Latest / Wrongful Conviction Podcasts / 548: #458 Jason Flom with Jeff Boppre
Transcript
- 00:00:02 Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of September nineteenth, nineteen eighty eight, Richard Valdez and Sharon Condon were murdered in Scott's Bluff, Nebraska. Scrolled in engine grease on the floor of their home. The letters JFF and BPE. Investigators sought out local man Jeff Boubrey, who returned from a road trip to dispel suspicion, but soon the two friends who were with him gave statements to the contrary. Jeff faced a potential death sentence, yet according to the first witness on scene, the message in engine grease that tilted the investigation toward Jeff was not there when he discovered the bodies. This is Wrongful Conviction. You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week or ad free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction, where this week we're going for the first time to Scott's Bluff, Nebraska, where we came across a double murder scene that appears to have been in part staged, possibly driven in part by incestuous urges or a cocaine operation involving law enforcement and calling in from a Nebraska state penitentiary. The man who had the terrible misfortune of being one of the last to buy some of that cocaine, Jeff Beauprix. Jeff, thanks for calling. 00:01:45 Speaker 2: In, well, thank you for what you guys are doing for the innocent and. 00:01:52 Speaker 1: Joining him to help make sense of this a crazy ordeal. His attorney, Tom Freericks, Tom, thanks for joining us. 00:01:58 Speaker 3: Absolutely my pleasure. 00:02:00 Speaker 1: So let's do what we do and start at the very beginning. 00:02:04 Speaker 2: I was born in Mayville, North Dakota, to Clarence Baupriy and Delores beaupri My parents were actually from a little town about seven miles from the Canadian border called Rala, North Dakota, and I got an older sister and two younger brothers. We've always been a really close family. My dad was an alcoholic, my mom was the peace maker of everything. We did move around a lot. My dad was a mechanic and was a little hot headed if he was working a job and somebody pissed him off and we were up and moving around. So we wind up moving to Grand Forks, North Dakota, Petersburg, North Dakota and then Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then we wind up moving to Nebraska. So it was a lot of adjustment, but I dealt with it. And then when I graduated, I wound up going into a roofing business until nineteen eighty four eighty five. Then I went back to college and stuff for auto body and stuff. So I'm actually an auto bout body technician painting cars and stuff. But I was in a bad accident in nineteen eighty seven where I rolled the truck working for Weathercraft Roofing, and I laid in it for an hour and a half before they cut me out of it. There is pictures of the accident, and it's probably pretty amazing that I even lived through that, And. 00:03:36 Speaker 1: Having seen those pictures, I can attest that it is an absolute miracle that he survived. And during his time on the Men, Jeff came into contact with a number of people involved in this case. He hired an attorney named Lenn Tabor to handle his personal injury and workers' compensation proceedings, and he began to dabble in some drugs, which brought him into contact with some other drug users, like a queen of his younger brother, Alan Neeman and Kennard Waspmer, as well as one of the victims in this case, a local drug dealer named Richard Valdez. 00:04:09 Speaker 2: Richard was a quiet person. He had to really get to know you before you were able to go in and buy drugs from him. 00:04:18 Speaker 3: And Jeff broke through that and was able to get served. 00:04:22 Speaker 2: But the only relationship we had was he was in the business to sell drugs when I was in this accident and trying to release some pain. 00:04:32 Speaker 3: Waspmer and Nieman did not know Valdez well enough, so when Wasper and Neieman wanted to get some cocaine, they would enlist Jeff's help. 00:04:43 Speaker 1: And then there was the other victim, Valdez's girlfriend, Sharon Condon, who had a concerning relationship to say the least, with her first cousin, a guy named John Yellowboy. Now some said Yellow Boy had an unnatural attraction to Sharon. In fact, there had been some high drama in the weeks leading up to her death. 00:05:04 Speaker 3: She apparently went to the hospital because she had gotten hit with the butt of a gun during his dispute with John. We pulled all of the criminal cases that existed on Yellowboy. Prior to the murder, Yellow Boy was incarcerated at about fifteen for a pretty violent rape of a middle aged woman that occurred, according to the police reports, right in front of the woman's daughter. He left a code at the scene that coat belonged to a relative. It's almost like he was setting him up or something. I don't know, but there are a string of just incredibly strange assault of behavior. When I met John's sister and this stuck with me, probably because of the age I grew up in, and I asked her, just give me an idea who John yellow Boy is. She paused for a moment, and then she looked at me very directly, matter of factly, and said, have you ever seen the movie Halloween? That's basically my brother. 