JOHN JOUBERT
Bibi Haniff • Bryan Payne
John Joubert
Biography
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Joubert’s parents divorced when John was six years
old
Joubert went to live with his mother in Lawrence,
Massachusetts
Joubert was not allowed to visit his father and grew
to hate his controlling mother.
Biography
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His mother moved him to Portland, Maine in 1974.
When Joubert was 13, he stabbed a young girl
with a pencil and felt sexually stimulated when she
cried in pain.
The next day, he took a razor blade and slashed
another girl as he biked past her.
In another incident, he beat and nearly strangled
another boy. He relished the power of bullying, and
began to stab or slash others.
History of Murders
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Three victims were known to have been murdered
by John Joubert
 Danny
Joe Eberle
 Ricky Stetson
 Christopher Walden
Ricky Stetson
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Went missing from Portland, Maine on August 22,
1982
11 Years old
Body found the next day on the side of I-295
Clues from the body
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The attacker appeared to have attempted to
undress him.
Attacker appeared to have stabbed and strangled
him
Bite mark found on the body of Ricky Stetson
Suspect arrested and held for a year and a half,
released when they finally realized his teeth did not
match the bite marks on Stetson
Teeth Marks and Star Pattern
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Joubert bit his victims and tried to
disguise the teeth marks by carving a
star pattern above the marks
Analysis of teeth marks is done by:
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Taking accurate casts of the suspect’s
teeth
Excising the skin with the bite mark from
the victim (only of the victim is dead)
Observe for whorls, indentations, chips,
abrasions, striations, distances between
cuspids, tooth width and thickness,
alignment and mouth arch.
http://crime-scene-processing.suite101.com
Christopher Walden
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Disappeared on January 11th 1984 in Papillion,
Nebraska
3 miles from Eberle’s body
Witnesses saw white man in tan car
www.truetv.com
Clues from the body
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Walden’s body found stripped to his underwear
Throat cut so deep that Walden was nearly
decapitated
Walden’s body seemed to have been concealed
better than the previous
Evidence
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Two sets of footprints were found leading to
Christopher Walden’s body
One set of footprints lead away from Walden’s
body
No struggle was shown and this lead FBI to believe
that the killer was involved with Walden in some
way
 Struggle
would have showed dragged footprints in the
woods
 Clean footprints indicated no struggle
Footprints
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Joubert left footprints at the site where Christopher
Walden’s body was found
While footprints are circumstantial, they can tell a
lot about a person. For instance
 height,
sex, anatomic deformities, and if they were
walking, running, or carrying something.
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British Police are currently working on a system to
identify criminals by footprints
 Treadmark
Footprint Analyser
Footprints Cont’d
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Footprints are analyze by
 Using
special lighting such as oblique lighting to
identify footprint indentations if they are not clearly
visible
 Forensic scientists will then cast the print, the same way
they would cast the teeth to identify bite marks
 Once they have a comparative source they can look for
similarities to tie a suspect to a crime
Witness
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Unknown female witness was put under hypnosis to
help remember what she had seen
 Woman
saw a young man walking toward a tan sedan
prior to abduction
 Woman described the stranger as being of similar
build to the victim and wearing a woolen hat pulled
down
 Woman noticed the first couple of letters from license
plate
Danny Joe Eberle
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Delivering newspapers on Sunday,
September 18th 1983 in Bellevue
Nebraska
Brother had not seen him but
remembered being followed by a white
man in a tan car on previous days
Danny delivered 3 newspapers, at the
4th stop his bicycle and newspapers were
found, no apparent struggle
www.truetv.com
Clues from the body
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Body found 4 miles from the bicycle
Stripped down to his underwear
Feet and hands bound with rope and mouth taped
with surgical tape
Stabbed 9 times
FBI called in because of kidnapping
The Rope
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Was braided with several
colors not found in local stores
The rope found with the body
was made of several different
colored yarns and had an
unusual construction
Used comparative microscopy
to examine the rope
www.truetv.com
Worldwide search for rope
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Every manufacturer in the united states was checked
Government and military outlets abroad checked
FBI field conducted inquiries in the Far east where
much of the world’s rope is made
Every lead fizzled out
Hair
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Found Hair on Danny Joe’s body that seem to be
from a different source
Once they had a comparative source (hair from the
suspect) they could have analyzed the hair with:
 Light
Microscopy to analyze similarities and differences
in hair
 Compound Microscope
 Comparison microscope which allows observation of
two things in the same field
Hair Cont’d
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They could look for differences in:
 The
scale pattern of the cuticles
 The pigmentation of the cortex
 The medulla patterns
www. Komazacare.com
www.bfro.net
Individualizing evidence
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Rope used to bind Danny Joe seemed to offer the
best chance of a lead
The more unusual the rope, the more useful it is as
evidence
Rope used to bind Danny Joe was so unusual that no
one recognized it
Events leading to Capture
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On January 11, 1984 Barbara Weaver who ran a
Bellavue day-care center noticed a young man in a
car slowly cruising the street outside
She made note of the car’s license plate
The driver saw her do this and stopped, he
demanded that she give him the paper and when
she refused he threatened to kill her, then roared
off.
Within seconds she phoned the police.
Events leading to capture…Part 2
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Vehicle was traced to a local Chevrolet dealership,
they learned the car was on lease to an enlisted
airman at Offutt while his vehicle was being
repaired
His vehicle, a cream-colored sedan which matched
the first description exactly even down to the license
plate seen by the woman under hypnosis
FBI evidence tied Joubert to 2 murders
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In a duffel bag belonging to Joubert, officers found
a hunting knife and a length of rope.
FBI laboratory technicians compared the rope found
in Joubert’s quarters with that used to bind Danny
Joe Eberle
Teeth marks from Ricky Stetson’s body matched
Joubert’s teeth
Trials and Appeals
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After initially pleading not guilty, he changed his
plea to guilty
Joubert Confessed to killing the two Nebraska boys.
Several psychiatric evaluations were performed on
Joubert
One characterized him as having obsessivecompulsive disorder and sadistic tendencies, and
suffering from schizoid personality disorder.
Joubert filed a writ of habeas corpus to the United
States federal courts over the death sentences.
Sentencing
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The state of Nebraska appealed to the United
States District Court for the District of Nebraska,
which overturned the appeal
Joubert was executed on July 17, 1996 by the state
of Nebraska with the electric Chair.
Further Analysis
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This case was based on strong circumstantial
evidence
Had DNA been developed they…
 Could
have gotten DNA from the bite marks on the
victims and compared it definitively to the suspect.
 Could have done DNA analysis of the hairs found on
the body
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Since Joubert was an enlisted man samples of his
DNA would have been in army databases and
comparative DNA analysis might have saved some
of the victims.
References
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www.truetv.com
www.komazacare.com
http://crime-scene-processing.suite101.com
www.prlog.com
www.howstuffworks.com
Questions