Small Town Murder - Murder Mystery On Wheels - Clarks, Nebraska

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

This week, in Clarks, Nebraska, a tough divorce leads to a suspected love triangle that the police think caused a brutal murder. They even make arrests. But then everything changes. Maybe this wasn't a love triangle, turned deadly, after all. Maybe the dead man made fun of a coworker for clogging a toilet, among other small mistakes. Maybe this was an angry man, taking his revenge. Or, was it that love triangle??   Along the way, we find out that too many beans in one day may cause some problems, that murders are harder to solve, when everybody in town seeming drives the same kind of vehicle, and that the next time someone clogs the work toilet, maybe you shouldn't add to their shame!   New episodes, every Wednesday & Friday nights!! Donate at patreon.com/crimeinsports or at paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder, Crime In Sports & Your Stupid Opinions!   Follow us on... instagram.com/smalltownmurder facebook.com/smalltownpod   Also, check out James & Jimmie's other shows, Crime In Sports & Your Stupid Opinions on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!!

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yeah, and Choochoo! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigal. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another absolutely insane edition of Small Town Murder Express all aboard the murder train, pulling away from the station.

Here it goes. It's a wild one today, and it's twisty, and it's crazy, and unexpected, and all sorts of weird stuff going on. So we're going to get right into that. Before we do, though, head over to shut up and give me murder.com. Get your tickets for live shows, everybody. The whole slate is for sale, starting out with February 21st, Nashville. What? Come on out, Nashville.

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William Tank Black, who was a coach turned agent and turned criminal. Master P is involved in this. It's a lot. And then for small town murder, we're going to talk about that perfect neighbor documentary that everyone's been asking us to do. Netflix really ran it out of the park with that one. That's a crazy one. There's all sorts of supplemental stuff on YouTube to watch and pick up on.

So it's a good one. So we'll get into all of that and more. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. And in addition to all of that, you get every show we put out, crime in sports, your stupid opinions, and small-town murder, all ad-free with your Patreon. Add-free. Are you out of your mind, James? You know what? We're crazy enough to do it.

We're giving it away, everybody. And then in addition to that, you also get a shout-out at the end of the regular show. So that said, I think it's time, everybody. What do you say? It's time. I think it's time to clear the lungs. Let me say here. Arms to the sky.

Let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Let's go on a trip, shall we? We got to go here to Nebraska this week. Yeah. It's Nebraska time. If you've been feeling like things are a little too.

A little too active, a little too crazy, get yourself to Nebraska. That'll calm you right down, trust me. Right down.

This is Clark's Nebraska. Oh. This is really out there, man. This is, I mean, Nebraska is... Like the most boring

clothes on the planet, right? Clarks. Yeah. And that shoes or something? Clarks, yeah. Those, boring shoes.

Yeah, the ones of the Wu-Tang Clan used to talk about color and different color. Ghost-face Gila, obsessed with Clarks. Really? Obsessed,

all you ever talks about. It's because they're sensible, James. They're sensible. It's all it is. And you could dye them different colors. He's very excited about that. If you listen to the Ghostface album, you had a whole inner song thing about it. This is in eastern central Nebraska.

Nebraska is like there's Lincoln, there's Omaha. Yeah. And that's Nebraska. A lot of fields outside of that. This is about an hour and five minutes to Lincoln. So, I mean, you could commute there if you really wanted to. Right. An hour.

Was that where the, the, the, what's the word? I have no idea. The shot thing that the Deadwood was looking for. Was it in Nebraska or was in Kansas? They were going to Montana, I believe, because Yankton, isn't Yankton? Yankton, yeah. Yankton's in South Dakota now, but at the time it was in Montana territory or whatever the hell it was. So that's where they were going, though.

Oh, and Cheyenne also. They got the vaccine in Cheyenne. They got the vaccine in the mountains, yeah. That's it. It's about an hour 50 to Omaha, about an hour 22, Utah, which is our last Nebraska episode, episode 622 and exactly 50 episodes. Look at that. Covering your murder tracks was that one.

That was the one with the woman found in, wrapped in barbed wire and on fire when they found her. Right. She was currently on fire. This is in Merrick County. Area code 308 population here, 333. Wow. People. That's it.

People. Yeah. A lot more live. stock, I'm sure. 333. And all the towns around here are like 400 people, 300 people. This is the middle of fucking nowhere. It's all the only way to put it. Median household income here, $51,094, which is about $18,000 below the national average. You figure it'd be cheap out here, though. Median home cost here is below the national average $260,800. So not too bad. National average 320 or 280? It's like 331 or something. 338, I think. A little bit of history in this town.

Clark's was platted in 1866. Yeah. When the Union Pacific Railroad was extended there. That's when they said, well, we might as well have, it's all of these middle of nowhere places. It's always a railroad. It's named for Silas Henry Clark, who was, you know, maybe he. Founder of the Shoes. No, yeah, that's right.

Absolutely. He's actually the superintendent of the Union Pacific Railroad. There it is. It's always somebody that worked for, a break man. Yeah. The guy who decided a stop should go here. Yeah. That's who gets the town named after him.

The guy who had to be the worst right now. That's it. Now, there is no reviews of this town of any sort. It does not exist. They're keeping it secret, babe. No, I did find a couple of people from here. Number one, Evan Williams, who is the co-founder of Twitter, is from here. Yeah.

He's born here. Viz Stone's pal. Arnold Ulrich. Or Ulrich, who is a football player. They call him Itch. Itch Ulrich. He's born in 1905, and he played football. He played for Nebraska and played in the NFL for the Frankfurt Yellow Jackets in 1928.

It's been a minute. It's been a while. Frankfurt went out of business, I believe, in 1933. But interesting factoid, in lieu of reviews here. Sure. Sahara Desert Fart Fact of the Week, that no. No one cares about, I'm sure, unless you're a sports fan and then you care. Like, where are they now?

Let's see. October 26, 1931, the Yellow Jackets defeated the Chicago Bears 1312 at Wrigley Field. Wow. Now, that was, Frankfurt was a Philadelphia-based team. This is pre-Eagles. So this is, that game marked the last time a Philadelphia-based NFL team would win a road game against the Bears until 1999. Wow. The Eagles didn't go to Chicago and win until 1999.

Isn't that crazy? In the 20s or the 30s? 1931. Wow. 68 years. That's crazy. Things to do here. Oh, here it is, everybody.

Bean Day's celebration. Oh, get your beans and come into town. Do we know what kind? Oh, yeah. Join the Clark's business people in celebrating Bean Day. Yeah. That's about right for this town. A parade, lots of vendors' activities, ham and bean feed.

Feed. I don't eat feed. Don't call it feed. Don't call anything I'm going to ingest feed. That is, no, it sounds industrial and for animals in a barn. It sounds like there's a schedule. Then there's a street dance, and then to close out the evening, a big fartathon. Just everybody's going to let loose because it's going to be gassy in this town.

