Two Iowa teenagers accused of killing their Spanish teacher will face trial as adults, after a judge denied their requests to transfer their cases to juvenile court this week.
Jeremy Goodale and Willard Miller will each face a first-degree murder charge for allegedly beating Fairfield High School teacher Noheme Graber, 66, to death on November 2, when the two suspects were 16.
District Judge Shawn Showers denied Goodale’s and Miller’s claims separately on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. If either or both were convicted in juvenile court, they could not be detained in the system beyond six months after their 19e anniversary, the Associated Press reported.
Showers said in each ruling that there was not enough time for the defendant to be rehabilitated for “a crime of such magnitude.”
Goodale, now 17, is accused of helping 16-year-old Miller kill Graber with a baseball bat, then dumping his battered body in a park “under a tarp, a wheelbarrow and railroad ties,” according to court records. The teacher’s body was found with head trauma, according to criminal complaints against the teenagers.
Investigators set their sights on the pair when a friend forwarded social media posts from Goodale that showed he and Miller “were involved in planning, executing and disposing of evidence,” a warrant noted. police search.
Goodale is said to have described their teacher’s surveillance and how they killed her and disposed of the body.
“The details included … the motive for Graber’s murder, the planning and execution of the means to kill Graber, and deliberate attempts to cover up the crime,” the criminal complaints against the suspects said.
The potential motive for the heinous crime has not been made public.
Graber has reportedly been teaching since 2012 at the school, in a town about two hours southeast of Des Moines.
With post wires