transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 3:
[02:25] For our Missing Paperboy series, we chose to push away much of the noise, and we focused heavily on telling this story from the perspectives of the experts who worked on these cases, and later wrote about them in great works of true crime. There were chapters about both the Des Moines, Iowa cases and Omaha, Nebraska cases, and Robert Ressler's book Whoever Fights Monsters, and Peter Klismet's book FBI Diary, Profiles of Evil. We got to know much about Christopher Walden and the Walden family, and Harry Trumbias' book My Life as an FBI Special Agent, Book Two of the Dark Places series. And we also had the distinct honor of sitting down with Mark Pettit, the man who authored the highly acclaimed A Need to Kill, The Life and Crimes of John Joubert, Nebraska's most notorious serial child killer, in which investigative reporter Mark Pettit details how Joubert, a US airman and former Eagle Scout, terrorized communities in Nebraska and Maine. We learn about Joubert's homicidal fantasies that began when he was very young. Joubert told Ressler that one of his first fantasies that he remembers is from when he was just six or seven of coming up behind his babysitter, strangling her and then eating her until she disappeared. In 1983, Joubert went on a 116-day killing spree in Omaha, Nebraska, murdering two young boys, one who was a newspaper carrier. Mark Pettit spent a lot of time with Joubert and learned things about him that no one else could reveal. Pettit and Joubert held multiple face-to-face meetings. During these interviews, Joubert confessed to an additional unsolved murder of a boy in Maine. Pettit's book includes death row drawings made by Joubert while awaiting execution, chilling sketches that reveal his continued violent fantasies, previously unreleased handwritten letters from Joubert, new evidence from prison records and details from death row discussions that were not shared publicly for decades. Before his execution by electric chair on July 17th, 1996 in Nebraska, serial killer John Joubert offered a final apology, stating, I just want to say that again, I am sorry for what I have done. I do not know if my death will change anything or if it will bring anyone any peace. I just ask the families of Danny Eberle, Christopher Walden and Richard Stetson to please try to find some peace and ask the people of Nebraska to forgive me. That's all. This is True Crime Garage, The Missing Paperboys, Chapter 5, A Need To Kill. This feels like a long time overdue, but I'm very excited to be joining and talking with Mark Pettit here in the garage today. Mark Pettit, if that's not a name that you know, it's a name that you should know because he is an incredible author and reporter. He has written a book called A Need to Kill, which is on its sixth release, originally came out in 90 or 91. And Mark is here to talk to us about this fascinating case and Mark, first off, congratulations on the success of the book. And this is release number six, is that correct?

Speaker 4:
[06:38] This is number six, Nick, and thank you so much for having me on the program. I'm a huge fan and congrats on 10 years. That's a miracle in this world.

Speaker 3:
[06:48] And I was super excited to talk with you because I'm sitting here holding in my hand right now, I have the, this is A Need to Kill by Mark Pettit, Copyright Mark Pettit 1990. And this is the one with pictures included 198 pages. The newest version is how many pages?

Speaker 4:
[07:08] 254 pages and all color images. The technology has come so far, Nic, in publishing when I first, you know, when I first released the book, I had a publisher and they printed 2000 copies of the book. And you know, that seemed to be a large number at the time. We actually sold out in two weeks. I didn't even have books when I was on a tour. And there were people lined up at the bookstores at the mall. And I was literally writing out, I owe you a book. It just took off. And then Random House called out of the blue and said, hey, we'd like to buy the paperback rights. And the next thing I knew, the book had sold 85,000 copies around the world. And then about 10, 12 years ago, Random House gave me the rights back. And I decided that if I would ever republish, I would do it myself and work through Amazon. So that's what happened. And this is now the final word on the John Joubert case.

Speaker 3:
[08:14] Well, and this is a case that has fascinated many, so much so that it is mentioned in many books, but a few that I can think of are as follows, FBI Diary, Profiles and Evil by Peter Klismet. We also have My Life as an FBI Special Agent Book 2 by Harry Trombalis. And we have Whoever Fights Monsters by the late great Robert Ressler. And some of these individuals are discussed in your book as well. And before we get into the investigation, before we get into why this book continues to evolve for 40 years now, because that's the length of the story, and that's how long you've been involved in this story. And it continues to have purpose and to have reason to update the book. But I mentioned these three great books, but there is no better book on this case. There is no book that is as thorough on this case. And I love that you've continued to update it and let it evolve throughout the years. And now we are getting the final word in this story. So let's, before we get too much in the weeds here, Mark, let's go all the way back to September of 1983 in Bellevue, Nebraska, a city that is southeast of Omaha and very near the Nebraska-Iowa state line. Describe the location, describe that town, that city at that time. What were your observations?

Speaker 4:
[09:52] It was a great place to live. I loved Omaha, Nebraska, and Bellevue is just a suburb near the city. And like you said, not far from Iowa, not far from where Johnny Gosch had disappeared. And I'm sure, Nick, you'll remember that name as well. And that's another reason I got interested in this case. But it was 1983, as you said, September 3rd. And that's when 116 days of terror started for the people of Omaha.

Speaker 3:
[10:23] And back then, you were working for KMTV?

Speaker 4:
[10:26] Yes. I was recruited to KMTV in 1984, just after the killer had been arrested and had pled guilty to these murders. But I grew up not far from Atlanta, Georgia. And in high school, became sort of obsessed with the Atlanta Missing and Murdered Children's case. And so that's what got me interested in being an investigative reporter. And when I got recruited to Omaha, I was at the Omaha Press Club with the news director from KMTV. And she said, Mark, what got you interested in investigative reporting? And I said, Wayne Williams. And she said, oh, that's the killer from Atlanta, right? And I said, yes. And she said, well, we sort of have our own Wayne Williams here. Have you ever heard the name John Joubert? And of course, I hadn't. But what I learned was he was a US Airman. He was an Eagle Scout and an Assistant Scout Master in Omaha. So you would think that's the best of the best, right? But as it turned out, he was a monster living among the people of Nebraska. And Carol said, yes, he just got convicted or he pled guilty to killing two young boys here. And I'd really like you to get on the case. And I said, Carol, why do you need me? He's on death row. She said, Mark, we know what happened. We don't know why it happened. Take this job, get on this case, tell us why it happened. And that's when it started. Nick, I was 21 years old.

Speaker 3:
[11:58] Let's go to Sunday, September 18th, 1983. We're at the Eberle household and it's just before 6 a.m. And the family is saying goodbye.

Speaker 4:
[12:09] They had relatives in town, so they were up early to go back to the Dakotas. And Danny's out saying goodbye to his aunt and uncle. And he's got to get off on his paper route. His little brother has already gone on his route. And I spent hours talking to the Eberle family about what happened, about Danny Joe. And one of the things that still gives me chills to this day is Judy Eberle, Danny's mother said something told her to step back from the goodbyes. And she watched Danny pedal away on his bicycle and something told her, don't let him go. Don't let him go on that paper route. But she said to herself, don't be silly, Judy. Don't be silly. So Danny Joe goes off on his paper route and not long after, the phone starts ringing at the Eberle's home. Because back in the day, people love their Omaha World Herald on a Sunday morning, right? So the phone starts ringing and people are saying they didn't get their newspaper. And Danny Joe's mother knew that something wasn't right. So after a while of waiting a little longer, they started going out on the paper route and three doors in, they found Danny Joe's bicycle and his stack of papers on the ground. And they knew something terrible had happened to their son.