The Dutch oven contest. Come on, ladies. Get under them covers. See who can make your wife throw up. See who can make their wife actually leave the bed. This is great from their website. Clark's is full of beans and small town dreams. I wish I could name this episode, Beans and Small Town Dreams.

The annual Bean Day selection scheduled to run throughout the day on Saturday promises to be a gas. You know that's on purpose. Why'd they do that? Come on. Why do you do that? The rib cookoff kicks off the day at the water tower at 8 a.m. For the price of a $100 entry fee, contestants will have ribs. That's for the competition.

We'll have ribs provided, which they can prepare in the means of their choosing. And then the oddest extra thing that they stick on this, a bean day sand volleyball tournament. Okay. When I think of rural Nebraska, I think of beach volleyball, obviously. Okay. Okay, that said, let's talk about some murders. There's a lot here. And so that's why we kind of cut the town stuff a little bit short.

And there's really not that much info on this. It's nothing to talk about. All right. Let's start out here. Go back in time. Let's get in our time machine, Jimmy. Here we go. Things are swirling.

Flip it. Yeah. We got, you know, clocks are flying by. We're doing this over. Yeah. Things are being. We're floating. Unvented.

Oh, geez. Well, there went penicillin. Shit. All right. Well, there's that. Okay. Oh, shit. there's horses now. This is weird. Let's talk about 1994. Okay. That's where we're going to start.

And in 1994, let's talk about a couple who has just broken up. Oh. All right. This is Charles Chuck Johnson. Yeah. Old Chuckster. And Amy. Lost the lady of his dreams. That's right. And Amy Johnson, his wife. I've been together a few years, but they just got divorced in 1994. And I believe it was Amy's choice to get the divorce because. Happens to the best of us. Well, it happens. We've all been divorced. Not all of us, but me and you anyway. Be all of us in this room. 50% of this world, right? Yeah, that's right. I think more now. I think it's up. But Chuck is not real happy with this arrangement. He doesn't, he's trying to win her back. Oh, go get her, Chuck. The paperwork

has been done. She has been signed. A judge has ruled and they're still trying to, he's trying to make it work. She, on the other hand, has moved on and started dating somebody else. Oh. Which of course, Chuck isn't very happy about, as you might imagine. Yeah, you can't really win her back then, man. Well, yeah, once she's moved on, she's moved on, you know. Yeah. She's dating a 31-year-old man named Jerry Carlson. Is he younger than her?

No, they're about the same age. Oh, okay. The same age. Now, he lives in Clark's, and, you know, he's like your typical, like, kind of Clark's guy, I guess, should say. He works at Watts Electric. He loves beans. Big bean guy. gaseous man in town.

Yeah. Works at Watts Electric and basically likes to like fix engines and like works on cars and shit like that. Man after my own heart, Jackson. Yeah, I mean, that's fine. He sits around. He hangs out at the bars. Sure. And works on cars and he dated Amy Johnson.

Mm-hmm. So they're hanging out. They're dating. Charles is trying to reconcile with him. Jerry, by the way, is described as someone. Multiple people said this who, quote, likes to tease people. Okay. a ballbreaker, I think.

He's a fucking asshole sometimes. Sometimes. Or maybe he's funny. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Are they clever? Is it good? That's the thing.

Yeah. Because that was currency with me growing up. My friends, how well you can tease and be teased is part of everything. In a garage when you're working on cars, if you're just... It's not where he works. He just tinkers. I know. Yeah, yeah.

That's what I'm saying. If you're working on a car, you're just ripping on anybody that's around. It's a party. It's fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think he mainly tinkers like in his garage. He works at the electric company. Yeah, he's just an electric guy. So April 15th, 1954, or 1954, 1994, what I say 54? Jerry hangs out with his buddy this day. His guy named Frank Cuba, CUBA, Cuba. They work on a golf cart at Cuba's auto body shop.

I guess he's got his own repair shop. Yeah. And he says, you know, why not? Jerry comes over to help him out a little bit. Help him put together a golf cart. I'm sure breaks his balls a little here and there. Yeah. They have some fun.

They're drinking beer the whole time. Hell yeah. Everybody in this story is shit-faced all the time, by the way. Everybody. When you hear, it's crazy. Okay. So sometime after 10.30, but before 11-10, somewhere in that region, they're walking down the street, Jerry and Frank. Okay?

They leave the shop. They're walking down the street. Or they go from somewhere else to the shop. I don't know if they went to get, buy something, go to the store or whatever. A van swerves at them as they're walking down the street, almost hits them. Like they had to jump out of the way, basically, of this van. So 1130-ish, Jerry Carlson leaves the auto body shop in his Chevy pickup. Jerry driving away in the Chevy.

He turns west on Highway 30 toward Clark's because that's where he lives. Now, 1.15 a.m.ish around there. Yeah. So this is April 16th, we're past midnight. There's a man named Tom Branting, and he'll come up quite a bit here. He stops at the residence of John Wyrick, who is the village marshal for Clark's. And he tells us John Wyrick that there's a vehicle, it might be Jerry Carlson's. This is such a small town.

If you see a car, you're pretty sure whose it is, which is a Chevy truck, you know what he drives. Which is wild, because half the people in this town of a Chevy truck will also find out. This one's particular. Particular. Well, yeah, in the dark across the field. He's like, I think it might be Jerry's. Probably Jerry's. Probably Jerry's. That's what happened. This is, he said, it's about two miles east of Clark's in a ditch adjacent to Highway 30.

Okay. So then the marshal contacted the sheriff's department, and the marshal went and met the chief deputy old Dick Miller at the scene here. So the police arrive and they discover there is a pickup with its headlights on an engine running. Oh, in the ditch? It's, yeah, it's about 20 to 50 yards south of Highway 30 resting on a tree in a ditch containing a foot of water. So it's just sitting in the water. Oh, the tree stopped it. Yeah, it's obviously probably still in drive, I would think.

So they get there. They discover all this. Now, inside the truck, that's the interesting part. They find Jerry Carlson. So it is Jerry's in there. He is in there. He's seen better days. Jerry is very dead.

Oh, no. Very dead. He slumped over the passenger seat. from the driver's seat over the median console, covered in blood. There's a wound in his back just underneath the left shoulder blade. Oh? So perfect spot to blow your heart up if someone shot you there. And later on, the doctor would say the bullet caused a multiplicity of wounds,

including the ribs, lungs, and tip of the heart. So just tore him apart this thing. From the front or from the back? From the back under his left shoulder blade. Wow. And so they said it caused rapid. bleeding and they said a lot more than just leaking. He would have bled out pretty fast for this. Right now. Yeah. A lot of this. Now, the rear driver's side window on the extended portion of the cab was, bro, he's got him, got me an extended cab, was broken out by a single bullet from what they discover will be a high powered rifle that pierced through the driver's seat, entered his back and penetrated his chest and did all that damage. Wow. That's through a seat. So I mean, this is- Through the window, through the seat.

through the body. This is a powerful bullet coming at him here. So that's that. Now, they recover the body. They take it for autopsy. And they said that after being shot, he would have been able to function. One doctor says for up to four to seven minutes and possibly could have driven his vehicle along a straight highway during that period of time.

