Killer Grades

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

0:51 Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, welcome back to another episode of Unspeakable. It's Kelly Jennings here. How are you doing. I'm so glad that you're listening in. I have got a pretty good one for you today. Before I start, though, I want to give some shout outs to the people who have joined my Patreon. I'm so excited to have y'all. Miss Ronda Jag Now, I'm not sure what your last name is, miss Ronda, because all I could see was Ronda JG. But girl, I'm happy to have you, and welcome Victoria Jones. Hey girl, how are you? Miss Abby Campbell? So glad that y'all joined the team. Seriously I could not do this without the support of the people that joined. Patron members really are what helped to make the show go round.

1:34 Miss Roxy Comber, Hey, Roxy, what a cool name. I bet you had some fun with that one. Roxy, Catherine Ford and Ashley stone Burner. That's cool last name too, all right, So hey y'all, welcome, welcome, welcome, So thankful to have you. And make sure that y'all get on those of the Patreon page and check it out because I do do a blog there. I'm going to be sharing more content. I've got episodes that are not really east unless you're a patron member on there, so you're welcome to go check that out. So glad to have you. Now, I do want to let you know that my first day of the live that I'm doing July twenty eighth, it's sold out. There are no more tickets available, but we did open up a second date. There are limited tickets for this date, Saturday, July twenty ninth. It's going to be in Walker, Louisiana at the Southeastern Center. So if you are wanting tickets to that, go ahead and get them because once they're gone, they're gone. And like I said, we limited those tickets. It'll be an intimate situation. I'll get to talk to you, we'll take pictures.

2:35 It's going to be a good time. So you can look at my Facebook page and you can find a link there to buy the tickets. If you have any questions, always feel free to reach out. I'll answer you or email Jimothy and he will help you out there as well. Stay tuned though at the end of this episode, because I do have two more good announcements that I'm going to give y'all that may interest you. And in the spirit of summer kind of coming to a close the school you know, the school years coming about rather quickly for us teachers. This episode is going to be about a teacher and what happened to her. So it's gonna start out in Iowa. Some craft's been going down in Iowa. Huh. We have old boy murdering the co eds. And I don't know about you, but maybe it's because I'm a Southern girl and I don't get out much. But I didn't think Iowa was as crazy as I always been lately in the news.

3:30 And this is actually a newer episode, a newer crime. This was in twenty twenty one that this took place. So this isn't an old one matter of fact, you're gonna hear later on, it's not even been fully adjudicated through the end. It's that new. But it didn't make huge news. I didn't see this on art on television locally, and so it kind of interested me because it's about two sixteen year old boys. Their names were Jeremy good Ale and Willard Miller, and both were your average sixteen year old high school kids, all right. So they were in high school sophomores, and they both attended Fairfield High School. So just a little bit about Fairfield, so you'll know, it's a town of about ninety four hundred people in Jefferson County, and it's located about one hundred miles southeast of Des Moines, So it's, you know, I don't know that it's a huge town by any means, but you know, people know each other and it's it's not really a huge, busy type of town. And the boys, from all accounts were average students but seemingly carried a bit of frustration for their Spanish teacher.

4:36 Now I can appreciate this. The students, these boys, you know, they wanted good grades, and while maintaining an A in any class as were, you know, any class worth its salt at least is tough. These boys still had a gripe about their grades. And as a teacher myself, I can say, look, I'm glad they cared about their grades. Some kids don't, so I will give them that one inch of kudos. But the rest of this is going to go downhill. So you're gonna get the grade you earn. I think we all know that, right. If you're listening to this, hopefully you can agree you're gonna get the grade that you earn. You want a better grade? What do you need to do? Work harder? So in Spanish class? In other words, Willard estebah grow probando la class espanol. How'd I do? I tried to say Willard was failing Spanish class. So if I said something else, I'm sorry, but I tried. Okay, shout out, I tried to speak Spanish. But why work harder? Though? When you can just stamp your feet and get mad about it, right, it's so much easier. It's obviously the teacher's fault that Willard did not make an A in this class. Clearly it was not Willard's fault, so rather than study, the boys would choose another route to improve their grade. So who is this Spanish teacher wreaking havoc on these teen boys lives? Y'all need to know. Her name would be miss Graber.

