Two teenagers killed Spanish teacher over bad grade, Iowa prosecutors allege
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Version 0 of 1. Willard Miller and Jeremy Goodale, accused of beating Nohema Graber to death when they were 16, will stand trial as adults Two Iowa teenagers killed their high school Spanish teacher because of frustration over a bad grade, prosecutors said on Tuesday in court documents. The documents were filed ahead of a hearing on Wednesday where a judge will hear arguments on whether to suppress any evidence against Willard Miller and Jeremy Goodale, who are charged with murdering Nohema Graber in Fairfield, a town of about 9,400 100 miles from Des Moines. A lawyer for Miller is asking the court in Fairfield to invalidate four search warrants and suppress evidence from Miller’s home, comments he made to police and information taken from his cellphone and the social media platform Snapchat. Graber’s body was found in a Fairfield park on 3 November 2021, hidden under a tarp, wheelbarrow and railroad ties. She had been beaten to death with a baseball bat. Miller and Goodale were 16 at the time. Investigators found that Miller met Graber at Fairfield high school on the afternoon of 2 November 2021, to discuss his poor grade. Graber later drove her van to a park where she was known to take daily walks after school, authorities say. Witnesses saw the van leaving the park less than an hour later with two males in the front seat. The van was left at the end of a rural road. After a phone call from Goodale, a witness picked up Goodale and Miller as they walked to town on that road, investigators say. In a police interview, Miller described frustrations with the way Graber taught Spanish and over how the grade in her class was lowering his GPA. “The poor grade is believed to be the motive behind the murder of Graber which directly connects Miller,” court documents filed by the Jefferson county attorney, Chauncey Moulding, and assistant Iowa attorney general, Scott Brown, said. Miller initially denied any involvement in Graber’s disappearance but “later stated he had knowledge of everything but did not participate”, according to court documents. He told police that the real killers – a “roving group of masked kids” – forced him to provide his wheelbarrow to help move her body and to drive her van from the park. The documents say a witness provided photos of a Snapchat conversation “that identify Goodale’s admissions that he acted in concert with another person to bring about Graber’s death”. The witness identified Goodale as making statements that implicate both Goodale and Miller by name. Miller’s lawyer, Christine Branstad, says the search warrants were issued illegally in part because “law enforcement failed to provide information to the issuing magistrate to show the informant is reliable or that the information from the informant should be considered reliable”. Miller is scheduled for trial on 20 March in Council Bluffs. Goodale’s trial is on 5 December in Davenport. Both teens, now 17, will be tried as adults. In Iowa, the penalty for a first-degree murder conviction is life in prison. Iowa supreme court rulings require juveniles convicted of even the most serious crimes to be given a chance for parole. |