Four to seven minutes? Yeah, they say he could be four to seven minutes away from where he was shot. We don't know. That's his guess. So he could have been trying to go get help or get home or whatever it is. But they're trying to figure out where he was shot, basically. Did he die right away, go right off the road? Or did he have a little bit of time?

Somewhere between this stump and four and seven minutes ago. That's it. Yeah, anywhere in there in the road that you can deal. Depending on how much blood he had, not sure. And depending on how fast he was going. That's the other thing, too. There's a lot of factors of math here. Obviously, everyone is the same amount of blood.

But still. Now, the weapon, they figure out that he was killed with, is a, 6.5 millimeter Carcano rifle, which is, if you know anything about this, this is like a call of duty gun that you get. Is that a Creedmoor? It's a, it's a bolt action. It's the same type of rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald used to kill kenneth. Oh, okay. Same millimeter and all that same shot there.

It's manufactured in Italy, the Carcano. It's an Italian military bolt action rifle, fires a six and a half by 52 millimeter round. So they call it a 264 caliber, I guess. Oh, okay. They were made at the Royal Arms Factory in Italy, stamped with the Royal Crown and the Turney, which is the town it's made in. They're turning marking. By 1994, these are not common guns. Yeah.

They have not been made in a long time. Ammunition wasn't even manufactured in the United States for these guns. Wow. Yeah, you had to buy it from like a pawn shop or some specialty catalog or surplus military supply stores. places like that. One of those, what was that magazine? Oh,

that soldier or whatever? Yeah, God damn it. What was that soldier? Soldier of fortune? Soldier of fortune. Is that what it is? Is that what it is? Yeah.

That one guy was doing ads in. So yeah, this, you can't just walk in a Walmart and say, give me a couple of boxes of these. So there's a ballistics expert that says that he used the national archives and a new optical device to positively verify this as a Carcano. He said the rifle was made in Italy. in 1941 for use of the Italian military obviously.

So that means they have the slug. Yeah, yeah, when it stayed in them. It went through the seat, stayed in and tore them apart. Okay. So the slug, though, they, they, it was a hard to decipher because it went through the seat and threw him, hit a rib. And that messes a slug all up. Now, one of the first people they interview the police that they're trying to figure

out what the hell happened here is a woman named Rhonda Braun. Yeah. Okay. Now, Braun basically said that she gives her kind of what happened here. She was saying that she, weird thing is she has a couple of interviews and makes different statements during these interviews. Oh, which is interesting. She was with Tom Branting, when Tom Branting had gone off to talk to the sheriff or whatever, the marshal there. So there's a, in the police report of her second interview, they state that Rhonda Braun told the police that she was following Branting and Charles and Chuck Johnson.

And they were headed westbound toward Clark in Chuck Johnson's pickup. And she was following behind in a blue ozone bill. Oh. She said, she then saw Mr. Johnson's vehicle swerve into the eastbound lane and another set of taillights appeared. She said that Mr. Johnson's vehicle then went around the second vehicle. Oh, passing it. Then the second vehicle swerved and the lights disappeared. She was then behind Mr. Johnson's vehicle again.

She then came across a vehicle in a field on the south side of the highway with its lights on. And so that's what she said. She goes, so we just saw it as we passed by. Okay. Now, this is from the policeman's notes here, the detective. He said, I then asked her if she was in love with Mr. Johnson. Ms. Braun began to cry and stated yes. Okay.

The crying is a dead giveaway that something's going on here. You know what I mean? Like, are you crying about? And why did you jump to that question? That's an interesting question, right? To see if she's covering for him. Oh, okay. How much do you like this guy?

Are you in love with him? Are you willing to lie to a detective about a murder over this? Is that how much you love him? Yeah. So I then asked her if that was why she did not tell me the truth the first time I talked to her. and she stated yes. I then asked if she was willing to tell me everything now, and she said, yes, I'll take a lie detector test if you want.

I then asked if she would be willing to take a polygraph if I would set it up. She stated yes. I then asked her, why didn't you tell me the truth the first time about where you were in the positioning? Because the first time she gave some, oh, we didn't see anything and all that. And then she gave the truth. She stated that she, quote, didn't want to get Mr. Johnson in trouble. Right. All right.

Now we're getting somewhere. She said that she had dated Johnson and that her relationship with him was on and off. She said, quote, he's still liked Amy. So she's upset that she's in love with this guy. But he's in love to somebody else. We got ourselves a love triangle. That's what we got, which can lead to murder. You never know.

So where were Chuck Johnson and Tom Branting that night? That's the question. Where are these two? All right. At about 8.5th, the guy who found the body and the guy who has the motive here. All right. At about 8. 7 p.m., Branting and Johnson. and went together to the cozy bar with a K in Silver Creek,

which is nearby and also has 300 people in it. According to Branting and Johnson, this is what they did. They left the bar at about 11 p.m. And drove west to Clarks, the town we're talking about, in Johnson's Chevy pickup. Okay. He's got one too? Everyone's good.

So I mean everyone's got a Chevy pickup in this town. So I said that earlier. You're going to see, it's not, you wouldn't see a Chevy pickup and go, must be Jerry. You go, must be half the town. It's a great damn truck, James. It's a fine truck, yeah, especially 94, the square body ones. Oh, yeah, square headlights, fun truck.

Those are good shit there. So Branting noticed a car following them that he believed to be Rhonda Bronze, whom Johnson had been dating. They got to Clark's and they said, oh, yes, it was Bronze Blue Osnobiles behind them because they all pulled into the same place. Sure. At approximately 1110 or 1112 p.m. but not 1111.11. Yeah. Not that one. Chuck dropped Branting off at Branting's home in Clarks where he lived with his sister and his nephew Trent.

Sure. Then with Braun driving, Branting got into her car. So Johnson dropped Branting off. Then Branting got into Braun's car. And they followed Johnson out to the house of Amy Johnson. Oh, boy. Who is Chuck's ex-wife, which is three miles northeast of Clark's. according to Chuck when he arrived at the house of Amy Johnson, where he was trying to reconcile,

he said that was he wanted to talk to her and get with her or whatever. It's 1145 and he's coming from the bar, so you know what he wants. Just to apologize. That's right. He's just looking for some emotional support. I want to do it again. I don't know that my apology was right last time. Amy Johnson said that her clocks at 1145 p.m.

and her clocks are 15 minutes fast. She sets them 15 minutes fast. Now, Amy said that when Chuck arrived at her house, the clock showed about 12 to midnight, but she said her clocks are five to 10 minutes fast, and Chuck had said they were 15 minutes fast. Why does everybody do that? Anyway, when they were talking about what they observed, Branting told that Marshall Warwick, or Wurick, only the whereabouts of the vehicle and that it possibly belonged to Carlson. He didn't report that he had gone down to the pickup or seen a body or anything like that. He saw a pickup up a field. Just saw the truck, yeah.