6:04 So here's a little backstory about her so you can see what kind of tyrant they were dealing with. Her name was Nohema Graber and she was originally born in Mexico. Now she worked as a flight attendant after graduating from high school and being a driven and successful young woman. She is even touted as having become the first female commercial airline pilot in Mexico. That's cool to me. I'm scared of fly and I know I couldn't fly a plane. What a feat, right? This girl was going places literally and metaphorically. She would eventually fall in love with a man she met there and by the name of Paul Graber, and they would celebrate their marriage soon after, and they continue to live in Mexico City, but eventually they were looking for change and they decided to move to Paul's hometown of Fairfield, Iowa. And they settled into life there and in early nineteen nineties. There two sons were born.

7:01 Time went on, and then they would also welcome a baby girl a few years later. So Ever, the learner, Nohema, decided, you know what, I want to go back and I want to get me a degree, and she settled on getting a degree in English, and her degree would come from Iowa Westland University. And interestingly enough, she wasn't young per se. Whenever she got that degree, y'all, she finished it when she was in her fifties. This woman continued to learn. She was a go getter and she was educated. Her original plan was to teach English, but she learned through some research that there was a much higher demand for Spanish teachers, and so she would ultimately take a job as a Spanish teacher. And she taught at Ottamwa High School from two thousand and six to twenty twelve, and then she moved to Fairfield High School for the next nine years. So a little bit about this school. It's not a huge one. It consisted of a total of five hundred and twenty two students. I mean the school I teach at has thousands of students, So I'm comparing it to where I teach you know. But during her nine years at Fairfield High, the Graber marriage did suffer and ultimately the two would split and they finalize their divorce in twenty sixteen. But y'all, they are good people and they even remained close friends after their divorce. So this is not a mean woman. And she was a loving woman and she cared about people. There wasn't any hatred. They

8:33 simply had just grown apart and they needed a change. So in November of twenty twenty one, Miss Graber was now sixty six years old and she had plenty of experience behind her in the classroom. And if there's anything a professional teacher knows, it's that you have to reach them before you can teach them. It's a fact I can give you. Look, I can give you a personal example real quick. I had a boy in my own class last year. And we didn't have a bad relationship. Don't get it twisted. We just didn't really have a relationship at all. He came to class, he was quiet, he was respectful, well mannered, and y'all, he was a country yee yee. Okay, I'm talking about business in the front, party in the back. Curly hair thousand watts smile, and he wore his We call him ship kickers, but he wore his boots to class.

9:20 And he was just a country fella. And I wanted to up his motivation. But again, you can't teach him until you reach him. You've you've got to make a relationship with kids. And I made it my plan to try and engage him more. And I'll never forget his eyes light up when I mentioned turkey hunting. Now, truth be told, I only knew he was a turkey hunter because he had been naps in a few days and his buddy in class told me, nah, he ain't sick, Miss jenns, he's killing turkeys. And I was like, oh, okay, so he was turkey hunting. So when he returned to class a few days later, we were chit chatting and us and I had him teach me how a turkey call works. And from that day forward, y'all, he became my pal.

10:03 I looked forward to seeing this kid every day. He even started telling me up front, okay and even apologizing in advance when he was going to be absent for class because he had he had found the one he needed to shoot. Man, look at the Gobbler on that one, right, And I feel like from what I read about Miss Graber, she was that way. She wanted to not only teach the kids, but she wanted to love them and get to know them. Because once you can solidify a relationship with a student, teaching comes easily because there's a buy in. So, as I mentioned before, she remained friends with her ex husband and even commented to him that she was struggling to reach a kid in her class, and she mentioned him by name. So I'm telling you she was struggling with this guy.