Speaker 3:
[13:34] How long are they looking for their son before, unfortunately, his body is discovered?

Speaker 4:
[13:40] Three days. They've been searching, you know, all over town and they brought in 130 law men from across the state. And they spread out over a certain area. And about 20 minutes into the search, John Coulterman, a sheriff from a smaller county in Nebraska, found Danny Joe's body. And it was horrible. He had been stabbed on the back, in the chest, the back of his neck had been slashed. And then there were three bite marks on the boy's body, two on his upper shoulder and one on the upper backside of his leg. And initially, Nic, police thought they might be dealing with a serial killer because it looked like there had been a star cut into the bite mark on Danny Joe's leg. But as it turned out, the killer was trying to mask the bite mark and used his knife to slice open the little boy's leg to cover the bite wound. So it was horrible. Now the city is really in a panic when Danny Joe's body is found.

Speaker 3:
[14:47] At the abduction site, as you said, they find his papers, they find his bicycle. It seems with this one that it was rather obvious that we're talking about an abduction, or at least that police were working with that theory right away, is that correct?

Speaker 4:
[15:07] That's correct. And again, as I mentioned previously, the Johnny Gosch case, another boy kidnapped in Iowa, already had FBI and police in this area on alert. So when Danny Joe goes missing, and it appears to be a kidnapping, I think things kicked into really high gear, Nic, that they were worried that this could be something very, very serious.

Speaker 3:
[15:31] Go through those injuries again, because they are very specific and unique, some of them unique to this case.

Speaker 4:
[15:39] Also, the killer takes Danny Joe, he has his hands and feet bound, there is tape on his mouth, and the young boy is taken into this grassy area, made to strip down to his underwear. The killer had untied him initially, made him take off his shirt and his pants, and re-tied him up. So this is of interest that we'll get to later. And the boy is stabbed four or five times in the back, and then stabbed, I think, four more times. He's flipped over and just brutally stabbed in the chest four or five more times. Then the killer slices his neck. And as we'll get into the psychology here, the killer was just consumed with rage and excitement. And that's when he began to bite the boy's body twice on his shoulder and once on the backside of his leg. There's no so cannibalistic nature.

Speaker 3:
[16:32] And about how far from the abduction site do they find Danny Joe Eberle's body?

Speaker 4:
[16:38] I think it was less than a couple of miles, not far at all. And I think the killer at least was somewhat familiar with the area, at least enough to find what he thought was an area slightly out of the way where he wouldn't be caught. And it was so early in the morning, Nic, that nobody was really out and about at 5.45 in the morning.

Speaker 3:
[17:01] The bite marks that you had referenced, take us into the psychology of that. And if you don't know, I mean, it's understandable, we may not know, but what do you think that the killer was attempting to do with cutting up those bite marks? Was this something he was ashamed of? Was this something that the killer was trying to conceal from police? It almost seems like the bites were regrettable injuries that he inflicted on the victim, and probably after the fact, wish that he had not done that for any number of reasons.

Speaker 4:
[17:36] I think it's all of the above, Nic. And this is, again, what's so fascinating about this case is we'll leap forward in about 30 years to where criminal psychology and behavior has advanced to today. That tells us a lot about what happened that morning. But I think that the killer was overly excited, driven by sexual fantasies, and it just became too much excitement for him. So I think these were regrettable injuries that he caused on the victim's body, and he was trying to hide his tracks by slicing around the bite wound to try to cover it up. So I think a regrettable injury is a really good way of putting it.

Speaker 3:
[18:21] And then, as you said, the town, of course, is on high alert. That's an understatement. But then you compound that with the fact that we have a similar abduction to Johnny Gosch that had happened just months prior to Danny Joe Eberle. And in the Johnny Gosch case, we know that his body is still to this day. We've never found Johnny Gosch. So we're on high alert here, but we don't get too much time that passes. We get less than three months, and now we have another boy who disappears.

Speaker 4:
[19:01] Yep, this is horrible. A second boy goes missing. His name is Christopher Walden. It was December 2nd, 1983. He was kidnapped and murdered on his way to school that morning. And it had started snowing. He had his little boots on, and he was walking to school. Again, snatched from his route. Similarly to Danny Joe Eberle, the young boy was made to strip down to his underwear, bound, gagged, sadly also stabbed to death, and left to die in the snow that was starting to fall that morning. And it's just tragic, some of the evidence that came out. Nic, and I know that as a writer, you've done a lot of investigating yourself, but in Christopher's pocket, they found two shiny dimes. And later, when I talked to his mom and dad, Sue Walden told me that was money he had planned to use for extra milk that day at school. So it just brings home how tragic this is, how that could have been anybody's kid, anybody's little brother, and just it wasn't robbery. I mean, police knew instantly that was not what this was about. And now here they are in Omaha, Nebraska, in the span of a hundred days. They have two little boys brutally murdered in that city. And you can just imagine the fear that is now sweeping that community. And prosecutor Mike Wellman said something very interesting to me, he said, I have never seen fear like that in my life, and I hope I never see fear like that again. It was just awful for the people living in Omaha, Nebraska.

Speaker 3:
[20:46] Now, I know that the first abduction takes place very early in the morning, not a lot of people out. But we do have the Christopher Walden case. He goes missing as he's walking to school. Do we have a witness or any witnesses in either of these abductions?

Speaker 4:
[21:06] Actually, we have two in the case of Christopher Walden. And you'll read about it in the book. There's a woman named Cheryl Baumgartner who thought she saw something happen. She thought she saw the vehicle following Christopher Walden that morning. And through hypnosis, they were able to get a couple of things out of Cheryl, a partial tag number. And she told me she saw this tree. There was something that stuck in her mind, this green pine tree. And so, when you read A Need to Kill, you'll read the full therapy session where they hypnotized Cheryl. And she's able to give them the partial tag number and enough of a description, she and the other lady, that the police are able to put a sketch out into the marketplace. And it does eerily look like the killer that's ultimately caught. But Cheryl later, you know, it took a while for her to deal with the trauma of witnessing the abduction and not being able to do anything about it. But you know, she goes back to the scene of the crime, you know, months and months later, and she sees the sign that marks a nature trail. And she sees that green tree on the sign. And that's when she knew that she wasn't crazy, that she had seen something that morning. And that's what really kicked the case into even higher gear, is when they had this sketch, and then they have the behavioral analysis. Bob Ressler, who you mentioned earlier, fantastic, you know, FBI agent, a pioneer in criminal profiling. He was brought into this case. Bob's profile is in my book, but he said that it would be most likely a white male, late teens, early 20s at the latest, not overly educated, and most likely a blue collar job. And that turned out to be very close to the description of the killer that we'll get into, I'm sure, in just a moment.

Speaker 3:
[23:10] And the witness, at least in one of the cases, says that they believe that they saw a tan car being driven by a white male. With both of these cases now, bodies found, what kind of evidence are the detectives and now the FBI working with in these cases?

Speaker 4:
[23:30] They're working with one important piece of evidence that they have not told the public about. And that was a piece of rope that when found and cut open, it had these colored fibers and it mystified police. They were looking everywhere for this really unique strand of rope that had these frayed colors. And I have photos of the book, which I now I'm happy to say are in color. So you can see for yourself why police were so drawn to it. They went all the way to Scotland Yard trying to find this piece of rope. So they have the behavioral analysis. They have the rope and they think they know what the guy looks like, right? Slight build, dark hair, olive complexion. But that could have been hundreds of thousands of people and men in that area. And this is another thing that people don't know until they read the book, is that police had cultivated what they called the Perv squad. They had hundreds, if not thousands of leads coming into the command center. And a lot of those leads were about sexual predators who might have been preying on specifically young boys in the area. So they had this list compiled and they actually went down the wrong road on several of these guys, to the point of almost charging one of the guys. But that was just a wild goose chase. They were tracking every lead they could, but they weren't on the right trail just yet.