Braun then took Branting home, where he encountered his nephew Trent, who noticed that Branting was wearing penny loafers or some kind of dress shoes and not boots like he normally wears. Oh. So we thought that was odd. And all, by the way, the procedure in this house is you go in through the garage, take your shoes off, leave him in the garage and go in the house. It's a pretty good plan.

He comes in with penny loafers on. Yeah. Now, what actually happened, though, is much different because Rhonda spills the beans. Oh, in this town, that's not good to do. They're all over the pool. That is good to do. That's how you have bean day. Everybody picks them up.

It's bean pickup time, everybody. It's a blast for me to spill them. Everybody pick up your beans. They throw them, they go, one, two, three, everybody pick up beans. And everybody just runs and scrambles. Whoever has the most beans at the end of the day gets to start off the square dance at the end of the night. And also shit their pants. And also, well, everyone's going to shit their pants.

So, Branting had ridden with Braun back to Clarks. They then drove through Clarks, went to Polk for beer and cigarettes, another small town, then went back to Silver Creek, then headed back west to Clarks, which makes no sense. Approximately three miles east of Clarks, they noticed a vehicle off the road. Branting, wearing boots at the time. Oh. by the way. At the time he got home, the boots are gone,

waded down to the vehicle in ankle-deep water to see. He said he didn't, but he went down there and he saw it was Jerry's pickup. He looked inside and saw blood and saw Jerry not moving in there. Then went back to Ronda's car.

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Nobody's stories match up. This guy's not saying he saw the body, and then his girlfriend or his, you know, friend says he saw the body, like this is strange. They have some witnesses too that make it even weirder. Okay. Joan So, C.K. Joan Sock lived two miles west of Silver Creek

on the south side of Highway 30, where the car went off. Sack was later on will be called as a witness for all this because she heard what sounded like a gunshot somewhere to the east

of her house on the night of April 15th. She said she didn't know exactly what time it was but that she laid down on her sofa at about 1110 and sometime after that she heard the sound.

Yeah. So that's what we know. But it depends on how faster clocks are. That's the other thing. Five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

We don't know. We don't know being time in this town, how it works. So she, So she said after she heard the sound, she waited a couple minutes and then looked out her window facing Highway 30. She saw two sets of taillights approximately a half mile west of her house, both heading west. Yeah.

Two sets of taillights were close together, and she thought that one vehicle was about ready to pass the other. She couldn't identify the vehicles. She also observed a light-colored, smaller car behind the two sets of taillights, two trucks, and the... An Oldsmobile. So that would be two Chevy trucks, one belonging to Johnson, possibly one belonging to Jerry, and then the trailer car here. His bronze car. The Oldsmobile back in the bean position. So there's a second witness, Ken Dittmer later on, who said on the evening of April 15th, him and his wife and another couple were playing cards.

At about 1125, Dittmer and the mail from the other couple went into Clarks to get more beer. Why doesn't anybody plan their beer better in this town? Look, man, sometimes you just, it goes down faster tonight. Get more. Get two 12 packs. It's not going bad. You got a bunch of people coming over and have to. It'll be fine.

And later on, it'll come up to another guy going for beer. Everyone goes for beer at 1130 at night in this town, like it packed in the store. So he wasn't able to find an open establishment. Oh, damn. So then they left for Silver Creek. We're getting beer. I'll drive all over fucking Nebraska. Lincoln for beer. I don't give a fuck.

Those college kids got to have something over there. Traveling east on Highway 30 with his friend driving. Approximately halfway between Clarks and Silver Creek, Dittmer saw two westbound vehicles, which he identified as being both Chevy pickups. Yeah. Okay. He testified later on that these vehicles were moving fast

and traveling five to ten feet apart and were bumper to bumper. Oh. Sounds like a chase. Approximately two miles behind the Chevy pickups, also proceeding in the same direction was a little blue car in all those will be. So it's interesting. And like we said, we know what everybody's driving here. Yeah.

So April 25th, 1994, the cops have heard enough of these stories and they arrest both Chuck Johnson and Branting. Mm-hmm. They arrest them both on murder charges. Both of them. Both of them. They were both in the truck. Yeah. It is awesome that this whole town casually just admits to drinking and drive.

Oh, you have no fucking idea later. Wait till you hear this. There's a shitload of drinking and driving in this story. We haven't even hit the tip of drinking and driving yet. Wow. I'm telling you. Hold on a second here. So they are bound over to district court for jury trial.

They had preliminary hearings and all of this. So the problem is as they go through it, their evidence isn't quite lining up the way it should. They have these witnesses that all seem to say that there was two pickup trucks and a chase and a guy behind them and franting lying and all this type of shit. But the problem is there's some new evidence pointing to somebody new. Okay. So on November 17, 1994, charges are dismissed against Branting and Johnson. Both of them. Both of them.

On November 21st, Chuck Johnson files a $1 million claim against Merrick County and the sheriff. Dan Scheider, Schneider, Heinz, for violation of his civil rights. All right. on April 15th, he files a federal $4 million lawsuit against the county and sheriff for violation of civil rights. He's good and pissed. He's pissed. Now, why did they drop the charges on November 17th? You may ask, well, they talked to somebody else on November 16th is why.

And there's some reason why they talk to this guy, which we'll get to. His name is Edwin Kula, K-U-L-A, goes by Ed, born in November of 52. So, yeah, he's 42 at this point. Ed had served in the Army at Fort Leonard Wood and Missouri back in the early 70s. He was an expert marksman. Oh. Like top of his class, marksman. Yeah.

Hit 87 out of 100 targets during a qualification. That's pretty impressive. Pretty goddamn good. Yeah. His training, he's got training in assault tactics, shooting from various positions, and even selection of ambush sites because he's a marksman. Yeah. So they're going to teach him all that stuff.

The problem is in the military, he's not exactly from what I understand and from what I found. He had some AWOL incidents apparently. Not really good at it? No. You know where he works, by the way? Watts Electric. Oh. With Jerry.

He also has a wife named Bros. And a son named Travis, who's about 15 at this time. Ed's got some issues here. He's got some DUI convictions, which in this town is just means you're a resident is what that means. Just means you're going to get more beer. That's all it. I was just getting more shit. I ain't even drunk yet.

I was going to get more beer. Feel better. Thief charges, fraud charges, both in Nance and Merrick County. So he's had some legal issues. A rose, his wife, would later say that if Ed was in a bad mood, she, quote, didn't want to be home when he got home. So we're painting a picture of Ed here. Short temper. Yeah.

Short temper, angry, drunk. That's what it looks like. Yeah. on a farm about three and a half miles north of Silver Creek with Rose and their kids. They have multiple kids, I guess, but Travis is the one we'll concentrate on. Yeah. Now, where was he on April 15th? Well, he said that he and his son, Travis, he took his 15-year-old out to go to the bar.

What? Let's go to the bars. Did he? Why? First, they go to eat. He's 15, by the way, not 16, so that would be. So he visited two bars in Silver Creek. They ate at the cozy bar with a K.