00:06:04 Speaker 1: John, And that's his sister saying that. So this is the backdrop for what happened on September eighteenth into the nineteenth of nineteen eighty eight, when Nieman Wassmer and another man Chris Ruff had asked Jeff for help. Was Richard Valdez. 00:06:20 Speaker 2: They asked me if I could get them some weed and some coke, and this is around ten o'clock at night, so I proceeded to go out to Valdeza's house by myself. There was no lights or nothing on at the Valdez's residence, so if you visualize, it's like on a rural road. I mean it's dark, so it's kind of spooky in a way. And I went up and I knocked on the door. Nobody was there, so then I left. And then I went to meet those guys at their trailer, and then I told him, I said, hey, I think I know where Valdez might be at. And I went to what's called Tiptop Trailer Court, and this is where John Yellow Boy he asked. He came out at one of the apartments and he said that Valdez he'd be back in a little while. By the time I turned around, then Richard came out and then he sold me a little bit of coke. Valdez said he'd be backed out to his house around eleven o'clock or eleven thirty or so. And then I went back to Kenner Wisemouth and Allen in Men's trailer. Once we got done doing that, me and alan Emon, we went out there to get some more cocaine. When I left, the Native brothers they remember seeing me there about eleven thirty that night, and then that was the last time I seen Richard Valdez. And then once we were back to Kenner, Wisemouth and Allen in men's trailer about twelve o'clock, Chris Ruff he said he was leaving Kennard and Ellen. They were pretty high that night, and so during this time, Allen and Kennard said, Hey, why don't we take a road trip. Let's go to Arizona. 00:07:56 Speaker 1: Jeff had a friend named Cassie who lived out in Arizona, so well, the three of them got some things together and got on the road. After all, cocaine is a hell of a drug. But I digress here. In the following hours, while these three were on the road, Sharon Condon and Richard Valdez were killed. The state's narrative was that they were fatally shot around the same time inside the house, and that Richard partially wrote Jeff's name on the ground in Engine, Greece as a sort of dying declaration, and that's the theory. 00:08:29 Speaker 3: I don't think that's what occurred. I don't think Richard Valdez was killed inside the house. I think he was brought back in the house and staged. The stab wounds and the blood loss don't equal that he lost all of his blood in the position where his body was found. And we've now got a pathologist who says that these wounds across his neck and one of the bullet shots were post mortem. And two thoy and eighteen we went and went through all of the evidence still at the Scott's Bluff County Sheriff's department, and there we found a package that had negatives, not photographs, and a memorandum from a former deputy sheriff that said these were found in Alex Marino's desk in twenty twelve fourteen, I don't remember the actual date. And there's a picture of a knife. You have no idea where that knife's at, but it looks like it's in a cornfield, which this house was surrounded by cornfield. A black and white photograph of a knife that doesn't match any of the other crime scene photos. What it's just insane. 00:09:36 Speaker 1: And that's just the beginning. And then there's Sharon's death, which was overheard by the sixteen year old girl who was with her at the time, a girl named Melissa Martinez. 00:09:47 Speaker 3: According to her, she's in the back bedroom, and they hear people enter the house and she recognizes John Yellow Boy's voice. Sharon tells her to hide, which she does partially under the bed. The lights go out, she hears the commotion and then she waits and waits, and eventually runs out of the house. And if you look at the crime scene photos, she has to flip the mattress to get Sharon off of her. And if you look at the crime scene photos, you can see where Sharon bled out, and then you could see that her body was moved and she continued to bleed. That's never explained. 00:10:28 Speaker 1: Now, Melissa Martinez claims that she didn't hear Richard's death or see his body on her way out the door, which might be why this account was never included in the state's narrative. It just didn't fit. But Melissa accounts for the two spots where Sharon bled without having seen the crime scene photographs, which certainly bolsters her credibility. Right, So, okay, back to her memory. 00:10:48 Speaker 3: She runs through the same doorway where Richard Valdez's body is supposedly right in the doorway. I mean she would have tripped over him. She then runs to a neighbor and is pounding on the door or at two three in the morning. The neighbors confirmed that there was somebody pounding on the door that morning, and then she makes her way into town. That was about three am. 00:11:10 Speaker 1: So both the crime scene photos of Sharon and the neighbor's account corroborate Melissa's version of events, and we'll explain what happens to her in a bit. So then around six am, both bodies were discovered in the house Sharon where Melissa left her, and then Richard's was in the doorway. 