me, the biggest part of it was there's all
Speaker 4: these things that had been litigated in bits and pieces
Speaker 4: leading up to it, but when you put the full
Speaker 4: picture together, it's like there's a lot here. But we
Speaker 4: never got an evidentiary hearing, so our motion for new
Speaker 4: trial was denied. Nebraska Supreme Court denied an appeal of
Speaker 4: that and a rather scathing opinion that why would you
Speaker 4: write all this stuff?
Speaker 3: Basically it was too much stuff.
Speaker 4: And then we got a post conviction pending too that
Speaker 4: got thrown out. We tried to amend that's on appeal
Speaker 4: right now, the amendment whether we should have been allowed
Speaker 4: to amend our post conviction relief that post later filed.
Speaker 4: We may end up having to do a federal habeas
Speaker 4: or something like that.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot more evidence and mystery still to
Speaker 1: unfold in this case, including blonde hairs from crime scene
Speaker 1: evidence that have never been tested. So we hope for
Speaker 1: the best in future proceedings. In the meantime, if you'd
Speaker 1: like to show your support for Jet's release, please take
Speaker 1: a moment stop what you're doing right now, scroll down
Speaker 1: on your listening app to the link in our episode
Speaker 1: description and click on the link to sign the petition,
Speaker 1: and with that we're going to go to closing arguments.
Speaker 1: My favorite part of the show is everyone knows where.
Speaker 1: First of all, I thank both of you guys for
Speaker 1: being here and sharing, honestly, one of the craziest and
Speaker 1: most terrifying stories I've ever heard in my thirty two
Speaker 1: years of doing this work. And now I'm going to
Speaker 1: kick back in my chair, turn my microphone off, and
Speaker 1: leave my headphones on, and just listen to anything else
Speaker 1: you want to share. Tom, you start off and then
Speaker 1: hand the microphone off to Jeff and he'll take us
Speaker 1: off into the sunset.
Speaker 4: I mean, I just Jeff has been concerned that he
Speaker 4: sits out there and nobody knows his plight.
Speaker 3: So this kind of light.
Speaker 4: Being shown on it is the kind of thing that
Speaker 4: I think Jeff feels is important and is the kind
Speaker 4: of thing that may eventually bring some pressure to bear
Speaker 4: on somebody to take a good, close, hard look at
Speaker 4: his case.
Speaker 2: I would like to say, of an innocent man that's
Speaker 2: been in prison for thirty seven years, I would ask
Speaker 2: everybody to come forward and sign this petition so that
Speaker 2: we can move this case forward and Jessica can finally
Speaker 2: prevail and finally give me a release. Thirty seven years
Speaker 2: is a long time, but I've never given up and
Speaker 2: with all the help of friends, families, lawyers that have
Speaker 2: donated their time and their money for this case, I
Speaker 2: think it's time that we get an end to it.
Speaker 2: And I would like to say thank you all for
Speaker 2: being part of this and giving me the hope that
Speaker 2: I need to make it through another day.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
Speaker 1: week early and ad free by subscribing to Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our
Speaker 1: production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
Speaker 1: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kliber.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
Speaker 1: across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
Speaker 1: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
Speaker 1: in this show are accurate.
Speaker 3: The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
Speaker 3: this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
Speaker 3: those of Lava for Good