Yeah. Then went to Lil Joe's, Lil Joe, for approximately three or four hours. He took his 15-year-old son to the dive bar for four hours. Travis said he'd... That's wild. Travis did not know what time he and Ed left Lil Joe's in the Coolest's Dodge minivan, but he said it seemed pretty late. So at Ed's direction, Travis drove home.

I'm shit-faced. You got to drive. I've been here for four hours, son. Yep. He said they drove. No town like the present. You want to learn how to drive? Let's go.

How about now? Yeah. So they drove south out of Silver Creek, then turned around and came back through town. Okay. Makes no sense. They came to an intersection and saw two men walking. Now, when Kula saw the two men, Travis later said that Ed's face changed expressions. like he, quote, wasn't real pleased with something.

We saw those two. Ed referred to one of the men as being Jerry Carlson and the other being Cuba. Then he told Travis to turn right. As the minivan approached the two men walking at approximately 15 miles an hour, Ed grabs the steering wheel and jerks it toward them. Oh, there's the van. There's the van, make swerving at them. Now, Travis said they became within inches of hitting them.

I mean, they got to jump out of the way. Travis asked Ed, what the hell's going on? And Ed just crossed his arms and didn't say shit. So Travis drove to the Kula farmhouse, which is three miles east and one and a half miles north of Silver Creek. The trip from Silver Creek to the Kula home takes approximately 10 minutes. When they arrived home, Ed indicated to Travis that he's going back out. Travis said, why? We just got home.

and he said, well, it's something I don't want you to be a witness to and have to testify to court. And he was like, well, what are you doing? And Ed said, I'm going to take care of business. Something illegal. It's something not good. Travis went straight to his room. He's like, I've seen this show before. I don't want a part of it.

I'm a child. I just drove home. Yeah. And this guy's got a wife, Rose, who's like, what's happening now? He heard Ed and she heard Ed and Travis come home between 1120 and 1130. she didn't see Ed but heard someone go back outside. All right. She then heard the minivan, quote, take off a little fast.

Well, I mean, that's not important. You know, that doesn't happen. You get a heavy foot after 10 years. You can stomp on a minivan and it ain't going anywhere. It'll sound like it's taking off fast. She said it. She heard it take off and see it. She said, I saw it take off.

We'd be like, fuck you, Rose. You lie an asshole. Yeah, no. I heard it take off a little fast. Then I looked out and it was still in the same place. And then it took off. So she looked out the window and saw the minivan drive over to the garage. She woke up and asked Travis what the hell's going on.

Or she woke Travis up. Travis had already passed out. He was pretending to sleep, one of the two. Travis told her that, quote, she didn't want to know. Yeah. You don't want to know what's going on. And she said, but I think I do, actually. I need to.

the 15-year-old could know, I should probably know, too. So Travis eventually told Rose that Ed was upset with Jerry Carlson and, you know, swerve the van at him and all that kind of shit. So from Travis's window, Rose watched the minivan drive to the end of the farm lane and sit for approximately five to seven minutes. Sitting there contemplating? Just sitting there. She then left Travis's room and went to the garage to see if any guns were missing. Now, if someone leaves the house and your first thought is, I wonder if they'd took guns with him.

How many guys are still home? She noted a 22 caliber pistol was missing that she had seen in the garage earlier that afternoon and that a 22 caliber rifle was missing that Ed had used to shoot birds earlier that day. 222s. 22. So when Rose saw the guns

were gone, she became concerned. So she grabbed the kids and went to Columbus to a hotel. Oh. Not Ohio in this area. Where I mean, Rose said also if Ed's in a bad mood, she didn't want to be home when he got home and she was like, this going to be crazy. So the day, this next day, April 16th, Rose is back home and Ed brings up the subject of Jerry's death. I know Jerry Carlson got killed.

Rose said that he was upset with Jerry about some of the teasing that he did at work. He broke his balls at work. It's a blue collar place. People break balls. Jerry teasing him. Yeah, Ed was mad because Jerry teased him. Yeah. Ed also told Rose that he had a blackout and that it was a coincidence that he was going to go with the intent to do bodily harm to Jerry and that Jerry was killed.

Ain't that a coincidence? I left the house looking for blood. I was looking for that some bitch. Somebody got him. He's even worse than I thought because other people are real mad at him now. So, also that Ed had recently quit. quit his job at Watts Electric. Oh, really?

Rose said that within one month of the date of Jerry's murder, Ed said that he didn't care for Carlson because Carlson liked to tease people. He didn't like that. One of the stories of teasing, this is amazing. This would be the craziest murder motivation of all time. There was a story about Ed overflowed a toilet and Jerry broke his balls for it. Jesus Christ. How many? You got to eat more beans, Ed.

Hell are you doing? More fiber and roughage. The hell is your problem. He exploded the toilet at work. At work, apparently. That's what happens. You fucked the toilet up where we all, you're going to get it. You're the shit guy now.

You're the guy with the giant logs. How big his assholes like this, boy, I'll tell you what. So the police interview Ed. They talk to those. They talk to Travis. They really need to talk to Ed. So they sit down with Ed. Ed says, I didn't kill Jerry.

I don't know what the hell you're talking about. He said that he worked with Carlson at Watts Electric and that Carlson liked to tease, but he said he was not any more of a target than any of the other workers. He broke everybody's balls. Everybody's shit's big. Yeah. Specifically, you know, he said that he had no hard feelings against Carlson. Just hard shits.

It'll break toilets, but not feeling. He said that he quit his job a couple months after starting because he didn't like the long hours, the lack of breaks, and the terrible rollaway cot he had to sleep on in a motel a few nights on the job. It made people share rooms, bro. Then he says the night of the murder, he was playing pool with his son. And he said, this is great. I was kind of on the road to getting pretty well bombed.

He said with the game of pool was good. He had a good time. He admits that he saw Travis, that he and Travis saw Carlson in Cuba walking on that night. He even admits that he, yes, Travis didn't lie, I did grab the steering wheel and swerve it toward them. But, quote, as a joke. that's how I tease I was fun and too that's how I tease

he teases about poop I tease and tease about vehicular manslaughter it's sort of similar I'll damn near kill you I'll kill you so he said that he just it was just a quote

buzzed to put a little scare into them just buzzed him a bit buzzed the tower even swap for making fun of my giant shit same thing so he said after Travis drove him home he went into the house to check for more beer,

then went back to town and bought a couple of sodas because that's what you want when you're drunk and you want beer. He says he then drove around for approximately 15 minutes. Why? Just having fun? Just cruising. That's how hard it is to crash a minivan, James. Jesus Christ.

Yeah. Well, especially in these big wide roads. Yeah. A 15-year-old can manage it all the way home, even with a drunkard hanging off the wheel. He can do it. I feel like this isn't Travis's first drive home. That's the thing.

He's driven the town of country several times. He sat on phone books before. Oh, yeah. For sure. Dad, I can't reach the pedal. He's like, I'll push it for you. Don't worry. You just stare.