Speaker 3:
[25:05] This is something that is so common, especially in these types of investigations, and pardon the lewd terminology here that we use in the garage. But we call this the old pervert roundup, because that's absolutely what they do. And today, their law enforcement is even more equipped to do the old pervert roundup, because everybody is in a database somewhere, and you can go, and you can go and talk to, interview. Check out each one of these guys. You can do a quick sweep of their home, if you feel that it's necessary. When they're under, you can talk with their PO, and search their vehicle. It's a very quick way to hit the ground running and get your investigation going. And looking at the people that are, that in some form or fashion fit the profile of a person being capable of similar crimes. Because we do know with, when it comes to child sex crimes, the recidivism rates, unfortunately, are quite high. And then as you said, they get real close on somebody, because it sounds to me like they get this guy, they know he's already been molesting young boys, boys that are about the same ages as our victims here. He fails a polygraph test, he has no alibi. Do you remember what moved them off of this guy? Because I sit here looking at this guy, false alibi, fails the poly, similar crimes, he would have been so easy to charge for this.

Speaker 4:
[26:42] I think it was Pat Thomas, he said, I knew it wasn't him, I had a gut feeling. And Nic, I know that you're into the way lawmen work in investigative techniques. Pat Thomas was the sheriff of Sarpy County, so he was the lead guy on this case. And if you've watched the movie Walking Tall, I've described Pat as Buford Pusser, big burly guy, 6'5, 300 pounds, but a teddy bear on the inside. And what a lot of people don't know is that Pat was a elementary school teacher before he got into law enforcement. So kids were very important to him. And he just had a gut feeling that the guy you're speaking about wasn't the right person, wasn't the right suspect. And as it turned out, he wasn't. But Pat Thomas was also doing something that I think was brilliant at the time. He was talking to the killer through the media. And as I said, I spent two years before I even spoke to the killer. I've seen every piece of evidence. I've watched all the interviews with law enforcement. Pat Thomas actually let me check out the evidence. So, Nick, I want you to imagine in this day and age, a reporter walking in and asking the sheriff to let him check out the evidence in the case. Now, the killer is in prison on death row, but Pat believed in me. He thought I was honest in trying to put all the pieces together. I had the rope, I had the murder weapon, I had the crime scene photos, I had the autopsy photos, everything at my fingertips to investigate this. But Pat did something. He was talking to a reporter and he said, You know what, it's easy to kill little kids. This guy's a coward. If he is a man, he'll pick on someone his own size. And as he said that, he looked past the reporter directly into the camera and said, he'll pick on someone his own size. And guess what? The killer was watching, was listening, and that's what's going to lead us to the big break coming up in just a minute when I tell you what happened.

Speaker 5:
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Speaker 5:
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Speaker 3:
[36:09] You're right, this guy that looks as good as he did, as good as any for one, if not both of these murders, they move off of that suspect. Partly, as you said, gut feeling, but things start to not line up so well for him being the best suspect. One of those, and FBI should not, and I hope that they do not move off of someone because they don't fit the profile, but that is what is said about that particular suspect, that they didn't fit the profile. What we would later learn is the real true suspect does fit the profile very nice and neatly. We talked a little bit about the evidence that they were working with. If we could track down that rope, if we could figure out where it came from, if it is in fact unique enough, then we should know when we have our guy because our guy may be in the possession of additional rope that is somewhat hard to find.

Speaker 4:
[37:10] Correct. That was the missing part. If they could find that rope, they could find the killer. That was the theory.

Speaker 3:
[37:17] They're going all over town and all over the state, and I believe they went nationwide looking for similar rope. Where was it manufactured from? Where was it purchased from? How did our killer get to be in possession of this rope?

Speaker 4:
[37:34] It's still partly a mystery of where he got it, but, and this is so ironic, I was back in Nebraska last week doing a college tour, talking to journalism students and criminal justice students about this. And as it turns out, one of the professors of criminal justice was actually a prison guard assigned to Joubert on death row. And they figured out that it was a Navyman's rope, and that the rope of the reason it had those color fibers, it needed to be lightweight so the service members could carry it, but it needed to be really strong if they ever had to use it. So he was able to give me that piece of evidence that it was a Navyman's rope, and those brightly colored fibers were to make the rope stronger. So see what I'm saying, Nic, it's just that all this time later, little pieces of evidence are coming together to put the full picture together. It's just amazing.

Speaker 3:
[38:34] Was there any thought or I'm sure there was thought placed to it, but was there any proof that the... Because the way that these crimes look, like it was a snatch and grab, some poor random boy is on the street, and there's a predator out there prowling looking for a victim, and that might be how the killer found and procured his victim, was just simply came across them, one boy out on his paper route, another boy walking to school. Was there any thought though, or anything that was suggestive that maybe these boys had been watched or seen by the killer before?

Speaker 4:
[39:16] I believe that they were. I believe, and having talked to the killer multiple times on Death Row, he told me he had gone out scouting for victims. He'd actually looked at snatching a little girl, he told me. But I really didn't believe that the more that I talked with him and learned of what attracted him to the victims, it was young boys. But I believe that he also, as we'll talk about a little bit later, there's a third murder that I am able to solve after talking to the killer. And similarly, he had stalked the young boy, at least for a few hours, if not a couple of days ahead of that.

Speaker 3:
[39:59] And I have to believe that it might have been by instruction of the way of the FBI to the police. And we have a few different agencies working this case at the time. And we can get into those. I do want to get into those different agencies and you to tell us a little bit about them. But one thing that I've seen time and time again, when you have, as you say, here that fear, right? This is a fear that is almost paralyzing the city. And it's something that everybody in Bellevue is aware of. And even the Big Brother sister of Omaha, everybody there at this time, in the fall of 83 and the winter of 83, they are aware of what's going on, right? There's no mistake about that.

Speaker 4:
[40:50] Oh, there's no mistake about it.

Speaker 3:
[40:52] And the first thing that the FBI will tell the local authorities to do is, we need a super cop. We need somebody that we can put in front of our bad guy, that can aggravate him, that can move him off his mark, that can agitate him, somebody that he can see and identify as a worthy adversary, right? We know we're looking for the face of evil. Let's present a face of good and champion one of our cops or detectives or police chief or a sheriff and give this guy something to hate, something to fight against almost because we're all fighting against him. And you said that that's exactly what they did.

Speaker 4:
[41:40] That super cop was Pat Thomas. And again, he is a lawman's lawman. He looks the part, he sounds the part, and he was super smart. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew the killer was watching. He wanted, as you said, Nic, to get him off his mark. He knew that if they could get him away from kids, to try to get him to go after an adult, someone closer to his own age, that he might make a mistake. And that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 3:
[42:08] Not that they're trying to encourage the criminal to go out and commit another crime, or especially a violent act, but it's not, again, to the psychology of it, they are working with a couple of things inside of their tool belt right here, where they're going, okay, this guy is selecting boys for a reason. And it's gotta be some type of sexual proclivity, but also it has to do with his thinking of, well, I don't want to be overpowered. I need a victim that I can easily control, that I can gain power, control of and overpower myself. And yeah, you're right. It's like if he pushes buttons and get him to pick on someone his own size, as they said, and if he does that, either physically, he's not going to be able to carry out that attack or emotionally and mentally unable to carry out that attack as well. What does this push the killer into doing anything?

