Sometime after midnight on the night of August 18, 2012, my forty-seven year old nephew arrived home from his night shift at a coal powered, power plant located in a small town a few miles from his home.

Because I live over a thousand miles away, I hadn’t seen him for some time.  From my recollection of him as a teenager, and the last time I’d seen him when he was 23, he was a quiet spoken, extremely shy, unassuming man.  He enjoyed nature and he and my sister, who is single and lives alone, frequently spent his free time hiking into some of the natural and historic wonders around their vicinity, camping and fishing the many streams and lakes.  My sister is exceptionally fond of wild caught trout, as was my nephew.  I say was, because on August 21 the local County Sheriff’s office received a report that my nephew was missing.  From what I was told, the report came from a woman who said her boyfriend had told her that he could make my nephew disappear, as her boyfriend toyed with a handgun while sitting in the backseat of her car.  When he became spooked, for some reason unknown to the woman, the man dropped the gun on the backseat and bolted from the car.  The woman reportedly then took the weapon to the sheriff’s office and reported that my nephew was missing.

On August 24^th 2012 my nephew’s badly decomposed body that was exposed to the elements as well as carrion birds and wild animals, was found by mushroom pickers in the woods near a small isolated lake located some miles from his home.  Because of the condition of his body his identity had to be made through dental records.

On August 25, my nephew’s stolen truck was spotted in a small town some miles to the south of the isolated lake where his body was found.  A pursuit by law enforcement ensued, with the man in possession of my deceased nephew’s truck reportedly firing at law enforcement officers as he fled toward a large, popular lake in the area.  The gunfight and chase ended on a boat ramp at the lake, where the man attempted to run down a law enforcement officer with my nephew’s truck before he exited the disabled vehicle and ran.  He disappeared into the desert in the vicinity of the lake, and was ultimately captured later on August 29 by sheriff’s officers. 

The man has an extensive criminal record that is as long as my arm.  He was subsequently tried in the county where the pursuit took place, charged with numerous felony counts involving auto theft, evading arrest, evading a police officer, assaults on numerous pursuing law enforcement officers from different agencies, attempted murder, as well as attempted murder on the female officer he tried to run down on the boat ramp.  Because one of the arresting police officers on the night of the gunfight and chase had been off duty and had consumed a mixed alcoholic drink before he reported back on duty to engage in the pursuit, the court discarded all of the officer’s testimony.  The court also discarded all of the testimony from pursuing law enforcement officers who testified that the man had fired on them from inside the fleeing vehicle.  Although seventy-five bullet holes were left by law enforcement in my nephew’s truck before it was disabled, the defendant’s aim had been so poor that none of the law enforcement vehicles were struck by the defendant’s gunfire.  The defendant’s attorney claimed that any gunpowder residue found inside the vehicle had not been proven beyond a doubt that it was left as a result of the defendant firing a weapon from within the vehicle.  The attorney claimed the defendant had not in fact fired at officers, claiming the defendant had no weapon, although pursuing law enforcement reported seeing a weapon’s barrel protruding from the driver side window, as well as muzzle flashes.  The attorney also claimed that the prosecution had not proven that the gunpowder residue actually found had not come instead from my nephew possibly firing a weapon from inside his truck himself.  Let it be noted that according to my sister, my nephew was not only conscientious about abiding by the law, and firing a weapon from inside a vehicle is against the law, but he was meticulous; he would never have fired a weapon from inside his vehicle.  The court found the defendant not guilty of auto theft as well because, as his attorney claimed, the prosecution had not proven that my deceased nephew hadn’t actually loaned the truck to the defendant.  When the farce of a trial was over, the man was found not guilty of all but two of the charges against him.  The man was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison.

Before that trial in 2012, the County Attorney in the county where my nephew was murdered filed charges in a justice court for 1^st degree premeditated murder, 1^st degree murder during the commission of a crime, burglary in the 1^st degree, armed robbery, theft of means of transportation, abandonment/concealment of a dead body, and tampering with evidence,.  In 2013 those charges were all dismissed without prejudice.  We were never informed as to the reason why the charges were dismissed.  Later my sister was told that the investigators involved in the original investigation had all quit/left their jobs in law enforcement in the small town where the murder had taken place.  The law enforcement department is relatively small, considering this is such a rural county.  There was also a claim that “evidence was lost” and the investigation had to be started all over again.