10:50 That student's name was Willard Miller. Now a little bit about Willard. Willard had attended Maharishi School before transferring to Fairfield High School. And this school, based on my research, the Maharishi is a prep academy in Iowa, and the school I went and looked it up. The school describes itself as an innovative preschool through twelfth grade and it's a day school and boarding school, combining college preparatory academics and inner development. So I looked a little further. I'm like, inner development, Wow, what does that mean? So their website says students will find their inner peace and gain self knowledge. Okay, well, that sounds all like enlightening and ship, but Willard didn't stay there, and spoiler alert, I don't think they made their impact on him that way, per se. I digress, all right, So the circumstances as to why he left the school weren't clear, but either way, he found himself at Fairfield High School, which is more like a public school. Speed like, come to school, be decent, do your work, go home, boy, you know what I mean. So Willard was enrolled in Miss Graver's Spanish class, and like I said, she took notice of his dislike of her class. They just didn't mesh well. And y'all that happens.

12:11 Okay, not every personality is going to get along well. But she even mentioned at one point to her brother in law, Tom Graber that he would sit in class and stare at her. But it was not like a zoned out boredom stare that you get from teenagers. She literally called it an evil quote unquote malevolent stare. For it to have alarmed her enough to notice and even comment to a family member like this creeper level. It had to be noticeable in my humble fifteen years of experience I'm going to tell you that kids get attitudes all the damn time, and I promise you I am not bothered ninety nine percent of the time for her to notice this and say it was evil. He was catching her attention, so Tom, her brother in law, even said that she tried many ways to reach him and nothing ever worked.

13:00 She even reached out to his parents and met with them, and that didn't work. And she mentioned at one point she was literally baffled because she had never been completely unable to reach a student on some level before. It was like he was just simply mean and she just couldn't get to him. And it turns out, y'all, her intuition was spot on. So previously, before she taught Willard, she taught another boy, but he did good in her class. His name was Jeremy good Ale. He wasn't even on her radar as having beef with her. I mean, hell, she had already taught him. He hadn't been an issue. He passed the class, he was fine, and he had even moved on to other classes. She no longer taught him. He was not even a thought to her at this point of this case taking place, well as fate would have it. Jeremy and Willard became friends at school, and Willard started vocalizing that he was really angry about failing Miss Graber's class and then was really voicing his disdain for her, and these discussions that they would have quickly would turn deadly and with disastrous consequences. On the afternoon of November second, twenty twenty one, Willard asked to meet with Miss Graber at Fairfield High School because he wanted to discuss his grade, and being the teacher that she was, even though the bell had

14:31 rang and her day was over, she stayed behind and she said, yes, I'll talk to you Willard about your grade. And his main complaint was that her class was lowering his GPA, her class was messing up his high school transcript. And after their discussion, we don't know exactly what was said, but they had their discussion about the grade. If I'm guessing, she probably said, hey, man, won't you study more? If you need help, I can help you. We can work this out, but buddy, you got to put forth the effort. And after their discussion, the two would go their separate ways. But unbeknownst to Miss Graver, she had been marked as living prey. What she wasn't aware of that day or the week's prior was that she was being watched. She was being stalked by two predators who had a plan. How often are people stalked prior to their murder?

15:31 Do you all want to know that? Because I wanted to know that, right, So, good question. I'm glad you asked, because I have a study here, and this study suggests that stalking behavior has been identified in nine out of ten murders studied by criminologists as part of a research examining a link between those two crimes. Specifically, that's a lot. I'm sorry, what okay, never my unbooment I have it? I didn't think I had something. I'm sorry, I'm boom. We're never recording again after it's gonna be We're gonna be here before, still recording this episode because we're two.

16:15 Add No, we're gonna handle this. Yes, all right. The six month study by the University of Gloucestershire, it's a study from England. Okay, They found stalking was present in ninety four percent of the three hundred and fifty eight cases of criminal homicides that they looked at. And surveillance activity including covert watching, was recorded sixty three percent of the time. So sure, this is a single study, but the findings are over three hundred and fifty eight cases, and I find that to be a lot of cases. So stalking is there. You know what I'm saying this is it's just young kids doing it's crazy. So this case included this talking. Even creepier is that the stalking was done to learn miss Graver's daily habits. Now, call me crazy, but I think you could have applied much less study time to Spanish than the amount of stalking time that they actually invested, and he probably could have just passed the class. Okay, but you know, study time would also have less prison time than stalking. But that's not how it went.