Stand up in the seat, boy. That's right. He said that he went home then to find his family gone. He claims he thought they'd taken his youngest son to the doctor because the boy had recurring health problems. We think he'd want to know if the kid got rushed to the hospital at midnight. That's crazy. Whose kid?

His kid, his youngest son. Yeah? Yeah. So he waited a bit, then called two of his wife's sisters and her mother to try to find Rose, but he couldn't find her. So wife and kids disappear in the middle of the night. I guess I'll go to sleep. He just went to sleep.

That's what he said. I hope they're here by mourn. That's right. So the next morning, he went and picked up his last paycheck from Watts Electric. He said that's when he heard about Jerry's murder. Okay. heard it from there. He said that he admitted also, as he said, you're driving around.

You're just cruising. What are you doing? He said, I was tearing around some in the minivan. You don't tear in a. It's a front wheel drive car, man. And he said that that was, quote, not unusual for him after he'd been drinking. I like to go out and just tear them roads up after I had a few. It's a fun act.

This is what I mean. This is what they do for fun. It's not even I need to get home. This is, I'm not tear it up a little bit. I'm a little good right now. Oh, you know, e-break slide to fucking caravan on the road. And that's the thing. If it wasn't dangerous, drunk driving could be fun.

Imagine if you were on like a track and you were in like a Nerf car with Nerf walls. It would be the most fun. The problem is that's not made to do that on the road. There's other people and trees and people and kids and everything else. He then said that he did all that. Then he said that he didn't have any guns with him that night and that all the guns he had were in the house and not in the garage, which contradicts what Rose said. They keep him in the garage.

He also said, I do have blackouts sometimes. Oh? And he said, they go, yeah, why'd you go into the garage that night? Your wife said he went into the garage. He goes, I don't remember. I get blackouts. Okay. And he says, yeah, I get that.

So they asked him, again, did you take a gun when he left the house? And he said, no. They said, is it possible you shot Jerry, even accidentally and blacked out about it? Maybe you don't remember it. he said, quote, it'd be an awful lot. It had seemed to me it'd be an awful lot to black that out. Yeah, I'd probably remember that. He blacks out portions of the night, but he remembers tearing ass down the road.

Taring ass looking for beer and all that. He also said during the interview that he didn't think he had anything to do with the death, but he said there's a part of a percent where I know I blacked out. We'll get to that quote because it's great. because they asked him about taking a polygraph examination, and they asked him, again, do you think you had anything to do with the murder? Yeah. And he said, by the way, what's the answer to that, Jimmy?

No. Absolutely not. No, not at all. Not even a little bit. What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. I want to go home now. He said.

What's his strength, too? Well, as far as I can remember, I never had. anything to do with this damn thing. Not the murder, this damn thing, which is, didn't, that's, that's, that's, that's, minimizing it is bad when they say, I didn't hurt him or I didn't, I didn't, I didn't touch him. He said, this damn thing. It's not even a murder anymore.

It's the most, yeah, this is the most trivialized night of my life. He said, but you know, there's a one percent too that, um, you know, that I don't know some of the things that I did and I'm kind of, I mean, I'm worried about it. He said, I don't know what to do about the damn thing. thing, you know? So he's saying, I'd like to take a polygraph, but there's one percent of me that might know that I did something bad, so I'm not really want to take a polygraph, basically. They said, do you own a Carcano 6.5 millimeter rifle?

Do you have that? Because that's the main issue. And he said, absolutely, never seen that gun in my damn life, don't know anything about a Carcano, never touched a Carcano. I don't know shit about it. That's good. So then they talked to his brother-in-law, Ed, another Ed. And this Ed said he traded that Ed, a Carcano rifle back in 90 or 91.

He said he had bought it at a pawn shop and then traded it to Ed. And he definitely had the gun because Jay Richards, the former police chief of the Clark's Police Department, testified that on April 16, 1990, he went to the cooler residence and was given three guns by Rose for safekeeping. So what was going on there when you went to the residence? You need to hold my guns. He said he took the guns to the police department, inventoried them, and, you know, inventory he'd put him in a locker. About two months later, Rose came to the police department and asked for the guns back. An inventory sheet was received here that shows one of the guns that Rose had given to him for safekeeping was a 1941 XIX, Ternie, Italy, B6, 1070,

which is exactly the gun that fucking shot the guy. Oh, boy. And he says he never had. Yeah. Another brother-in-law. Ed bought it at a pawn shop and traded it to him? Traded it to Ed. Yeah, the other Ed.

Then there's another brother-in-law and his nephew. They both said that they had seen Ed in possession of the Carcano rifle. Yeah. And his brother-in-law also said that Ed usually made him aware of his gun trades or sales because they were into it together and that he was not aware that he had sold, traded, or disposed of the Carcano. Rosa's family is a bunch of stool pigeons. They are. They are. Her, the kids, everybody will tell right away.

They're just talking. So they never recover the murder weapon. It's never found. Really? They argue that the ballistics here, they know what the gun is and all that, but they never find the rifle they're looking for. Okay. So they bring Ed to trial in December 1995. Yeah.

Opening statement, the prosecutor says, we don't have an eyewitness to tell you Edwin Kula shot Jerry Carlson. Yeah. We don't have that. He said, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. And he said shortly before he was murdered, Kula told his son, Travis, to stay home because you don't need to see this. And I don't want you to be a witness in court. Meanwhile, he's on the witness list in court. Yeah.

Because that's worse than letting him see it almost. If you let him see it, you can say, you're in this too now. Don't say anything. If you just say, I don't say a fucking word. I don't need you to be a witness. That's even more suspicious. So they go through all of, you know, how he was shot. And he said, Edwin Kula was an angry man.

And the evidence points to him. It's a deep-seated hatred. Now, the defense, their entire thing is that he said, this trial starts with witness. And in the end, the state's case is full of sound and fury and signifying little. He said that Ed had the prosecution. It said that Ed had the means and motive or the opportunity. And they said, no, no, no, you know who had the motive? It's Chuck Johnson and Tom Branton.

the two people who were arrested to begin with. So they are the specter over this whole trial. That's the defense's whole case is. Obviously those two did it. We have witnesses saying they saw them chasing the guy and everything else. So what? They went away and then another guy who's angry at Jerry got on the road and killed him. That sounds like a stretch.

That's crazy. Yeah. So Branting and Johnson are both called as witnesses and they deny any involvement in the death completely. Okay. obviously. The defense attorney said Jerry Carlson died because he loved Amy Johnson. Oh. Which means that Chuck Johnson would be pissed off.

It has to be. So, yeah, the defense hammers that these two had means. They had motive. They had opportunity. It was obviously them. Branting was even given immunity to testify. They said, this is the defense said, whether or not Charles Johnson and Tom Branting intended to kill Jerry Carlson is a question. is a question for another jury.

Okay. It's like, we don't even need to deal with that, but we do need to get this poor man out of this chair. Yeah. Even though he said, I may, I may could have blacked out and done it. 1%.

