State v. Keadle

311 Neb. 919

977 N.W.2d 207

STATE of Nebraska, appellee,

v.Joshua W. KEADLE, appellant.

No. S-20-580.

Supreme Court of Nebraska.

Filed July 8, 2022

Jeffery A. Pickens, Lincoln, of Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, for appellant.

Douglas J. Peterson, Attorney General, and Melissa R. Vincent, Lincoln, for appellee.

Heavican, C.J., Miller-Lerman, Cassel, Stacy, Funke, and Papik, JJ., and Harder, District Judge.

Stacy, J. Tyler Thomas, a student at Peru State College (PSC) in Peru, Nebraska, has been missing since the early morning hours of December 3, 2010. Her body has never been found. Joshua W. Keadle is the last person known to have seen Thomas alive. In 2017, Keadle was charged with first degree murder in connection with Thomas’ disappearance. A jury found Keadle guilty of second degree murder, and he was sentenced to prison. Keadle appeals, assigning only that the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient to establish the corpus delicti of homicide. Finding no merit to this assignment, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

1. THOMAS’ DISAPPEARANCE

In the fall of 2010, Thomas was a 19-year-old student attending PSC. She lived on campus in a coed dormitory (dorm). On the evening of December 2, 2010, Thomas attended a series of parties, consumed alcohol, and became visibly intoxicated. After getting into an argument with friends at one of the parties, Thomas was asked to leave. She declined a ride back to her dorm, and instead left the party on foot, heading in the direction of campus. She also made statements about wanting to go back to Omaha, Nebraska, and walking there if necessary. The weather was cold, and Thomas was not wearing a coat.

Thomas was seen by others walking on the PSC campus between 1 and 1:30 a.m. on December 3, 2010, but she never made it back to her dorm. At approximately 1:25 a.m., several of Thomas’ friends received text messages from Thomas’ phone indicating that Thomas did not know where she was. The last such message was sent and received at 1:28 a.m., prompting Thomas’ friends to begin searching for her, without success. After a couple of hours, her friends contacted law enforcement to report Thomas missing. Law enforcement searched for Thomas without success. Organized search efforts continued for the next several days.

PSC conducted a room-by-room search of the dorm complex, but Thomas was not located. Thomas’ purse was found in her dorm room, along with her driver's license, birth certificate, Social Security card, keys, debit cards, a gift card, and a check from PSC in the amount of $1,104.22.

Officers from the Nemaha County sheriff's office and Nebraska State Patrol, along with hundreds of volunteers, searched for Thomas on the ground. Helicopters searched from the air. A search of the Missouri River was conducted using divers and sonar. Law enforcement disseminated information about Thomas’ disappearance on a national scale, including entering her information in the National Crime Information Center database and the database of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A DNA profile for Thomas was developed from some of her personal belongings and entered into a national DNA database used to identify missing persons.

Thomas has never been located. Her cell phone has never been found. Friends and family who had regular contact with Thomas before her disappearance have not heard from her since. According to a credit report, Thomas’ only financial activity since her disappearance has been a failure to pay student loans.

2. KEADLE INTERVIEWS

Keadle was also a student at PSC in the fall of 2010. At the time Thomas disappeared, Keadle was living in the same coed dorm complex as Thomas and their suites were near one another. There was evidence that Keadle and Thomas did not get along. PSC students observed Keadle and Thomas get into "heated argument[s]" with each other, and multiple students claim to have heard Keadle use derogatory terms when referring to Thomas. During the investigation of Thomas’ disappearance, law enforcement interviewed Keadle several times. The admissibility of those interviews is not at issue.

The first such interview occurred on December 4, 2010, when Keadle spoke with a Nebraska State Patrol trooper about his whereabouts the night Thomas disappeared. Keadle told the trooper that on the evening of December 2, he drove with friends to Nebraska City, Nebraska, to see a movie, which ended shortly after midnight on December 3. Keadle and his friends drove back to Peru, picked up some additional friends, and headed back to the dorm complex to "hang out." Keadle said that while driving back, he saw Thomas walking in the direction of the dorm complex sometime between 1:10 and 1:15 a.m. and that she appeared to be intoxicated.