00:11:28 Speaker 3: There's a gentleman by the name of Eddie Johnson who claims that he came there, saw the door slightly Ajar pushed the door and it pushed it into Valdez. He then kneeled down by the body, checked the body, realized he was dead. And this is before cell phones. So he then goes into Scott's Bluff and calls the police. And as he's on the phone with the police, he sees a cop driving by and flags him down, an officer by the name of Terry Hall. Look, there's a duties that out here. They go to the scene, Eddie stays outside. Eddie's later shown crime scene photos twenty plus years later and says that's not how the body was laid out. There was no grease next to the body. I would have stepped right in it. Because next to Valdez's body in crime scene photos are two words in Greece, partial words j FF and bope. According to the autopsy doctor at the time, he would have been bleeding profusely where he would have bled out very quickly within a matter of minutes. And that's from the state's own guy. But apparently in those minutes he still would have been able to grab a tube of engine grease right out Jeff and then maybe write Jeff on the wall and blood and then ironically put the tuber grease underneath him before he died. Yep, I figure that one out. They find the twobe grease. You can see it in the crime scene video. They lift his body up and go, oh, there's the tube grease. But there was a question at that time of trial whether he would have been able to do that, given the wounds he had suffered. But the forensic pathologists today's no way, not a chance is he doing that. And what's really crazy about it is then along the doorstop there is j e Ff written in blood that the cops don't even notice they find it after they've surrendered the crime scene back to the family. Valdez's family says, you got to get back out here. It says Jeff in blood on here, and they went, oh, geez, we must have missed that. 00:13:54 Speaker 1: So maybe whoever had killed Sharon, Richard or both of them was still lurking around after Eddie had discovered the bodies and then wrote Jeff's name at the crime scene, trying to send the police in Jeff's direction. Interestingly, though John Yellowboys trailer was just yards away from Richard and Sharon's. Anyway, the police went straight to Jeff's and his father told them about Jeff's thirty two caliber handgun. So while the police searched for that, the next time Jeff called home, his dad told him what was happening. 00:14:24 Speaker 2: I had a passport to leave the country, and he said, you want me to send this. I said no, I said, I'm coming back. I'm innocent. I didn't do this when I made this trip back, and I got arrested and they stuck me in a little room that was four feet wide and six feet long and from the floor to the sea. Name was eight feet. Only thing that was in there was a sink and a toilet and a bit and a little window that was like three by five that you can look out of a holding cell for one hundred and forty four days. 00:14:55 Speaker 1: So obviously Jeff was the target, but now they needed evidence to corroborate the alleged dying declaration, so they brought in Wasmer and Neemen. 00:15:04 Speaker 3: During the recorded interview, Neeman is denying any knowledge about anything. Niemen's there with a public defender. The public defender tells Neeman, look, you're gonna be in just fan shape with these fan gentlemen and leaves that's one they turning. Neieman was specifically told that if he didn't give a story blaming bou Prix, he was going to be charged with the murder. But Neiman then comes up with a story that you know, bou pri went in and then he heard a gunshot, and then beau pre grabbed a few things inside the house and brought him out. And Neiman then goes in and supposedly steals a camera, and that's ultimately what he pleads guilty to. 00:15:51 Speaker 1: So he pleads guilty to theft The problem is that Sharon's camera was a really nice one, while the one that Nieman pled guilty to stealing was cheap piece of junk. Additionally, not only were there tens of thousands of dollars worth of cash and drugs in the house, but Richard had three thousand dollars worth of cocaine in his pocket, which makes this deaf motive totally unbelievable, not to mention that this statement was made under the threat of a potential death sentence, and then Wasmer got similar treatment. So he said that he overheard Jeff and Allen talking about the murder, and then he helped to get rid of Jeff's thirty two caliber handgun. On the way to Arizona. 00:16:29 Speaker 3: They obtained the record of the firearm that Jeff had bought before they ever found the firearm to know what kind of firearm it was, and then changed that so donh No, we didn't get those records. Then we got him months later. Wasmer says. Then he disassembles the gun and throws it out in different parts along the way, But they found a gun not disassembled. 