Speaker 4:
[43:14] It does. On January 11th, John Joubert goes out hunting for another victim. But there was also some problems. He needed money. His car was in the shop. He had a rental car at this time. So he made the decision that he was going to go to this preschool and rob the teacher. He had driven past the school several times. That teacher was a woman named Barbara Weaver. It's so interesting having talked to her. She had two small children at the time. She said, like everybody else, they were in fear of what was happening in their community. Each morning, they would say a prayer for Danny Joe Eberle's family and for Christopher Walden's family. And that morning, Barbara Weaver said, she said an extra prayer. She said, God, please use me in any way you need to bring this nightmare to an end. And guess what? At 8.15, John Joubert comes calling to the Aldersgate United Methodist Church where Barbara Weaver is a preschool teacher. Her assistant isn't there yet. The kids aren't there yet. Barbara is getting ready for her kids to come to class. And she sees this car circle the church like two to three times. And then her heart starts racing as it pulls into the driveway, and a young man steps out. And she thinks she recognizes him. So he comes to the door. There's a knock at the door. She felt like she had to answer. And so she cracks the door open. And there he stands. And she told me at that moment she knew exactly who it was. She was trying to look at him to get a description in case she needed it. And he said, I need to use your phone. Can I use your phone? And she lied to him and told him there wasn't a phone. And he told her at that moment, get back inside or I'm going to kill you. And Barbara said she just instinctively fought back. She pushed the door. She pushed it open. She ran past the guy at the door and she looked back and she saw the tag number and she started repeating the tag number as she started, as she continued to run. She slips and falls, hits her knuckles on the pavement. It's cold, but she remembers that tag number. And she gets to the pastor's house and she says, it's him. It's the killer. He tried to kill me. So, they calmer down, they call the police who immediately come rushing to the scene and Barbara Weaver gives them the piece of evidence that they've been looking for. It's the tag number for that rental car.

Speaker 3:
[46:02] And obviously that leads them to the rental car and then through the paperwork, they're going to find who it was rented to. And that leads them to John Joubert who is a rather young man himself at the time. Describe John for the listeners and what is going on in his, other than being a monster, what is going on in his life at this time?

Speaker 4:
[46:29] So, John Joubert was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1963. So, this would put him in the age bracket of 20 years old when this was happening. He was an airman at Offett Air Force Base, which is right there in the suburb of Omaha. Ironically, Danny Joe Eberle's home, the fence along their property line, you could jump over that fence and you'd be on Offett Air Force Base. That's how close John Joubert was to the Eberle family. So, Joubert worked at a... He was a maintenance man working on a radar for the air force base. So, it's building 400, room 113, police and the FBI rush to Offett. They go to his room, they beat on the door and they have to wake him up. He's come back and he's gone to sleep. The agents told me that his room was an absolute mess. There was stuff everywhere. Shoes, detective magazines, just strewn about the room. And guess what they found in his duffel bag. They go in, they're searching and they find the rope. They find the piece of rope that had been used to tie up Danny Joe Eberle and bam, they think they've got their guy. And again, you talk about the super cop. There were two other law enforcement people who played a very important part here. One is a guy named Lee Polikoff. Lee was the chief deputy to Pat Thomas. Lee told me he took it upon himself to be the protector of Joubert from this moment forward. He knew there were people in the community that wanted to kill the killer once they caught him. He also knew that they had to be very careful not to trample on his rights. So Lee became the champion of protecting the suspect. And another young lieutenant, Jim Sanderson, became the lead interrogator. And Jim had a newborn daughter at this time. And we talked about this a lot of how scared he was, you know, for people in his community and what a wreck he was, not being able to sleep at night. He would just go when he finally got a few hours off the search, he would come home and just look at his little baby in that crib. And he thought, how can I protect her if I can't find him? So all these, you know, personalities, they're so dedicated to the community. And now they have the suspect and it's John Joubert.

Speaker 3:
[49:09] This part of the story is told very well in your book, but just taking a look here on the surface, it's a bit confusing because it looks like for a period of time, Joubert was considering fighting the charges in court, but he ultimately ends up confessing to the murders. Is that correct?

Speaker 4:
[49:31] That's correct. He was being interviewed by Jim Sanderson. And Jim basically did the good cop, bad cop thing. But he said, he switched it to Joubert. You know, I'm sure there's a good John in there, but I think there's a bad John who might have done this, who might have killed these boys. And, you know, I think the good John wants to help the bad John in some way, or wants to keep him off the street. So I'm calling on the good John to help us get to the bad John. And I think just after a while, Nic, he realized it was over and he confessed to killing both Danny Joe Eberle and Christopher Walden.

Speaker 3:
[50:13] He doesn't get any leniency for his confession for playing guilty, does he?

Speaker 4:
[50:19] Absolutely not. And this also surprised me. I've never heard of a killer pleading guilty when they're facing the death penalty without some sort of deal, have you? So I didn't quite understand that. Why there wasn't some sort of deal cut with his public defender to say, OK, he's going to plead guilty, take the death penalty off the table. You've got your guy, right? But I think at the time, these crimes were so heinous, the fear in that community was so overwhelming that the judges felt they had no choice. There was a three-judge panel. The parents of the victims wrote letters asking for Joubert to be executed. His mother wrote a letter asking the judges to spare him because she felt like there had to be some good in her son. But as I write in the book, the judges say while the letters were cathartic, they played no role in their ultimate decision. That was unanimously to sentence Joubert to die in Nebraska's electric chair. I'm with you. I was like, how did this happen? There was absolutely no leniency, no deal, and he gets the death penalty.

Speaker 3:
[51:38] Well, I think that that has maybe a lot to do with what's going on in our country at the time. When you take and consider all of the child killers in the 70s, and you referenced the Atlanta child killings, then you have things like Adam Walsh, who disappears down in Hollywood, Florida. Keep in mind, 1983, that's when the Adam Walsh movie comes out nationally, made for TV movie, and really is... I think that this just shows Omaha, it shows Nebraska, and it shows the nation just how fed up we were with these types of offenders, people taking our kids off of the streets and doing horrible things to them. I mean, with at least one of these two poor boys, they had... the wounds were suggestive that there was torture prior to the killing. If there ever were a case where you think that somebody could plead guilty and get it reduced to a life sentence, I would have thought it would have been here really just because of the optics of it. When you look at pictures of John Joubert at the time of his arrest, he looks like a boy himself.

Speaker 4:
[53:00] Exactly. You know, Eagle Scout. You'll see the picture of him in my book. You know, smiling. He looks like the kid next door, right? So I think you're right. You think there might be some sympathy. Just he's meek, he's small, you know, but there was no mercy for him.

Speaker 3:
[53:21] Five foot six and to me in those photos, he looks 16 years old. And when I first, many years ago, when I first looked into this case, I thought after having seen those pictures, I just kind of made the assumption that maybe the boys got into the vehicle willingly because they thought they were getting in the vehicle with a peer, not an adult, you know, just, oh, here's some boy that's a few years older than me. But everything we know today says no. John Joubert approached both of these boys with a knife, and the threat was there immediately to make the abductions successful.

