Nohema Graber, Willard Noble Chaiden Miller (top right), and Jeremy Everett Goodale (bottom right).
Two students who killed a Spanish teacher stalked her, keeping an eye on her pattern of life, prosecutors said, according to The Associated Press.
Willard Noble Chaiden Miller and Jeremy Everett Goodale, both 16, ambushed Nohema Graber, 66, on her daily walk and dragged her into the woods, Jefferson County Attorney Chauncy Moulding wrote in a Dec. 23 filing. The suspects returned to the crime scene to hide the victim’s body better, the prosecutor wrote.
The teenagers, who Law&Crime is naming because they were charged as adults for homicide in the first degree and conspiracy to commit homicide in the first degree, were arrested in November.
Graber, their former teacher at Fairfield High School, often walked at Chautauqua Park in Des Moines, Iowa, during afternoons, according to court documents obtained by The Ottumwa Courier. She was found hidden under a tarp, wheelbarrow and railroad ties, authorities said. She suffered “trauma to the head,” authorities added.
Investigators said they got a tip about Goodale on social media. Though authorities did not elaborate on the reason for the killing, they said they got evidence about the motive and the plans. Law enforcement claimed to find clothing items with blood on them during a search warrant executed at the boys’ homes.
Moulding, who was writing about Goodale’s case in the new filing, reportedly argued that trying him as an adult was the only appropriate path because he would be released at age 18 if convicted as a juvenile.
“This prosecuting attorney cannot fathom any combination of programming at any Iowa juvenile facility which could appropriately treat or rehabilitate the defendant if adjudicated as a juvenile,” he said.
[Image via City of Fairfield, Iowa; Willard Noble Chaiden Miller and Jeremy Everett Goodale via Jefferson County Jail]