00:16:53 Speaker 1: Which would have ruled out Waspmer's statement. It just didn't match. 00:16:57 Speaker 2: They say that we jumped over a fans drew it in a mud hole. I'm like, where they getting this? 00:17:04 Speaker 1: So a thirty two caliber handgun was presented as Jeff's gun, allegedly found somewhere outside of Gallup, New Mexico, and it was missing the thumb safety which would have held in the cartridge in this gun, then the disconnector as well as the hammer pin, which could have been used to most accurately identify this weapon as Jeff's or not, and the state's ballistics expert did what he could to replace whatever parts he could to make the gun fireable. 00:17:28 Speaker 3: The person who testified for the state that identified the gun right has been shown photographs of the gun that they recovered and then shown his report about what he did to make the gun that was presented to him fireable. Okay, they're not the same gun. 00:17:46 Speaker 1: Nevertheless, the narrative had congealed around this weapon and the two statements. But then they got wind of sixteen year old Melissa Martinez talking about the murder with her classmates. 00:17:58 Speaker 2: We found out about heard in nineteen ninety two a lady named Mellie Estada. Mellie was a dispatch for the Sheriff's Department. I think her daughter, Patty Kling, told her dad Melissa had told this story at school, so she went to stay patrol and they took a statement from Patty and they said that they didn't believe her. 00:18:20 Speaker 1: So by September twenty ninth, nineteen eighty eight, police had spoken with Melissa. According to her affidavits many years later, she told them about her experience that night. She knew John Yellowoy, don't forget. She told them that she heard his voice in the trailer right before Sharon was killed, and then the whole story about running to the neighbor's house. But Detective Marino filed a report that December alleging that Melissa said that she had made the whole freaking thing up. 00:18:48 Speaker 3: They take Melissa and scuttle her around in different juvenile placements and get her out of town, so. 00:18:54 Speaker 1: She was made conveniently unavailable and the defense was made unaware. And Jeff's attorney wasn't exactly up to the task to begin with. 00:19:05 Speaker 2: Leonard Tabor was my attorney. All he really worked on was workmen's comp cases and dwi's. This was actually his first murder trial that he ever participated in the whole process was kind of shady from the beginning because if you look at the rules of the courts now that I understand it, that you pick a jury one day two days before you actually go to trial. They had picked my jury like seventeen days out. There was no subquestion of the jury or nothing like that, so they got to see all the evidence that was playing out in the media. 00:19:42 Speaker 1: So the jury was arguably biased by the time trial began in late February nineteen eighty nine, and this was going to be a credibility contest between Nieman and Wassmer aligned against Jeff. 00:19:54 Speaker 2: Alan Neman, he testifies I was sitting right next to Tabor and Nimi and during our testimony he kept motion to me. You could read his lips where he was saying he was sorry of what he was saying. 00:20:08 Speaker 1: Despite those antics, the testimony was that he't accompanied Jeff four or five times driving out to Valdez's trailer for cocaine. At some point, Jeff allegedly suggested killing Valdez. Then before the final trip to Valdez's trailer, Jeff stopped at home. Then when they went back to Valdez's, he watched him shoot from an upward angle, which is improbable according to the ballistics. Neeman then claimed to have gone inside and stolen drug scales the camera, and then said that Jeff went back in and he heard a woman's voice before gunshots. After Nieman did his statement for his dirty work, whatever you want to call it, Waspwert did his part about the gun. 00:20:47 Speaker 3: Then there's a fun guy named Mike new who's a jailhouse snitch who testifies that Jeff confessed. 00:20:54 Speaker 2: I think he said that I told him that heard the bitch fleet for life and some other stuff about el DA's kind of wrote nothing because he was bleeding too much. 00:21:06 Speaker 1: So the state's own witness dispels the idea that this was a dying declaration, while also assigning a consciousness of guilt to Jeff. 00:21:15 Speaker 3: Now Jeff lawyer Taber also represented the jailhouse snitch, but he never disclosed that he actually represented him. He was serving time on a drunk driving case. It's unclear what he got, although I mean he obviously was let out of jail. 00:21:32 Speaker 2: Well, I was being held at in jail. I was like segregated from everybody else. So he apparently got out and then he came back in January, and he was a trustee. So he started saying, Ay, I'm going to a with your father. You want anything to say. I said, yeah, tell my dad I love him, and stuff like that, And that was probably the extent of any of our conversations. But when he got on the stand and started saying that he set by my cell and I told him the whole story, I'm like, this has to be a plant from Silverman. 