I contacted the County Attorney by email in 2015 to inform him that my sister was in possession of my nephew’s computer that was in my nephew’s home at the time of the murder, which she said was inoperable.  She had taken it to a repairman that informed her that someone had tried to erase the files on the computer.  The County Attorney implied to me by email that they would go through the computer looking for possible evidence.  He informed me in his reply that he had an investigator working roughly 30 hours a week on my nephew’s case.

The man suspected of murdering my nephew is possibly still in state prison for numerous other unrelated criminal charges, but to my knowledge he has not yet been recharged in my nephew’s death, despite the fact that his DNA had been found inside my nephew’s home.  Despite the fact that the handgun turned over to the sheriff’s office by the man’s girlfriend had been registered to and belonged to my nephew (numerous other weapons my nephew collected, I’m told, have not been located, including an AK-47 type rifle.  It was an AK-47 style weapon pursuing law enforcement officers claimed he had fired at them with during the shootout from inside my nephew’s alleged stolen truck.  The weapon he used to fire on officers is most likely either at the bottom of that lake where the man sought refuge, or it was possibly discarded under a bush somewhere along the lakeside).  There is video of the man selling my nephew’s rare coin collection for $5,000 to a pawn shop, claiming that he had inherited it.   An envelope in my sister’s handwriting addressed to my nephew was found inside the coin collection, identifying it as belonging to my nephew.

My question is why have murder charges not again been filed against the man?  My sister, who will soon be seventy-six, has resigned herself to the fact that she will most likely never live long enough to see her son’s murderer brought to justice.  He was her only child.  He never married, and through his loss my sister will never know the joys of becoming a grandmother.

The murderer of my nephew tried to clean up the mess they made in his home.  They removed portions of carpet possibly stained with blood, they removed his mattress and bedding from the bed where he slept in an effort to hide the evidence, and they washed the walls in the bedroom where my nephew slept, although blood splatter was still detected on the walls above the bed by investigators.  There were unloaded weapons placed in every room throughout the house.  According to my sister my nephew was meticulous about his guns always being safely in their place, it’s doubtful the weapons were placed throughout the house by him.

The Medical Examiner told me that evidence indicated my nephew had died of a 22 caliber gunshot wound to the head while he slept somewhere between late August 17, or early August 18.   A year or so ago a 22 rifle was found in a creek, under a bridge, on the service road leading into the place where his body was found.  It is possibly the murder weapon.  The mattress and bedding have never been found, although his cell phone was found smashed into pieces along a creek some distance from my nephew’s home.

I question why the County Attorney has not re-filed charges for murder and brought the man to trial; is it because murder has become so common place?  Is it because the County attorney hopes to prevent the county from facing the expense of a murder trial, considering this is such a rural county?  Is it because the County Attorney hopes the man will ultimately lose his life behind bars before he should go on trial for murder, thereby saving the expense of a murder trial?  In that case, would my nephew ever see justice?  I’m not versed in the law, but I question why the charges filed originally were filed in a justice court as opposed to the County Superior Court?  It seems to me as a layman that such serious charges would/should have been filed in a higher court.

The man in question has a last name that might bear influence.  Is that why he has not faced the charges for the crime he committed?  Will we ever see justice for my nephew?  Or will this man get away Scott free with a heinous murder?  It has been six years.  How long must we wait to see justice done when the evidence appears all but clear beyond a shadow of doubt?  Will justice come only when the man faces his Supreme judgment in the hereafter where I am compelled to believe he will inevitably face the evil he has done?  For my own sanity, I have to believe that he will have to face his evil actions and pay the price of an eye for an eye at some point, whether here on earth, or in the final Judgment in the hereafter.  It’s said we are to forgive those who have trespassed against us, but that doesn’t say we must forget.  Forgiveness doesn’t erase the pain of loss perpetrated by another human being’s evil intentions that ultimately leads to their evil actions, it merely means that through forgiveness we can let go of the anger and go on with life, albeit with a hollow spot where evil has left a painful vacancy that can’t be filled.