Speaker 4:
[54:06] And you look at the size of the boys, Danny Joe Eberle was 5'2, 100 pounds. But his father said the same thing. He could not believe as scrappy as Danny was, and would wrestle from time to time. He could not, to save his life, figure out why Danny Joe didn't fight back. But I think they were just caught off guard, Nick. In that moment, a guy pulls a knife and puts it to your throat, and he says, get in the car. And I think they thought that maybe he would let them go, right? He definitely picked people who were smaller than him that he could handle, I think, if there were a struggle.

Speaker 3:
[54:49] And then after he's arrested and after the guilty plea, along comes Mark Pettit. So tell us how, you said how you first became aware of the story, but what is your first boots on the ground action in this story? Now, you're working it. You're working it now.

Speaker 4:
[55:10] Carol, my news director, comes to me with a thick folder of information. She goes, here's everything you're going to need to get started. And it was initial police reports, copies of stories that their reporters had done, transcripts from the court case. She took me to, we had a file library. You know, back in this time period of TV news, there were tapes that we would keep stacked and coded and, you know, logged where we could go back and you would see on the news file footage, right? Well, that was what it was. There was a file room and I spent hours, tape room, I spent hours and hours going through the reports, going through watching the interviews and trying to understand the case the best that I could. And as I said, I went to meet Sheriff Thomas, I met Jim Sanderson, I met Lee Polikoff, I met all the players, I talked to Bob Ressler. So all this goes on for two years, Nick. And I finally say to his court appointed attorney, listen, they're going to execute him before I talk to him. Why don't you let me talk to him? We want to know why this happened. And he just refused. He said, it's not, I can't let you do it. It's going to jeopardize his, his appeals. And so I just got tired of waiting. So I sat down at my typewriter and I banged out a letter to John Joubert that you will see in my book, A Need to Kill. And I did something that cracked the case wide open. I put a pre-postage paid envelope in to my letter where he could write me back. And that envelope is, is, is in my book. You'll see what came back. I walked into the newsroom. It was about two weeks after I had sent the letter to Joubert. And, you know, didn't hear anything back. So I thought he's not going to respond. And we had these mailboxes made out of wood and, you know, slats and mine said pettit. And occasionally my mom would send me a card or letter. And I look into my slot and there's nothing there. But then something, a piece of paper catches my eye. And as it turns out, the envelope was flush against my mailbox. So I reach in and I slide it out. And I say to myself, wait a second, that's the envelope I sent to Joubert. And sure enough, it was the return envelope with my name, KMTV's address. And in the left hand corner, he had scratched out our address for the TV station and written in John Joubert, inmate number, Lincoln, Nebraska. And my heart was pounding. When I took that letter to my desk, I tore it open and I pulled out the letter. And from the second I started reading the letter, I was amazed. I could not believe, A, the penmanship. Just so well written, beautiful penmanship. And then I started reading the letter. And I thought to myself, wait a second, the criminal profile is not quite correct here. This guy is really smart. And you'll read the full letter in the book. But he basically says, I'm not going to do an interview. But I would not be opposed to you coming down here to Lincoln to present your questions with the understanding that I'm under no obligation to do an interview. Should you choose not to come, I have two questions for you. There is no need to respond. Do you think airing a piece on me would only amplify the hurt of the victim's family? And do you honestly believe that people could come away watching such a piece and understand who John Joubert really is? Would they not say rather, it's only an act to gain our sympathy? There is no need to respond. So Nic, he was asking me questions and I'm the reporter. But if you heard that sentence, I would not be opposed to you coming here to present your questions. So I go immediately to my boss and I said, good news, bad news. Joubert wrote me back, he's not going to do the interview, but he said I could come and meet with him. She said, go, schedule it, get it on the books. So like that Thursday, I was able to go down, and that was the first of seven face-to-face death row interviews with John Joubert. And it was the start of a case that, typically a reporter follows a case. This case has followed me for 40 years, and it started with that one interview.

Speaker 3:
[59:58] What was it like going there and meeting Joubert for the first time?

Speaker 4:
[60:02] Nerve-racking. I had worried over how do I address him. I despised what he had done, but I just felt like if I had gone in hostile, he wasn't going to respond to that. So I decided to just neither condone nor condemn. I was just going to try to talk to him. So I get there and I'm going through security. They're putting my briefcase through the X-ray machine, and the guard looks at me and says, are you nervous? I said, to be honest, yes. He said, it's okay once you get past his eyes. So I knew immediately when John Joubert walked into that conference room where they had me waiting for him. And I saw those eyes. They were the eyes of a shark, just dark, gray, uncaring. And I stood up and extended my hand and said, I'm Mark Pettit. And he said, I'm John Joubert. And they left us alone. So that first interview, you know, it starts off, I'm just trying to break the ice with him. And it turns into about a two and a half hour conversation. And he starts to warm up in certain parts of it. And then I would try to press him on details of the killings and he would become robotic. And I write in the book, and it was like he was reciting a poem he never wanted to memorize. So we get through the first interview and I say, look, I think you've got a lot to tell. I would really like to do an interview on camera so that you could speak directly to the people of Nebraska. And that's when he said, I'll think about it. So I leave, I come back, and it's about another two weeks. And then I get the letter saying that he is not going to do the interview. But he said, I wouldn't mind continuing our discussions. We continue having our discussions for seven more months approximately. And during this time, it becomes a really interesting game of cat and mouse. He would say, well, did you look at this piece of evidence? Did you think about this? And he said, well, I think maybe you should go back to Portland, Maine, where I came from. You might find some interesting things back there. And I said, what do you mean by interesting things, John? And he said, well, there are some unsolved crimes back there. And he goes on to tell me that as a young boy, he had stabbed a young girl in the back with a pencil as she rode by him on a bicycle. And he tells me he had started having fantasies about killing his own babysitter. And he's six and seven years old. So it progresses to he stabs the little girl in the back with a pencil. He said, then I slash this little boy's throat with my exacto knife. And I said, okay. And then he said, and then I stabbed a woman on her way to school. She was going to be a teacher. I stabbed her on her way to college. And he said, as I said, you should go to Portland. You might find some interesting things back there. So, I'm doing the news at the station. On the weekend, I'm trying to further my investigation of the case. And I buy a ticket and I go back to Portland, Maine. And guess what? I go to the police station and I go to the newspaper office. I find the police report about the little girl stabbed with the pencil. I find the newspaper clipping. I find the police report about the little boy's throat slashed. I find the newspaper clipping. Then the teacher stabbed on her way to school. Everything that Joubert told me was true. And he had committed these crimes and the police had no clue that he was the person responsible. And then I found a police report and an unsolved case. And that was the murder of Ricky Stetson. And that's when things took a whole new twist.

Speaker 3:
[63:54] Before we get to the murder of Ricky Stetson, the crimes that he was telling you about, victim's names excluded, but he was a boy. He was a teenager committing these crimes, correct?

Speaker 4:
[64:08] Exactly. And he told me it started at six years old. And that's how I got the name of the book. One of the very first questions I asked Joubert, I said, why did you do this? You didn't know these little boys. And he said, Mark, for as long as I can remember, I've just had a need to kill. It still gives me cold chill bumps to say those words. But he said, yeah, it started when I was six years old. I hated my babysitter. I wanted to kill her. And it would be like a light switch. I would turn it off and she would be gone. But I said, did it progress? And that's when he said, yes. Then I started acting out more. And that is when he told me about the pencil and the X-Acto knife. It just became progressively more violent.