00:22:07 Speaker 1: Or perhaps indirectly Leonard Tabor. Maybe he was told to approach the head DA Silverman to offer his testimony for leniency in the charges for which Tabor was representing him. We can't know the specifics, but one thing I do know is that this shit freaking stinks. 00:22:25 Speaker 2: The jailers even got understand that testified said that there was Camras pointing at my cell. They could have seen all that stuff if somebody sit in front of my cell and I told him for an hour or so to tell my story. So two of the jailers got up on a stand and testified to the fact that this never happened. 00:22:42 Speaker 1: In addition to the jailers, Tabor had prepared expert witnesses to battle both the States pathologists who claimed that Valdez could have mustered the strength to write two dying declarations, as well as the ballistics expert who called the gun allegedly found in the desert a match. 00:22:58 Speaker 2: The guy that they had was Mark Bahadi. His story has changed now too. But our expert, Kaywood, said that he couldn't even test fire the gun and that there was no way that this was the weapon. And then our pathologists, he said, there's no way. He was losing too much blood in all this sudden stuff. And they believed the state's pathologists that didn't have a quarter of the experience that the pathologists that we hired out of Omaha. 00:23:29 Speaker 1: And maybe with the battle of experts and shaky witnesses, there was a nudge in the wrong direction from one of the defense's own witnesses, John yellow Boy. 00:23:38 Speaker 3: He's called as a defense witness. Why, I have no idea, but he does end up throwing dirt on Jeff. 00:23:44 Speaker 1: He said that he was present at the murder scene. After all, he was staying with his mother in a trailer just a few yards away, and he said that he saw Jeff Beauprey that faithful night. 00:23:55 Speaker 2: The jury went in to deliberate, and they came back nine and hours or so later with the guilty verdict. They were seeking the death penalty on me, and the report from the judges said that one thing that saved me from the death penalty is that I actually come back to be questioned because I knew I was innocent. You know, I didn't have nothing to hide. 00:24:18 Speaker 3: Yeah, he faced the death penalty, but I think the recommendation was made by the jury life without the possibility of prove. 00:24:25 Speaker 2: So I was thankful that I didn't get the death penalty. But I still got two licences running consecutively, and then six and two thirds to twenty two times for the firearm charges, and then two eight to fifteen that were running concurrent. That was for the robberies. 00:24:43 Speaker 1: So just in case you're immortal enough to live out two entire life sentences, they could still hold you. 00:24:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I thought that the justice system would work itself out. Maybe it's going to take five years to get this undone. I never ever dreamt that I'd still be fighting it after thirty seven years. I was always told from older inmates, don't gamble, don't borrow anything, just the simple things. Keep busy, don't get in other people's business and stuff like that. So I kind of did that my whole incarceration, and I've done enough time where people kind of respect you now. Some of them call me old timer because I am a little older than I was when I came in. But I made myself busy right away. I got into hobby. I'm ilegal aid here. I'd had to learn how to type, I had to learn how to run the computers. I had to do all that on my own. I didn't know none of that when I first came to So I mean, I just keep tugging away and never thought that I would still be imprisoned after thirty seven. 00:26:07 Speaker 1: Years, especially since he got some great support from a private investigator named Denny Whalen. Soon after his conviction. 00:26:15 Speaker 2: Denny Whalen, a lady sent him a letter saying, hey, you need to check this case out, and he talked to her for several hours. Then he came in and I went through the story with him, and then he left, and then he came back a couple days later. And it had me answer almost the same question to see if I was lying or not, you know what I mean. And one thing I will never forget Denny Whalen. He says, I believe you're innocent. He says, I'm gonna do everything in my power to get you out of there. He actually mortgaged his house a couple of times. I mean, he was like a father to me. I believe alan Neeman came first. Denny Whalen went down and interviewed him, and then he recanted. I want to say eighty nine. We found out about Melissa in nineteen ninety two. She talked about Yellow Boy and stuff like that. 00:27:07 Speaker 1: And she tells the same story that she told her classmates immediately after the murder, then to the police, only to have a December nineteen eighty eight police report claim that she had made it all up before being sent off to some juvenile placement in Colorado. And