17:30 Maybe we should start new hashtag, you know, like hashtag study don't stalk. I don't know, but either way, the boys chose to stalk rather than to study. They learned her daily habits and would put that knowledge to use. Now, I don't want to take away from the time Willard did spend on the computer concerning his Spanish class. Okay, because he did get on the computer and he was found to have done research on something to the effect of, quote unquote, what happens to a student's grade if the teacher goes missing or dies? Really? Wow, talk about a frigging dumbass.

18:15 What a coincidence? Right, Surely he did not look that up right before something was about to go down, right, Yeah, well he did. So there's that. So remember that meeting that Willard had with miss Greber after class. That was a total ploy. They already knew where she was going to be going next. See, Miss Graber would go for a walk after school every day at the Shattuqua Park and she was a creature of habit and the boys capitalized on this knowledge. According to the arrest warrants, before four pm on November second, twenty twenty one, Miss Graber left Fairfield High School in the afternoon and was traveling towards that Shattuqua Park. And this park is located just east of Meteapolis. And the park is a nice day park used that is sprawled over at ten acres and it's a peaceful place. It's got a variety of different tree species and some of them are really really old, and they adorned the property, so it's like a historic property. And you know. Simply put, it's a nice relaxing place to walk, and it's relatively safe unless you're being stalked. So around four or forty two, missus Graeber's car is seen leaving the Shadouqwall Park, so this would mean that you know, her walk lasted about forty five minutes. Strangely, though, missus Graeber never made it home, so when asking around, a witness did report to police seeing a male pushing a wheelbarrow towards the park at midnight on

19:49 November second. Rather odd What is a teenager doing with a wheelbarrow right at midnight in a park? So, as I'm sure you figured out by now, something sinister had happened to her. Luckily, though, there are people in this world with a conscience, and also luckily, teenagers are rather stupid and they're all knowing this. It never fails that teens seem to think that the relationships they make in high school will somehow be made of bonds that can never be broken. Right, Bro, we're gonna talk about this, but you can never share, right, And maybe that is true in some circumstances, but not this one. See, it turns out that the two boys felt it appropriate to basically brag on Snapchat what they had done. Can you freaking imagine Snapchat? That's your downfall? Because of course those chats disappear after they're opened, right everyone knows that, Yeah, sure, right, unless you actually read the fine print when you sign up fellas Oops, right, nothing one Snapchat is ever erased, even though you can't see it anymore.

21:06 It's in the cloud, it's stored on servers. It blows my mind that people are too stupid to realize this, and as such, the next day, on November third, a friend of good Ale and Willard went to the police and showed the police the Snapchat messages between them. So what did the chat say? Exactly? Well, according to police, they messaged each other about following miss Graver, how they killed her, what they did with her body, where they put it, as well as the fact that they had parked her vehicle, and then how they disposed and concealed of the evidence.

21:48 What idiots. I mean. I'm not trying to say get away with murder, but damn you that dumb being that miss Graver was missing in the students basically laid out a roadmap for police on their well planned attack. All the police had to do was just follow their leads, follow the snaps. So later on November third of twenty twenty one, officers just went and searched the park and ultimately, guess what they found. You got it missus Grayber's body. So what had they done to her to get even for the bad grades? Well, I guess what everyone would do. They bashed her head in with a baseball bat during a sneak attack, and they beat the shit out of her head until she was dead. A sixty six year old woman was attacked from behind and they beat her brains out. Then, in a show of total disregard, they took her body and they discarded it like trash.

23:00 She was found under a tarp, and just as the eyewitness had mentioned during their canvassing earlier of the area, a wheelbarrow was found on top of her, so they had used it to move her, dumped her, rolled her up, and left her there. After that, on November fourth, twenty twenty one, two days after miss Graeber's disappearance, the police also were able to execute a search warrant for the boys homes. Now, remember in the snapchat they literally said what they were doing so. Specifically, found in good Ale's home, they recovered clothing, strands of hair, which would make sense when you beat someone's brains out, bath towels, and not one, but two baseball bats. Even better, those pesky witnesses just kept coming forward.

23:57 Witnesses saw her and leaving the park less than an hour after it arrived. And guess who they said was in it? Two males in the front seat driving it. Bro you not only couldn't pass Spanish, you're an idiot when it comes to crime. The van was left at the end of a rural road, just like they stated in snapchat, and after getting a phone call from good Ale, another witness stated that he picked up good Allen Miller as they walked to town on that very same road. Like this is not even it's not even good. And I'm not trying to say a crime should be good, but I mean, damn like, could you have been any dumber?