Speaker 3:
[64:56] Did he talk to you in depth about the Nebraska victims?

Speaker 4:
[65:02] Yes, he did.

Speaker 3:
[65:03] And so was it nothing off limits for your conversations?

Speaker 4:
[65:09] No, never did I tell him the discussion was off the record. He told me everything. And just some heartbreaking things like little Christopher Walden, he had him in the floorboard in the front of the car and the boys crying. He's begging Joubert to let him go. And Joubert said, I actually thought about just stopping the car and pushing him out into the street because he felt sorry for Christopher as well. And then he said, no, he's seen my face. I can't let him go. And that's when he kept driving and took him to the grassy area where he made Christopher walk into the weeds and strip off his clothes. And it was really starting to get cold. And that's when the snow came a couple of days later.

Speaker 3:
[65:57] It's an unbelievable shame that if there was any good in John Joubert, it didn't come out after he had abducted those two boys and had the opportunity to let them go. The flip of that is he had to have had, you know, he's a scouts assistant. He's around boys of this same age. He had to have some kind of, even if it's short run, but meaningful relationship with boys of this same age.

Speaker 4:
[66:28] He did. And in the book, there's a young boy that I refer to as Jeremy Culver. Jeremy was a member of Joubert's scout troop in Nebraska. And Jeremy was along the same ages of Danny Joe and Christopher, and it really bothered him. He couldn't understand why they didn't fight back. And he actually brought a piece of rope to Joubert, to one of their scout meetings that said, I don't understand it. Why didn't those boys fight back? I want you to tie me up. I want to see if I could escape. So if you can imagine Joubert, this is his friend, a young boy that he has a relationship with. And he is being asked to tie the boy up, like he tied up Danny Joe Eberle, like he tied up Christopher Walden. So there were all these thoughts. Joubert said, it was driving me crazy because I wanted to do what Jeremy was asking me to do, but it was also exciting me. And I was starting to have those feelings that I felt when I took Danny Joe and when I took Christopher. And this is what Pat Thomas told me. He said, Jeremy Culver would have been his next victim. That little boy was on his way to getting murdered, and he's lucky that it didn't happen. So Joubert ties Jeremy up and he's squirming around, and Joubert comes to his senses and says, stop it, stop it. I told you this wouldn't happen. It would never happen to you. So just really interesting how close that boy came to possibly being a victim, but the way he pushed Joubert from a friendship to feeling those same thoughts of killing another young boy.

Speaker 3:
[68:17] This youngster has no idea that he's asking the actual killer to reenact this on him to say, why didn't these other boys put up a fight? Why didn't they try to get away? It's just this young boy is trying to figure out, get in the minds of the victims, I guess, in the news stories that are on the news every night and in the paper every day, that he's become so familiar with during this time while they're looking for the guy who did it. Meanwhile, his scout assistant that he's asking to tie him up is that guy. And then, with Joubert, what was it about the... When you find the Stetson case, what was it about that case that told you, okay, this is probably John Joubert, another John Joubert victim?

Speaker 4:
[69:15] Ricky Stetson had gone out for a jog around this area called Back Bay, and it was a beautiful picturesque back cove in Portland, Maine. He told his mom that he'd be back just in a little while. He wanted to run around the water, and Ricky was a small kid too, like 11 years old, very, very slight build, redheaded, so he never comes home. And then, you know, the police, the next day they find his little body. He too had been stabbed to death, and they found something very interesting, and that was a bite mark on the boy's body. So, when I found the police report, and I realized it was another young boy stabbed to death, and then when I saw the bite mark, I brought that back to the penitentiary. And I said, John, you were right about Portland. There were a lot of things back there that I needed to know. And you told me the truth about the stabbings and the slashings, but there's one crime that has not been solved. I need you to tell me, did you kill Ricky Stetson? And every the world stops. And he reaches across the table, I had recorded all of our conversations, and he stops my tape recorder. And he says, listen, I know you, I can't lie to you, but the last time I pled guilty to anything, I got the death penalty. So boom, basically, he's confessed to killing Ricky Stetson. And by this time, this is our, I think, our seventh, or maybe even the eighth interview that I did with him on Death Row. And I was, I told him, I think I'm gonna write a book about the case. And that's when I really had to make a decision. Do I include that quote in this book? So I struggled with it, because as I said, everything was on the record, but as a reporter, and as an investigative reporter, Nic, you know this from your work. Your word is what you have when you're dealing with people who are giving you information they aren't giving other people. But I struggled, and I just decided, I'm a reporter, I have to tell the truth. I did not go to the police in advance. I did not go to the FBI. But I put the book out, the very first edition, which you have a copy of, and I put the quote in there that I just gave you. I can't tell you that I didn't do it, but the last time I pled guilty to anything, I got the death penalty. The book comes out and the case blows up. The next thing I know, the FBI is at the TV station where I'm working in Atlanta. The receptionist says, you have two visitors, and they're from the FBI. I come out and they said, hey Mark, agent so-and-so, agent so-and-so, we read your book and that's why we're here. We're going to need all your records on John Joubert, we're going to need all the audio files. We're going to need everything. I somehow had the presence of mind to say, you're going to have to talk to my lawyer. I didn't have a lawyer. I had funded all this on my own, all this investigation I did in my spare time. I'm working for a new TV station in Atlanta. They have no vested interest. But I called my agent and I said, listen, the FBI just showed up there after my records. She said, don't do it. You're an investigative reporter. Don't give them your files. She said, let me make some calls. She actually found an attorney in the Washington area who agreed to help me basically for free. We cut a deal with the federal government and the prosecutors in Portland, Maine that I would not give them anything. No writings, no recordings, nothing. I would just testify to that one quote in the book. So they bring me back to Portland. Joubert is on trial for the murder of Ricky Stetson. I'm the star witness. His attorney tries to paint me as a law enforcement officer, an agent of the FBI, and my lawyer says he's a reporter doing his job. Joubert confessed. He killed Ricky Stetson and it was over in less than a day. And once the judge found Joubert guilty, he sentenced him to another life term in prison. And I remember we're leaving the courthouse and I look across the courtyard and Joubert is in handcuffs. He sees me. I see him. The son is in my eyes, but I can still see him. They push his head down in the back of the car, shut the door and they drive away. And I walk over to Joubert's attorney and I said, listen, I didn't want it to end like this. I had to testify. I'd really like to talk to John again. And he looked at me and said, you can talk to John Joubert after the state of Nebraska executes it. And he slammed the trunk of his car. And that was that. I never spoke to Joubert again, but that wasn't the last time our paths would cross.

Speaker 3:
[74:30] When did they cross again?