remember, her original account critically was corroborated by Sharon Condon's bleeding pattern, as well as the neighbors who heard her knocking on the door at three am. She also added that she knew Jeff she heard three male voices that night and that he was not one of them. So they filed a motion for a new trial based on the new evidence and a Brady violation in the form of Melissa Martinez. But again, Melissa Martinez never made it to the witness stand, so. 00:27:52 Speaker 3: They don't really get Melissa Martinez, but they get a police report where she's scribbled this is true, this is true, this is true, all of which contradicted the sworn statement that she gave, the bulk of which is statement she ended up going to her grave with. And then basically Neiemen's the same thing. They have a state trooper say, I talked to him and he denied it. 00:28:13 Speaker 2: All. 00:28:14 Speaker 3: They don't bring Neemen back to testifying, mind you, and they allow this guy to give the hearsay testimony that he retracted his recantation. It's strange because the guy who supposedly signed the police report has told people that he never went to that prison to talk to Alan Neiman, and Neiman said the only person that actually came to visit him in prison was Silverman. 00:28:36 Speaker 1: Who in all likelihood threatened him again with the murder charge, perjury, the whole kitchen sake. 00:28:44 Speaker 3: Yeah you sure you want to face murder charges. He signed something, but it's not a true affidavit, sworn affidavit, but it was accepted. 00:28:51 Speaker 1: And that was that the court ruled that, in addition to the retractions, that Martinez's account did not put her in a position to prove Jeff's citizens, so the motion was denied. Then came an ineffective council post conviction filing in nineteen ninety five claiming that council should have investigated alternate suspects. 00:29:08 Speaker 3: They don't raise. Oddly, during the first and effective claim that he also represented this jailhouse snitch, which a second year law student knows you can't do that. You can't represent the jail house snitch testifying against your client. 00:29:23 Speaker 1: By this time, Denny Whalen's son, Lawrence, was representing Jeff pro bono, who found additional exculpatory evidence surrounding the alleged dying declaration that had been written on the floor in Engine, Greece. 00:29:35 Speaker 3: They found that the door to Valdez's place had a curtain rod and a curtain hanger, And as they're talking about it, while they're filming it, as they're going through it, they're saying, jeez, that looks like blood and grease on the curtain hanger. Which if there was grease on it, that's a pretty big deal, right, because how did Valdez get all the way to the curtain. Did he peek out with the grease after and then lay down? Make any sense? 00:30:01 Speaker 1: That curtain disappeared and the post conviction motion was denied in two thousand and two, so the Whalen sought to expand their support and begin DNA testing. 00:30:09 Speaker 2: I don't know if you ever heard of Reuben Hurricane Carter. So I got to speak to Ruben and Danny and his son had went to Canada for them guys to endorse the case and then win where she got ahold of Colin starter from the IP and then they got the DNA started on it. 00:30:29 Speaker 1: The Innocent Project in New York was able to do DNA testing on some of the crime scene evidence, including a blood stain near the door handle right. 00:30:37 Speaker 3: And on the door they find John yellow Boys DNA blood DNA, and a judge makes finding that John Yellowboy was a frequent visitor at the residence and that explains away his blood DNA on the door blood DNA. 00:30:52 Speaker 1: I'm going to have to give them a ten out of ten for these intellectual gymnastics. I suppose they could also argue that Eve and if yellow Boy was there, that doesn't necessarily mean that Jeff was not. 00:31:05 Speaker 3: Not According to Alan Neman, the theory of the case was Alan Neman, and Yellow Boy is not part of that, and his blood on the door doesn't fit that narrative, the narrative that was used to convict it all either way. 00:31:17 Speaker 1: These preceding stretched from two thousand and five all the way through twenty twelve, at which point Jeff's team began tracking down a woman named Sheila Janis who had told Melissa Martinez about her past with John Yellowboy, and the team finally found her in twenty seventeen. Apparently she had disappeared after a horrific ongoing abduction scenario that began in the immediate aftermath of the murders in nineteen eighty eight. 00:31:42 Speaker 3: John Yellow Boy had beaten her severely and taken her to the house where the murder occurred, and she knew it was the house because the floor was cut out, which is a detail that he probably wouldn't know. I mean, they cut a section of the floor out where this writing in Greece was, and the police took the floor with him, and she recalls being in the house being repeatedly raped. While John Yellow Boy is talking to Sharon and Richard saying things like why did you make me do this? Why? Why did you have to do this? Your mine? Crazy weird things. 