24:42 I mean, the case is simply like just ridiculous. Its almost ridiculous how this case went. But you're willing to murder a teacher for a bad grade? Seriously, is that where we are? Is that where we are right now? And the fact that good Ale, if you remember, had passed her class. He had no dog in the fight. This is beyond insane. You had passed the class, you had moved on. What in the world is going on that a teen would agree with another angry teen over his grade that you're willing to throw your life away to beat that teacher who treated you well and you passed the class. I cannot even The boys would both ultimately be arrested and charged with her murder. Now, during questioning, it was obvious this wasn't a who done it. Miller Willard he told law enforcement that he provided a willbarrow from his residence. Well, that lines up, and then Goodell just admitted that Miss Graber was killed with a baseball bat.

25:45 I mean, this is I know sometimes on these podcasts it's like you want this really intriguing story. I mean, this is just like black and white, just crazy. But are you curious how often teen's murder? I just thought that might be kind of interesting to tell you. So here's a quick stat for you that I pulled from the Uniform crime report. Charged under the age of eighteen, this is going to be murder and non negligent manslaughter. There were a total and I believe that this stat is from twenty twenty one. Don't quote me on that it's within the last few years. There were a total of eight thousand, nine hundred and fifty seven teens under the age of eighteen charged with murder and non negligent manslaughter. Eight thousand, almost nine thousand teenagers in one year. Now, who'll be killing if you want to know? White kids three thousand, nine hundred and fifty three arrested, African American kids four thousand, seven hundred and seventy eight kids arrested, Alaskan Natives, one hundred and five Asians, ninety four Pacific's twenty seven black and white kids. They're the ones that are being arrested the most for murder and non negligent manslaughter under the age of eighteen. Jesus so this case would eventually head to trial and something odd about it. This irritated me. Okay Willard's

27:21 parents maintained that they were completely unaware of his arrest at first, and they knew nothing about his connection to the murder, and that they maintained that until it just became captain obvious that their son was the guy. It also became very obvious that there was some major coddling happening to this team. I almost, in a sense understand why he would even think he could get away with it and do this, and why would even cross his mind, y'all. Willard's mom told the media that she didn't give her permission to interview Willard, and the police did it anyway, Stamps foot Heller. The police don't need your permission to question your child, ma'am. In a murderer, he has the right to an advocate for him, right if he's a miner while he's being questioned. But permission isn't something needed, booboo. If that was the case, the parents wouldn't Every parent would just say no if their kids were suspected in a case that required questioning. I mean, give me a damn break, lady. Maybe mom needs to enroll in that Enlightenment school herself, you know, and wake the fuck up. So Jeremy Goodell and Willard Miller are now currently both eighteen, and they did both ultimately admit to participating in the brutal beating of Nohema Graver. Now this is where that teen friendship that was rock solid took a hard left because they both now maintained something different happened.

28:52 Shocker right. Willard maintains that he just acted as a lookout and it was good old good Al who carried out the killing. Sure, buddy, your coward ass can't even pass, you know, past Spanish one. Cool, but another kid's gonna go do the beating. Well that's interesting. Why were there two bats? You're just the lookout. Give me a break. So they both played guilty, But unfortunately for them, maybe they should have spent less time planning murder and more time in like a law studies class, because they both ended up being tried as adults. Why, Kelly, their kids, They're only sixteen. You want to know why? Well, while they were both sixteen at the time of the killing. In Iowa law, anyone sixteen or older who is charged with a forcible felony aka murder is automatically waived directly to adult court. Loopsie, they kind of missed that, huh.

29:52 And so this means that they're subject to the same criminal procedures and penalties as adults. Now look the entitlement and stop with murdering over a bad grade either. Amazingly, you're not gonna leave this Amazingly, both teens attorneys made an argument to the courts that the hearings should be kept private from the public. Why I mean, first of all, they didn't keep it private. They snapped about it. Was it because miss poor grab was subject to such brutality, you know? Was it because Miss Graber was dumped like a piece of trash and they wanted to spare her family the unnecessary details? No, of course not. The entitlement here was that their defense lawyers argued the hearing should be kept private to quote unquote preserve their clients reputations. What are you kidding me? Your reputations kind of shot the hell, don't you think anyway?