1%. Now, Rhonda Braun, here. Yeah, the lie. This lady is fucking it all up by lying. Well, she lied at first and then said something else. You don't know what she's lying about. She said, talking about her second statement, that she was trying to protect,

where she said she was trying to protect Chuck. Yeah. During an offer of proof outside the presence of the jury, she admitted to making those statements. But she did say that she made the statements only after they kept telling me and trying to get me to say that. She said, I just broke down under the pressure. They wanted me to. She said, they put pressure on her. They threatened to take her to jail.

They threatened to treat her poorly. Yeah, they said, you know, like cops do. You don't want to be an accessory to this because we heard you were there. And, you know, you'd be in prison too right next to him. And that lady's prison ain't too nice. It's not fun. Ain't fun. So she admitted that she essentially repeated the statements two hours later to another investigator,

which in her opinion, that investigator who she repeated it to again didn't mistreat her at all. So they put her in, they had good cop or bad cops. Yeah. And then they put her with good cop and she still said the same thing. So two hours later. So two hours later. Well, it does. They got her to say what they wanted twice.

Oh. So it worked great, actually. Same thing? She said the exact same. Oh, the exact same thing. The guy didn't force her to the second time. Got it. So the defense calls her as a witness by Ed.

Ed calls her as a witness. And she said she did not see any other westbound vehicles on Highway 30 besides Chuck's pickup truck. She did testify, though, that she was following, Branding and Johnson that she saw Johnson's pickup truck swerve a little bit, left of the center line. She saw a glimpse of light on the south side of the field in the area where Johnson made this swerve and where Carl So, so it was later found. Ended up being found. Defense calls a bartender, Shannon Lurch from the cozy bar. Yeah.

She said that Branting and Johnson left the bar when she did, which was 1130, not 11. Another woman from the bar said that she left between 11 and 1130 and that Branting and Johnson left at the same time. A firearms expert said he examined three bullet fragments taken from Carlson's body. He described the condition of the fragments and stated that in his research and experience, there was not enough left of the fragments to determine what caliber the bullet had been. Oh, so we don't even know. That's what he said. This is a defense witness. They said that in their opinion, in his opinion, the gun that fired the fatal bullet was a center fire high powered rifle and not a rim rifle such as a 22 caliber.

Right. Yeah. Center punch. He said that the Carcano 6.5 would. be capable of firing the bullet that killed him, but there are millions of guns in existence in the U.S. that would be capable of firing the same type of bullet. So he said, using a Carcano, he demonstrated to the jury that after a shot is fired, the spent cartridges not extracted, and that a new cartridge is not inserted into the chamber until the rifle's bolt is manually

operated. Right. You've ever seen the Lee Harvey Oswald recreations? That's what it is. Yeah. They have dueling pathologists here. One guy is called by a witness, from the state, he gave the opinion that after being shot, Carlson could have functioned for four to seven minutes and could have driven straight on the highway and then crashed. The defense's pathologist, he's got a different opinion. He said that Carlson would have lost conscious within less than a minute and would not have been able to consciously drive his vehicle down a straight road. Okay, so four to seven minutes of living, but one minute of consciousness.

So, well, no, he's the first guy said he would have functioned for four to seven minutes been able to drive. This guy said less than a minute he wouldn't have been able to drive. Okay. So the defense is saying he would have crashed where he got shot, which is where those people saw the two trucks and all that. And the prosecution saying, no, no, no, Ed could have shot him here and then he could have veered for a while and he could have just, you know, kind of floated down the highway and then went off. Now, closing arguments here, they say that everybody was lying. Rhonda was lying. Branding was lying. Chuck Johnson was lying. Okay. And he said, That's a very big lie and that's reasonable doubt, everybody.

There's also shoddy investigation. Contributes to reasonable doubt. The murder scene was not preserved. No measurements were taken. Evidence was collected and hidden from investigators. Some evidence not gathered at all. He called the investigation sad. It's a sad investigation.

I'd say this is very frustrating. This is small town murder is what this is. This is a bunch of cops and aren't used to this shit going, oh, what do we do? I don't know. Shit, I forgot how we're supposed to do this. You got two guys with plenty of reason to hurt somebody. The prosecution told the jury not to be distracted by smoke and muck or anything else, beans or anything you got there. So they said neither of the men had made any statements that night, Brantinger Johnson, that they wanted to harm Carlson.

And neither of them made sure that there were no witnesses to their actions. Ed had told his wife he intended to harm Carlson and then covered his tracks. Yeah. So the only explanation for what he did is because he killed Jerry Carlson. So the verdict comes in, guilty of first degree murder. Is that right? Guilty of first degree murder comes, a first degree, too. Like, he had to place that there for seven minutes thinking about it.

Sentencing comes around, you, sir. Oh, wait, I got the thing here. You, sir, may fuck off life plus a consecutive six and two-thirds to 20-year charge for the weapons. Get out of here. Yeah. Now, also in December, there is a sheriff recall petition based on the fuck-ups in this case. Yeah. Here, later on, the county attorney will nullify the recall effort because they said the wrong number of signatures were turned in.

Apparently, the sheriff here, the Merrick County Sheriff Dan Schneider, Schneider-Hines, had notebooks containing information from a Clark's man who said that an anonymous, female told him that two other men committed the murder. Oh, for Christ's sake. The notebook books were not turned over to the defense. Now you got. Brady shit. The Nebraska Supreme Court will later call this prosecutorial misconduct. For sure.

Not good. Branting files a $4 million lawsuit, by the way, against the county and the sheriff. Defamation. May of 96, the sheriff is recalled, in most part for this. a December of 96, a federal appeals court rules in favor of the sheriff saying he didn't violate Chuck's civil rights by arresting him. March 20, yeah, being incompetent doesn't mean you act with malice. You're just an idiot sometimes. March 21st, 1997, a federal judge dismisses Johnson's lawsuit against the county and the sheriff.

And then Brantings also gets dismissed. So they don't get a dime out of that. Sheriff ended up, you know, whatever, floating into obscurity, I guess. So the Merrick County Sheriff's Department has a former deputy named Rodney Williamson who listed several complaints about the way the department investigated. They got a whistleblower here. Okay. He said basic investigative procedures weren't followed, such as roping off the murder scene or preserving the area for evidence. No measurements were made of Carlson's truck from the roadway.

Officers looked for evidence by flashlight when the department was called out about 2 a.m. but it would be days before anybody was asked to go back and walk the highway during the daylight. They don't know what they're doing. No, they just don't do this a lot. They don't know what this is why small town murder we say sometimes make fun of a bumbling police. Unpracticed. Yeah. They fucked everything up here.

Yeah. The night of the murder, Williamson said he asked the sheriff if he should secure the scene and call out a state patrol crime van to lock the scene down. The sheriff's response was, quote, we don't need the damn state police here. God damn stateies. God damn state police coming in, taking over everything. Talking about they don't like beans. I'm not having it.