Speaker 4:
[74:32] During the last interview, Joubert told me, and he had told me previously that, I said, how do you wake up every day? What do you have to look forward to? And he said, getting out. They're gonna overturn my case. I'm gonna walk free. He actually believed that. And then not shortly thereafter, in the same interview, he says, you know, I'm still having these fantasies. And I said, what fantasies? About killing more kids. And excuse my French, but I said, John, that's effed up, okay? Something is seriously wrong with you. And he said, you know, I'm drawing them out now. And I said, drawing them out. He said, yeah, they confiscated two of the drawings from my jail cell just a couple of weeks ago. And I said, wait a second, you're drawing out your fantasies of killing more kids? And he said, yes. And I said, listen, give me permission to get those drawings from the prison. I will take them to the FBI. I will take them to a psychiatrist. I'll get them analyzed and give you the report. Something is wrong with you. Maybe this will help you in some fashion. So he reaches across the table and he grabs my notepad and he writes a letter to the warden instructing him to give me the copies of the drawings. So I take that letter to the warden. And based on inmate confidentiality, they refused to give me the drawings. So flash forward, it's the 30th anniversary of the case. And I'm just going through my notes. I'm looking back and I find my notes about the death row drawings. And I just wondered, do they still have those drawings? Because it's always bothered me that I couldn't put those in my book, show people what he told me. I call the prison. The general counsel calls me back and says, yes, we still have the drawings. I have them in front of me. I have my notes in front of me and I said, okay, he told me there are two drawings. One of them, he's stabbing a boy. He said, the boy is on his knees. It looks like they're in the woods. He's stabbing him in the stomach. And I said, okay, there was a second drawing. What does it look like? And he said, it looks like another boy floating in space. And I said, is he bound? He said, yes, rope around his feet and arms, but there are no feet and there are no hands. And I said, you've got to give those drawings to me. There's no telling what the FBI can tell us now about a killer from 30 years ago. And they refused to give me the drawings. So I called Lee Polikoff, who I had stayed in touch with all these years. Lee is now the Sarpy County Attorney. And I said, Lee, what do I do? They have these drawings. And he said, sue the state. Forced them to turn over the drawings. So he helped me find a lawyer in Lincoln. His name is Bob Krieger. Bob basically took me on for free. And we sued the state of Nebraska. And guess what? We won. And we were about three days from the state having to turn the drawings over. And there was a new Attorney General in Nebraska. He filed an emergency appeal to the Nebraska Supreme Court to keep them from releasing the drawings. They granted the stay. So I was about to get the drawings, and then it was put on hold, and it was going to be months now before the Supreme Court hearing. Then that weekend on a Saturday night, I'm at home and my home phone rings. And I was at home. I wasn't out with friends and doing anything. And I see the area code pop up on my TV screen, and it's Nebraska. So I answer and I said, hello. And the guy says, is this Mark Pettit? And I said, yes. The one that's trying to get the cover, the one that wrote the book about John Joubert? And I said, yes. The one that's trying to get those drawings that they're fighting you about? And I said, yes. He said, I have the drawings and I'm going to give them to you. So this is 30 years after the fact. He says, I was a guard on duty. The morning we did the shakedown on Joubert's cell, we found the drawings. They were so disturbing. I took them and made copies of them. I've held them for all these years. I'm going to give you the drawings. So I go into detail about how I was able to get the drawings texted to me, and it was exactly as Joubert had told me, only in black and white. So I was able to take those drawings to an FBI trained criminal profiler, now 30 years later. And the full report is in the book, if what it told us about John Joubert, then that we know now.

Speaker 3:
[79:30] The big question would be, was he drawing from fantasy or from memory?

Speaker 4:
[79:35] The criminal profiler said that he was convinced that these were sexual fantasies. They were not about additional murders that he had committed. They were about sexual fantasies that he was having about committing more crimes. And that's what it always bothered me, is Joubert telling me on one hand that he was going to get out, and then someone like Pat Thomas telling me if he ever gets out, he'll kill again. So I asked the criminal profiler, Keith Howard, I said, Keith, that is the one question. Do these drawings prove that John Joubert would have killed again? And he wrote me back, there is no lingering doubt. If John Joubert had ever been released from prison, he would have killed again. So boom, I had it. I put it into my book, the fifth edition. Again, the story blows up. And luckily, the state did not come after me. I was not arrested for putting the drawings out there. And that will bring us to why I've written the last version of the book.

Speaker 3:
[80:42] With the Ricky Stetson case, we talked about the other victims, at least Danny Joe Eberle, being tied up. Was there any evidence that Joubert used a similar method? I mean, because we know a lot about the Danny Joe Eberle case, we know a lot about the Christopher Walden case, as far as how they likely were abducted, what happened to them afterward. But with the Ricky Stetson case, how much of that, I know we talked about the bite mark, but how much of that mirrored what we saw with the other two victims?

Speaker 4:
[81:22] I think what you'll view in the Ricky Stetson case, that this was quick, it wasn't necessarily pre-planned. I don't think Joubert had thought it through far enough to find the rope to do those type things. I think this was just him being his fantasies reaching a boiling point where he acted out, but he didn't plan it out. So I think he would be classified as an unorganized killer at that moment. This was more of a spur of the moment crime of sexual passion that I would later learn that he killed Ricky Stetson, but not in an organized manner.

Speaker 3:
[82:04] And the biting seems to be more of a signature, something that he just seems to have to do with the victim.

Speaker 4:
[82:14] Well, one of the psychiatrists wrote in his report that Joubert was confused over sex and violence. They both meant the same thing to him. So if you could imagine sexual aggression, he used the bite marks. I think the biting was a form of sexual aggression toward the victim. And keep in mind, this is the early days of criminal behavior and profiling. They really hadn't done a lot with dental imprints and matching dental records to crime scene victims. But this was one of the early cases where they were able to take Joubert's teeth print and connect him to Danny Joe's body and to Ricky Stetson's body. Much after the fact with the crime scene photos and such that they believe that they were able to match Joubert's teeth to both victims' bite marks.

Speaker 3:
[83:09] Well, and with Joubert, no doubt he's a sexual sadist. With him, and this is what is necessary for the drawings, I think, for him. What gives him a sexual thrill is the terror in his victim's voice. It's the look of fear in his victim's eyes and the look of terror on his victim's face when he's either inflicting pain or holding them against their will and then slowly thinking, maybe he's not going to let me go, and maybe this is it for me. That has to be some part of the psychology for our monster here.

Speaker 4:
[83:55] That's exactly it. Keith Howard pointed out some facts to me that, and I'll tell you more how these came into more clear focus in this new edition of A Need to Kill. He pointed out that in the photo of the drawing where Joubert is in this wooded area, and he has the victim on his knees, the victim is bound with rope, and the killer has his hand on his shoulder. I said, Keith, what's that about? He said, that's him expressing control over the victim. But in a gentle control, and he said, notice the boy's mouth is gagged, or the victim's mouth is gagged in the drawing, but there's no blindfold on his eyes. And he said, that is for a reason. This is a sexual sadist who wants this victim to experience fear to see him up until the moment that he takes his life. He said, that's what drives a sexual sadist. He wants that victim not to be able to scream where he can be caught, but he wants that victim to watch what is about to happen to him. And when I realized these details, it just, it made things even more horrific in my mind to learn those kinds of details.

Speaker 3:
[85:12] And at no time did he even try to sell you on the idea that, oh, I was comforting to the victims, or I tried to tell them, because a lot of times we've seen the serial types where they will use lies and a ruse to try to calm and control the victim, saying, you know, all I'm going to do is rob you, or don't worry if you do as I say, I'm going to let you go. Do we have any of that here as far as what the killer told you?