31:06 The judge was like, nah, I'm good fam, it's staying open to the public. Sorry, boys, everyone's gonna know what you did. Goodell, who you know, was Miller's classmate and did the crime with him. He pled guilty in the murder, but he then took a deal and was prepared to testify against Miller. And under this plea deal, prosecutors would call for a twenty five year mandatory minimum. And just real quick, a mandatory minimum means they're not getting out before that date. When it was all said and done, though the judge his name was Honorable Seawan Showers. He ultimately ordered Miller to serve life in prison with a minimum term of thirty five years before parole. So, Jesse, you understand that doesn't mean that he's gonna get parolled out early necessarily. It just means that after he serves a mandatory thirty five years, it becomes an option that he could go up for parole. Willard Miller received his sentence on July fifth, and Jeremy Goodall will receive his sentence at a separate hearing that is at the time of this recording plan for August twenty third, twenty twenty three. So stay tuned if you're watching the news, because you'll get to see what he is sentence to.

32:23 This whole case ultimately is just ridiculous. You know, teachers don't get paid enough as it is to put up with the crap that we put up with, and then we have to deal with being murdered over a bad grade. I mean, that's just adding insult to injury. Miss Graber was a nice lady. She was working, y'all, she was doing her part. She was a teacher. I even found a video where she had been touted by students on Teacher of the Year nominations. She was loved and her death was an absolute loss to that community. Miss Graber was quoted by the Southeast Iowa Union newspaper just days before her death for an article about the Day of the Dead holiday, and Graber said she and her family celebrated the holiday for its religious meaning, but she also added, We're all gonna die. It's just our way of laughing at death. Kind of ironic, idn't that she would die just a few days later. So I'm going to stand on this, and I'm gonna stand firmly on this. Teachers are nice people. We do get tired of the bs. I mean, hell, students are now killing us. Hello. Things have gotten a little different, And it's stories like this that make me want to be mean. But I like to think that I'm only mean to people who deserve it. Kind of like a vigilant bitch, a bitch of lante if you will, all right, So I told

33:58 y'all there, we're gonna be a couple of announcements the end. So just hang with me for just one second. If you don't mind, please go vote for me and my podcast. Remember the Podcast Awards are coming up, and if you don't vote, you know, I can't have the show win, and I want to win. I'm competitive. I'm competitive, all right. So you just go to Podcast Awards dot com. It's super simple. All you needs an email, takes literally less than five minutes to vote, and then make sure after you vote, you will receive an email that says verify your email, verify it. All you gotta do is click a button. That's it, y'all. Five minutes and it can make a difference. The categories you can vote for my name Kelly Jennings for Influencer, you'll type that in. And I'm also in the true crime category and the Adam Curry People's Choice Awards, so I'd be so honored, thank you so much.

34:42 But another thing, y'all, I got my pods to say too. Please in the history category, Bloody Angola, y'all. My boys are in that. Okay, that's that's Woodie and Gem and they do a phenomenal job. I'm a total fan of them, so please vote for them in that history category. And then Coffee and Crime. They're in the Best Female category and they've been super kind to my show. If you want to give them a vote too, hey why not? So go vote? It means a lot to me, Thank you so much. If you want to become a patron again, you can always go to Unspeakable the podcast dot com and you'll see become a patron as one of the tabs. Lastly, but certainly not least, I have two more book giveaways by Jodi Ploche himself. He assigned one of them, and then one of them is an audiobook. There will be specific posts on Facebook that say share this one. Please share the one I ask you to share, and make sure you share it public. If you don't have it public, in the setting when you share it, your name doesn't show up, so it would say, hey, there was you know, one hundred and fifty shares, but it might only show seven people because if you share it privately, it doesn't show up on my end. So please make sure that it's public. And I appreciate everything that you do for this show. I'm working hard for you. The live is going to be so badass. And until next time, thank y'all so much. Have a great week.