Keadle told the trooper that after arriving at the dorm complex, he separated from his friends because he was not feeling well. He returned to his dorm to use the restroom, after which he noticed a light coming from a nearby dorm room. He knocked on the door and two female students answered. They told Keadle about receiving a text message from Thomas saying she was lost, and they indicated they were going out to search for her.

On December 5, 2010, an investigator visited with Keadle in his dorm room and asked Keadle to provide a written statement detailing his activities from 5 p.m. on December 2 until he went to sleep on December 3. Keadle complied, and he produced a written statement which was largely consistent with what he had told the trooper the day before. The investigator then asked some followup questions about Keadle's and Thomas’ relationship. Keadle told the investigator that he and Thomas did not get along. When asked where he thought Thomas was, Keadle responded that he thought Thomas was in Omaha and was fine.

On December 6, 2010, law enforcement conducted a recorded interview with Keadle, in which he generally recounted the same version of events that he provided previously. When investigators asked Keadle whether there was a reason he would have left campus around the time Thomas disappeared, Keadle denied leaving his dorm room at all. Investigators then asked Keadle whether there was a reason that he would be on surveillance cameras outside of the dorm complex, and Keadle responded that he went to his vehicle to get change at one point. Later, when asked about his cell phone's satellite location, Keadle admitted that he left his dorm around 2:30 a.m. on December 3 and drove to the Missouri River to smoke marijuana. He also admitted driving back to the river the next morning, again to smoke. But Keadle repeatedly denied seeing Thomas either time he went to the river. When asked why Thomas’ phone would be showing it was located at the river, Keadle said he had "no clue." He told law enforcement that if they wanted to check his vehicle, he would unlock it and they could bring their cadaver dogs.

On December 7, 2010, law enforcement conducted another recorded interview with Keadle. They told Keadle they had obtained additional information through their investigation which raised concerns about the timeline he provided. When pressed, Keadle insisted that he had not been with Thomas the night she disappeared. But eventually, Keadle remarked, "You're not going to believe me, man." When interviewers assured Keadle that they would believe him, Keadle said, "Okay, here's what happened."

Keadle proceeded to tell the officers that during the early morning hours of December 3, 2010, as he was driving to the river to smoke marijuana, Thomas "popped out" of some bushes. He let her into his vehicle, and she accompanied him to the boat ramp at the river. Keadle said that Thomas appeared to be upset and that she told him about having an argument with her friends earlier that night. At some point during their conversation, Thomas asked Keadle for a ride to Omaha. Keadle said he initially refused, but Thomas said she could "do something" for him if he agreed to take her to Omaha, and she began rubbing his crotch. According to Keadle, Thomas refused to have sex with him because she was menstruating, and she was unwilling to perform oral sex. But Keadle said that Thomas was willing to perform a "hand job" in exchange for a ride to Omaha and that he agreed. Keadle told the officer that he ejaculated into a napkin and threw the napkin on the ground. No napkin was recovered from the scene.

Keadle said that after this sexual encounter with Thomas, he walked to the edge of the river to smoke. It was then that Keadle decided he did not want to drive Thomas to Omaha after all. When he told Thomas this, she became angry. According to Keadle, Thomas ran toward him, started hitting him, swore at him, and threw her phone at him as he stood near the river. Keadle stated that he grabbed Thomas’ wrists and told her to "quit playing," but that Thomas screamed at him and said she would tell the police that Keadle had raped her. Keadle offered Thomas a ride back to her dorm, but she refused to get back into his vehicle. Keadle said that he left the river without Thomas and that she was still screaming as he drove away.

Keadle said he was worried that Thomas would make good on her threat to accuse him of rape, so when he got back to his dorm, he showered to get Thomas’ DNA off. Keadle told officers that after the shower, he decided to go out looking for Thomas. He drove back to the river and walked around the area north of the boat ramp with a flashlight, yelling her name. When he did not find Thomas near the river, he drove to a graveyard, but did not find her there. Keadle said that he grew concerned about his potential criminal liability and whether he could be charged with homicide if Thomas "comes up ... frozen to death." So Keadle said he used his cell phone to research possible scenarios, which he described in his interview as "what if her body ... ends up in the river and my fingerprints are gonna be on her from where I grabbed her," "forensic evidence," and ...