00:32:21 Speaker 1: Remember we mentioned that Yellow Boy had what has been described as an unnatural attraction to his first cousin, Sharon, and it seems like Richard planned to leave town with Sharon. 00:32:31 Speaker 3: There was just so much stuff that was withheld, so much stuff going on behind the scenes that Valdez was supposedly leaving town and had sold most of his worldly possessions as he was getting ready to lead. He thought his life was in danger. Told several people that. A little bit later, the police chief of Gearing, which is a city that's basically connected to Scott's Bluff. They're almost like small twin cities, Okay, went to the FPI with his suspicions that Brian Silverman was behind a large cocaine distribution network in the Scott's Bluff area. Brian Silverman was the guy who prosecuted Jeffo Prix Wow witness now passed on said he drove a limo and went out at least on one occasion where the then presiding judge, the guy who eventually prizided over just trial and Silvermen were in the back of a limo doing cocaine and went to Valdez's house where he dropped him off Scott's Bluffs. Nickname back that was Scoblow. This is you remember Iran contra time, okay, And the US government was getting cocaine as it's part of the triangle of weapons and guns and money in cocaine, and then it would have to sell the cocaine to get its money back. And Scott's Bluff's got a large airstrip, not a large airport. The large airstrip and Silverman's backyard supposedly abutted the airstrip. 00:34:06 Speaker 1: So not only did John Yellow Boy have an interest in Richard Valdez remaining in Scott's Bluff, but it appears that the district attorney may have had the same interests as well, which may explain some of the otherwise inexplicable details of this crime scene that don't match the narrative, like Melissa having only heard Sharon's murder, not Richard's, and that Richard's body wasn't even present when she ran out, And then you have Eddie Johnson saying that Richard's body had been moved and that the writing on the floor wasn't there when he discovered the body. 00:34:39 Speaker 3: As strange as it sounds, I think these were two different murders. I think they found Sharon Condon's body and somebody made a determination that this is our opportunity to get rid of Richard. 00:34:50 Speaker 1: Valdez, and they both may have been killed by Yellow Boy, who then may have staged the scene writing the dying declaration after Eddie John's initially found the body, the name of a guy who he'd seen coming and going to Richard for cocaine that night. After all, Sheila Janis claimed that Yellow Boy was talking to Richard and Sharon saying why did you make me do this, which brings us back to Sheila in the aftermath of the murders in nineteen eighty eight, who it appear as had been beaten and left for dead. 00:35:20 Speaker 3: Yellow Boy he's looking for Sheila after finding out that she had survived. Sheila shows up at another woman's house. Sandra stands She's called the police. Sandra gave an affidavit when we found her that Sheila showed up. I called the police, took her to the bathroom and while she was helping Sheila clean up. She was startled by John Yellow Boy, who simply appeared behind me over my shoulder. 00:35:47 Speaker 1: There's those Michael Myers vibes. 00:35:49 Speaker 3: She's startled by him being there, and what the hell are you doing in my house? She pushed him out the basroom door and shut it. The police arrived. She answered the door, and the police said where is he? She was too afraid to say anything, but was able to move and adjust her eyes in one direction, like he's right here. And they busted in and they grabbed him, but he didn't get arrested. What so, I think you need to understand some of the baseline racism that exists in Scott's Bluff County. And it's not the typical racism that I grew up in Waterloo, Iowa. It's not while you're blacked, I should be afraid of you and distrustful of you. It's racism against the Native American community. And that racism was not of you're a bad person, it's you're not even a person. So these people would be victims of crime, and probably because there was an issue at times and getting those people to show up to actually prosecute crimes, the police never arrested anybody in those situations, they just say, well, if you want to press charges, to go to the county attorney's office. It's kind of a test to say are you going to pursue this thing or not. But it also sent the message that we don't really care. 00:37:07 Speaker 1: So John Yellowboy was free to assault Shila, and he did so continuously for months until his arrest for a rape in Colorado. He regularly kidnapped, raped, and beat her. Sheila told yellow boys sister Anne Renee, about this ongoing torture and his confession to both murders, but he managed to keep her compliant by making threats. 00:37:27 Speaker 3: John Yellowboy said, I'm going to kill your mother. I'm going to kill anybody that's related to you if you talk about this or mention me or anything. And lo and behold, Sheila's mother's found dead and they said it's an accidental drowning in a foot half of water. 