Speaker 4:
[85:44] No. And that was something early on in the Danny Joe Eberle investigation. Police thought maybe he had been held for a couple of days by the killer. Or his body, he had maybe been killed and then disposed of. But that's not what happened. Joubert told me that he kidnapped the boy, he killed the boy and he left his body within the same time frame. He didn't hold the boy, he didn't threaten him other than when he took him into that wooded area or the grassy area and stabbed him. But I put the details in the book, Nic. This was a violent attack with Danny Joe Eberle, when he made him strip to his underwear, tied him back up and then just started plunging the knife into his back and then flipped him over on his back and just plunged the knife into his chest and then starts biting the boy. This was just a fit of rage. But as we now know, Joubert was a pedophile and I really didn't understand this. I think you've spoken about this in previous podcast, Nick, of what a pedophile is. What Keith Howard told me is not all molesters are pedophiles. So a pedophile like Joubert is going to be attracted sexually to prepubescent boys. That's what these young kids were, and that's what the drawings were. But in the second drawing, what got me were no hands and no feet. I asked Keith about that and he said, Mark, that's disassociation. Joubert didn't see these victims as human. He was more obsessed with the detail. Look at the rope. If you look at the rope in the drawings, it's frayed. It's exactly the kind of rope he used on Danny Joe Eberle. Bringing us closer to today, over the past year, I've become very familiar with AI and using tools to edit photos and so forth. About four months ago, I said to myself, I wonder if AI could help me restore these death row drawings to the way that the killer originally made them. So I go back into my notes and I find parchment paper, pastel pencils, and so I found two programs that help restore images and I put into the prompts, parchment paper, pastel pencils. These are the drawings from a serial killer who told me the following about the drawings. Within 30 seconds, it had restored the drawings to exactly the way Joubert told me, he had intended them. So on parchment paper, pastel pencils, in color, in the woods, it just all came to life. And that's when I knew I have to tell the rest of the story. I have to put these drawings out in color. Now I can put all the images in color into this book. I want people to see Danny Joe Eberle's smile, his bright blonde hair, the blue stripes on his shirt. I wanted people to experience him in life, not just in death. But now that you're able to see these drawings in color, and you see the detail down to the belt that the killer is wearing. And again, there's been just some ironic things. I'm on the college tour last week, and the criminal justice professor who was on duty with Joubert on death row says, that's his prison uniform in that drawing. That's the clothes we give them to wear on death row. That's the belt we give them. It's a special belt that is woven where they can't use it to harm themselves. So just bringing those drawings to life now with the help of AI that has restored them the way Joubert had drawn them, to me is just fantastic. And I wanted people to see that. And now you can see details that have never before been seen in this case.

Speaker 3:
[90:11] With the death row drawings that you were able to secure and then now bring them back into breathe new life into them so we can examine them as they were by the man who created them. You had said to him, hey, I think there's something very wrong with you. Understatement of the year, maybe. There's something very wrong with you, but you're citing that, look, you're locked up for this, you're on death row for this, and you're still fantasizing about this sick shit. And did he, or do you think, Mark, that he wanted, that he not only recognized that there was something wrong with him, but that he had a desire to learn what it was that was wrong with him?

Speaker 4:
[91:00] I do. And he told me something during one of the interviews. I walk in and he said, did you see People Magazine this week? And I said, no, I don't think I caught it yet. He said, Charlie Sheen is on the cover. And he says in the article that he would rather be in a killing scene than a love making scene. I'm in prison for that. So he's thinking, what is it in my mind? But there he sees somebody like Charlie Sheen, who's not quite right either. So I do think that Joubert was struggling with what had caused all this because as an investigative reporter, you know, I want to be able to find the smoking gun. Oh, he was molested as a child. Oh, this, oh, that, and it wasn't that. He came from a broken family, yes, but his mother didn't let him watch violent things on TV. So that's not where he got it. She didn't let him play video games. That's not where he got it, right? He, as he told me, was just born with a need to kill. And I think it bothered him. I think he wanted to better understand it. And that's why he wanted them to give me those drawings 40 years ago, which they should have done. They made me fight, spend my own money, and thank God for the confidential source who risked his freedom to give me the drawings, because he knew that too. He knew that maybe there were clues in these drawings that could help police keep this from happening again.

Speaker 3:
[92:33] Now, I've seen bloggers, I've seen it on the internet, and I've heard it on other podcasts, and rightfully so. I mean, because between the murder of Ricky Stetson that takes place in Portland, Maine, and then fast forward to the Danny Joe Eberle murder that takes place in Bellevue, Nebraska, between these two victims, we have Johnny Gosch who goes missing, not just in time frame, but also, I mean, it's between, if one were to drive from Portland, Maine, you would go through Des Moines, Iowa to get to Omaha, Nebraska. And while this is something that it seems relatively new or a thought or a theory that has sprouted up from the Internet and podcast, you opened up your 1990 book, A Need to Kill, talking in the same chapter about Johnny Gosch and Danny Joe Eberle.

Speaker 4:
[93:41] I thought there was a connection and Joubert said no, he never met Johnny Gosch. He didn't know Johnny Gosch, he had nothing to do with it. So I have to believe that because he didn't lie to me about Ricky Stetson. So I think I would have gotten it out of him if he had killed Johnny Gosch. I think that was somebody else. And I wish we could figure out who did it. I wish we could figure out where Johnny's body is. So his remaining family members could have some peace as well.

Speaker 3:
[94:18] And it's not a new idea as far as law enforcement is concerned because some of the FBI agents that worked the Johnny Gosch case were hands on and working the Danny Joe Eberle case.

Speaker 4:
[94:30] And I stayed in contact with a lot of those guys over the years and it weighed on them. I don't think we quite understand the pressure that these law enforcement people are under when something like this is happening. They know how fearful the community is, but they have families too. And they can't sleep either, you know? So the pressure, and I'm sure it shortened the life spans of some of these guys who have to think and look in the face of evil.

Speaker 3:
[95:00] Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I have to thank you for sticking with it six times now. A Need to Kill has been released, and it keeps getting more thorough and more evolved as we go. And from my understanding, Mark, there will be an audio book this time, right? For the first time, we have an audio book.

Speaker 4:
[95:25] There is an audio book that will be coming out very soon. And I do the upfront narration of the book. I wanted people to hear from me why I've stayed on this case for 40 years, why it would not let me go, why I could not turn away. And something happened last week that really brought this to a closure for me. I was on an interview with Nebraska Public Radio, a guy named Bill Kelly, who Bill was an investigative reporter when I was an investigative reporter.

Speaker 3:
[95:58] He said, Mark, I'd like you to read the statement if you would mind.

Speaker 1:
[96:03] And it was the last words of the killer, John Joubert, before he was executed.

Speaker 4:
[96:08] And I can't remember if I didn't remember reading these words, or I was busy because I was outside the prison that night, working with KMTV covering the execution. And he asked me to read the final words of John Joubert. And basically what he said is that I hope that my death brings some sense of peace to the families of Danny Joe Eberle, Christopher Walden, and Richard Stetson. So in the final minutes before he was executed, Joubert finally confessed in public to the murder of Ricky Stetson. And that really touched me and I was overcome with emotion because I said, I tried to tell the world in 1991 he killed Ricky Stetson. So now it's all there. You'll hear from me very soon. And Christopher Lane narrates the majority of the audiobook because it's not easy doing an audiobook. So Christopher does the best part. But I do the intro and the close, and I can finally say case closed.

Speaker 3:
[97:20] Mark Pettit, thank you for your time today. And thank you for joining us here in the Garage. And congratulations on the continued success of your book, A Need to Kill.

Speaker 4:
[97:30] Thank you, Nick.

Speaker 3:
[97:52] We want to thank Mark Pettit for joining me in the Garage. Please go get and read his book, A Need to Kill, available in all forms, including audio. Please join us back here next time for our sixth and final chapter of this series. And until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.