Two Iowa teenagers have pleaded guilty after they were accused of killing their Spanish teacher after she gave one of them a bad grade.
Willard Miller, 17, and Jeremy Goodale, 18, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to the first-degree murder of Fairfield High School teacher Nohema Graber, 66, back in November 2021, The New York Post reported. At the time of the murder, both teens were 16.
Goodale reportedly testified that Miller had initiated the plan to kill Graber and they both attacked her with a baseball bat.
“On Nov. 2 of 2021, I met Willard Miller at Chautauqua Park, and I understood that he had intent to kill Mrs. Graber,” Goodale said when pleading guilty.
He added that Miller “brought a bat among other supplies to go through with the murder.”
“After he had struck Nohema Graber, he then moved her off of the trail where I then struck her and she died as a result,” Goodale added, according to the Post. “Afterwards, we removed any evidence that we could.”
Prosecutors alleged that Miller and Goodale followed Graber to a park where she was known to take daily walks after school and killed her, the Post previously reported.
Earlier that same day, Miller had met with Graber to discuss the low grade she had given him, court documents reviewed by the Post show.
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“The poor grade is believed to be the motive behind the murder of Graber which directly connects Miller,” said the court documents, which were filed by Jefferson County Attorney Chauncey Moulding and Assistant Iowa Attorney General Scott Brown.
The next day, Graber’s body was found hidden under a tarp, wheelbarrow, and railroad ties in the park where she had been walking.
Witnesses reportedly told police they saw two males driving Graber’s van away from the park less than an hour after she had arrived for her daily walk. The vehicle was later found abandoned on a rural road. A witness said they picked Miller and Goodale up from that same road, according to court documents.
Miller allegedly told police he was angry about the low grade Graber had given him, which was dragging down his grade point average. The teenager denied killing Graber but “later stated he had knowledge of everything but did not participate,” claiming a “roving group of masked kids” killed his teacher and forced him to hide the body, court documents said.
Meanwhile, Goodale was allegedly bragging about the murder over Snapchat. Police were given photos of a Snapchat conversation where Goodale allegedly indicated he and Miller were involved in Graber’s murder.
Christine Branstad, an attorney for Miller, reportedly claimed in the documents that the search warrants were issued illegally, claiming “law enforcement failed to provide information to the issuing magistrate to show the informant is reliable or that the information from the informant should be considered reliable.”
The teens were scheduled to be tried this year as adults, CBS News reported. The teens faced life in prison if they had been convicted.
Graber’s family released a statement after her death describing their loss.
“To know Nohema was to love her — she was the kind of person every community longs to have in its midst and we were blessed to have her in our lives,” the family said, according to CBS. “She lived for her children, her family and her faith. Her next priorities were her job as an educator and the children she taught, her local Parish, and the Spanish-speaking community in Fairfield.”