Nebraska

7 Cases

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Location

Defendant(s)

Date of Alleged Crime

 

Cass County, NE Livers & Sampson Apr 17, 2006 (Murdock)

Matt Livers, a mentally retarded man, confessed to murdering his uncle and aunt after 18 hours of police questioning.  He also implicated his cousin, Nick Sampson.  The victims were Wayne and Sharmon Stock, who were found shot to death in their home.  Livers knew a few facts about the crime that he learned from relatives, but was unable to provide many details about it without being spoon-fed them by police.

Less than two months after Livers and Sampson were arrested, two Wisconsin teens, Gregory Fenster, 19, and his girlfriend, Jessica Reid, 17, were caught with evidence that they engaged in a multi-state crime spree of farmhouse burglaries and car thefts.  A ring left behind in the Stock’s car was identified as having come from one of their burglaries.  The teens then confessed to the murders of the Stocks and were charged.  However, authorities did not drop charges against Livers and Sampson.  Instead, they clung to the idea that Livers and Sampson recruited the teens to kill the Stocks.  The teens at one point adopted this theory after police insisted they were lying.  However, physical evidence soon made this theory untenable and charges against Sampson were dropped on Oct 6.  Charges against Livers were dropped on Dec 4, after the state’s own expert agreed with the defense expert that Livers was mentally retarded, vulnerable to police tactics, and that his confession was almost certainly false.  (TruthInJustice)  [2/07]

 

Douglas County, NE Juneal Pratt Aug 1975 (Omaha)
Pratt was convicted of raping and robbing two teenage Sioux City sisters at a downtown Omaha motel.  He was sentenced to 32 to 90 years.  The sisters made a cross-racial identification of him in a lineup.  Recent DNA tests have excluded him as the perpetrator.  (AP News)  [9/05]

 

Douglas County, NE Jeremy Sheets Sept 23, 1992
Sheets was convicted in 1997 of the rape and murder of 17-year-old Kenyatta Bush.  His alleged accomplice, Adam Barnett, confessed to the crime and implicated Sheets in exchange for a plea deal.  Barnett later recanted his confession and committed suicide prior to Sheets' trial.  Barnett's taped confession was the key evidence used against Sheets at trial.  In 2000, the Nebraska Supreme Court overturned the conviction because it deemed Barnett's confession "highly suspect," "inherently unreliable," and hence inadmissible without the opportunity for Sheets to cross-examine Barnett.  Prosecutors dropped charges against Sheets after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal.  [9/05]

 

Gage County, NE William Jackson Marion 1872
In 1883, a body was found in clothing that witnesses identified as John Cameron's.  Cameron had disappeared 11 years before.  Marion was convicted of murdering him and hanged on Mar. 25, 1887.  However, Cameron turned up alive in 1891 and explained that he had absconded to Mexico to avoid a shotgun wedding.  Marion was granted a posthumous pardon on the 100th anniversary of his hanging.  (NL)

 

Gage County, NE Robert Mead Shumway Sept 3, 1907
Robert Mead Shumway, a farmhand, was convicted of murdering Sarah Martin, his employer’s wife.  The murder occurred near Adams, Nebraska.  The conviction was based on circumstantial evidence.  Shumway was sentenced to death.  The one holdout juror for acquittal, who finally caved in, committed suicide before Shumway's execution from the grief of believing he had sent an innocent man to his death.  Shumway was hanged in Lincoln at the Nebraska State Prison on Mar. 5, 1909.  In 1910, Shumway’s employer, Jacob Martin, confessed on his deathbed that he had murdered his wife.  [10/05]

 

Lancaster County, NE Darrel Parker Dec 14, 1955 (Lincoln)
Darrel Parker was convicted of the strangulation murder of his 22-year-old wife, Nancy Parker.  The murder occurred at the Parkers' home in Lincoln's Antelope Park.  Parker, then 24, confessed to the crime under alleged coercion.  In the confession Parker said he strangled his wife after she refused to have sex following breakfast.  Parker's defense argued that the murder had to have been committed by a sexual psychopath, while psychiatrists testified that Parker was not a psychopath.  Years later Parker's conviction was overturned because a court found his confession was coerced.  He was released in 1972.  In 1988, Wesley Peery, an early suspect in the crime, died.  His lawyer subsequently released his confession to the crime.  (Presumed Guilty) (GNS)  [4/08]

 

Lancaster County, NE Gregory Gabel July 25, 1995 (Lincoln)
Gabel, a mentally ill Lincoln man, was jailed for two years, charged with the murder of UNL student Martina McMenamin.  Gabel was released in July 1998 after DNA testing showed a single blond hair clutched in the victim's hand was not Gabel's.  Gabel always maintained his innocence.  [6/05]