00:37:41 Speaker 1: This is when she fled to her sisters out of state. 00:37:44 Speaker 3: Correct and then he pretty much snatched her back in. She was present when he committed the rape in Colorado, and that's how she got away, and she disappeared for years. It was amazing that we are a founder. 00:37:58 Speaker 2: When I heard her statement and what John yellow Boy put her through, it just ripped my heart out. And then having the courage to come forward and say what he did and how he confessed to her, and just to know that somebody that I don't even know, they're clearing my name is amazing. 00:38:19 Speaker 3: It was kind of a fluke. We found where she might be living and knocked on the door. She answered the. 00:38:24 Speaker 1: Door, and it turned out that while Yellow Boy had kidnapped Sheila to Colorado, they stayed with none other than Melissa Martinez, both of whom Yellow Boy claimed ownership over. They shared their experiences, both Sheila's ongoing torture and Melissa's presence at the crime scene that night. 00:38:41 Speaker 2: And then I think we got another affidavit from Melissa in twenty seventeen. She said she was just heartbroken that I was still locked up for Valdez and Condon's murders when she knows that I didn't do it. 00:38:55 Speaker 1: So with a more full account from Melissa Martinez, Sheila Janesis story, the evidence of a separate crime scene founded Detective Marino's files, the potential shady dealings of the district attorney as well as new expert testimony about how at least two of the wounds were inflicted post mortem and that according to the autopsy, there's no chance that Richard Valde has had anything to do with writing on the wall or door, which is supported by the way by Eddie Johnson. They went ahead and filed a new post conviction motion and a motion for a new trial back in twenty eighteen. 00:39:28 Speaker 3: To me, the biggest part of it was, there's all these things that had been litigated in bits and pieces leading up to it, but when you put the full picture together, it's like there's a lot here. But we never got an evidentiary hearing, so our motion for new trial was denied. Nebraska Supreme Court denied an appeal of that and a rather scathing opinion that why would you write all this stuff? Basically it was too much stuff. And then we got a post conviction pending too that got through. Now we tried to amend that's on appeal right now, the amendment whether we should have been allowed to amend our post conviction relief that post later file. We may end up having to do a federal habeas or something like that. 00:40:14 Speaker 1: And while we hope for the best in court. There's a petition to show our support for Jeff Bouprey's release, so please take a moment stop what you're doing right now, scroll down on your listening app to the links in our episode description and click on the link to sign the petition, And with that we're going to go to closing arguments, my favorite part of the show, as everyone knows where. First of all, I thank both of you guys for being here and sharing, honestly, one of the craziest and most terrifying stories I've ever heard in my thirty two years of doing this work. And now I'm going to kick back in my chair, turn my microphone off, and leave my headphones on, and just listen to anything else you want to share. Tom, you start off and then hand the microphone off to Jeff and he'll take us off into the sunset. 00:40:59 Speaker 3: I mean, I just Jeff has been concerned that he sits out there and nobody knows his plight. So this kind of light being shown on it is the kind of thing that I think Jeff feels is important and is the kind of thing that may eventually bring some pressure to bear on somebody to take a good clothes heart look at his case. 00:41:23 Speaker 2: I would like to say, of an innocent man that's been in prison for thirty seven years, I would ask everybody to come forward and sign this petition so that we can move this case forward and Jessica can finally prevail and finally give me a release. Thirty seven years is a long time, but I have never given up, and with all the help of friends, families, lawyers that have donated their time and their money for this case, I think it's time that we'll get an end to it. And I would like to say thank you all for being part of this and giving me the hope that I need to make it through another day. 00:42:17 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one week early and ed free by subscribing to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I want to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber. The music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow US across all social media platforms at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram at it's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One. We've worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. 00:42:57 Speaker 3: The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in the show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.