Bring some luminal in here. A second request to call the state patrol was made by Sheriff Deputy Miller, who was one of the first responders that we talked about. Within 15 minutes of being on the scene, the sheriff announced to Williamson that he knew who committed the crime. I got it. I walked around and figured it out. Done figured it out. He said it was Charles Johnson and Thomas Brant.

That's it. He said that he knew that they did it because Johnson's ex-wife, Amy, had dated this guy, because even the sheriff knows everybody's business. Everybody knows everything about everybody in this town. So he's dating this man's ex-wife, so he clearly, this is just, yeah, that's real. And he said he knew Johnson and Branting had, quote, been running around that night. Oh, boy. And at one point during the investigation, the deputy county attorney asked Williamson and Schneider-Hines,

about Ed Cula. He said, what about this guy? Because we keep having people say that he hated Jerry Carlson. And the sheriff said, I knew Ed for a long time, and I went out and talked to him, and it's fine. It's saying, it ain't him. Okay. This sheriff not doing a great job. He just rode off the bowl splitter over nothing.

Just over anything. Yeah, just, I know him. He's fine. There's also a jailhouse informant named Jerry Barnes, who would later testify that Ed admitted to owning the Carcano rifle while they were incarcerated together. Oh, boy. He would tell later that Ed admitted to owning it and said that Kula told him he was in Silver Creek the day of the murder as well. Now, the cellmate had worked in the Silver Creek area near Highway 30 at the time of the death, and he said that he'd spoken to Ed several times after the murder because he knew about the murder. 1997, the state Supreme Court overturns the conviction.

They argued that police reports pointing to possible other suspects were not turned over to the state until. the first, or not turned over by the state, until the first day of the trial, which is ridiculous. Discovery, you need time to go over everything, how to put that in your strategy. You can make it fair. So he said, this was the sheriff's notebooks, that whole thing. The Nebraska Supreme Court said the discovery process is not a game of hide the ball, and discovery orders must be completed in a timely manner. Right.

Overturned. Wow. Reverse new trial ordered. Uh-oh. Second trial, there's a change of venue, by the way. because everyone knows everything about you. Now all 33, you've heard it. Yeah.

Fuck, yeah. How do you pick a jury out of that? So, Branting, again, given immunity to testify. The jury's not told about that during this trial, though. Okay. By this point, Rose had filed for divorce from Ed. Travis had been removed from the home through juvenile court proceedings. Can't even live with Rose.

And Ed had lost his job and everything he owned. Well, he's in jail. Yeah, I mean, he doesn't have anything. Then Rose died before the second trial. Oh, fuck. At age 41, she's dead. What happened? Don't know.

Her testimony from the first trial is read in to the record because she's not alive to testify, which you can do. Really? So, yeah. Now, the cost of this is wild, by the way. This county cannot afford this trial. It's fucking crazy. They said the annual budget for the fiscal years only $93,000. And court costs are only $28,000 out of that.

And this cost $170,000. out of 28,000 that they have to spend. Not great. So that's a lot. This features the tape-recorded interrogation of Ed, but it's only in transcripts, not the audio tape. So in transcripts, everything looks a little, you can look more or less guilty on transcripts, depending on who you are. Also features the jailhouse informant testimony. The prosecution calls Branting.

same testimony. They called more people trying to basically say that Chuck was mad at Jerry, which we know about. He said that they call a bartender who was at the cozy bar, guy named Mark Prososki. He said he was acquainted with Chuck and Tom Brant, Chuck Johnson and Tom Branting, and said that both of them were in the bar on the night of April 14th and that they were in a, quote, ornery mood. April 15. When asked what he meant by ornery, he said, what, you never seen a fucking Western

when you're talking about? Ornery, you know, like an angry cowboy. You know what I'm saying? Doing a little grab ass, but also mad about it. Mad, it pissed off. He said, you know, looking for trouble. That's what he said. He said that Branting and Johnson left the bar

about 1115 and that Rhonda Braun was also in coesies that night and left shortly after Johnson and Branton. They bring in Tom Branting's nephew, Trent, who said that Branting was living with them in 94. He said it was the family's habit to leave their shoes in the garage before entering the house. He saw his uncle's boots in the garage when he came home late, and he said his boots were dry, not wet and muddy.

Oh. Now, Ronda said that, so this... He found, yeah. Hmm. So the verdict comes in. This takes 23 hours and 17 minutes of deliberation. Yeah. During this time, Betty Wyman, who is Jerry Carlson's mother, said,

quote, God will take care of it. Uh-oh. Yeah. So they find him guilty of second-degree murder. Okay. So not first-degree murder and the weapon use. So the jury said that. Betty, Jerry's mom said, thank God it's over.

Sentencing comes around, you, sir, may fuck off life plus six and a half to 20 years consecutive. On second degree. On second, you get the same exact sentence. So not much. He appeals again very quickly. As attorneys alleged 29 errors, the Supreme Court found one. It's a good one. The judge allowed, had allowed jurors to have a copy of a transcript of the tape recorded statement that he gave investigators that Ed did, the one where he denied possessing the murder weapon.

The original tape contained inadmissible statements, including talk of Kula's criminal record and discussion about whether he'd take a lie detector. test. An edited version was prepared, but instead of playing the edited tape for the jury, they were getting given written transcripts. They said this was the first time the jury could see that evidence and were allowed to read it during deliberations with the prosecutors urging them to study it. Or as before, they just heard it and it was in their head and if they had notes, whatever. His attorney during this appeal said, this is August 11th of 2000. Ed Kuhl has been in jail since June 5th, 1995. He still hasn't had a fair trial.

The judge here wrote, there was a palpable danger that the jury gave undue emphasis to the redacted transcript in its deliberations when it found Kula guilty. Overturned again. Oh, my God.

Third trial, everybody? Who's up for number three? Are they going to do it again? October 26, 2000, Ed enters a no-contest plea to... Really? manslaughter.

That's what he'll take. Much different than first degree murder. So he was sentenced to, you, sir, again, may fuck off. 20 years in prison. Okay. And ordered to pay $4,592. $392 in court costs. In 2000?

In 2000, $4,500. Yeah. He already served more than five years. With the 20-year sentence and time served, he could be eligible for parole in less than 10 years. 2004. Yeah. 2010. Yeah. From 2000.

Okay. He appealed saying the sentence was excessive and challenged the court costs, arguing that he shouldn't have to pay for the prior overturned trials. He's like, you guys fuck that up. Oh, yeah. So they affirm the sentence, but they do say that he does not have to, they reverse the cost court costs. So he doesn't have to pay that. But he does have to do the time. Yeah.

He file, he also is sued by Betty Jerry's mother. Yeah. seeking $6,600 in special damages plus an undetermined amount in general damages on behalf of herself and the estate. You murdering my son has cost me $6,600? That's right. Well, funeral costs. Okay. Yeah.

You know, who knows if she had to, like, do things with his kids. Yeah. I hope my mom, if I'm murdered, sues for much more than that. Yeah. That shows, though, how reasonable she's being. Yeah, she's being so kind. Yeah. I need a million dollars.

Right. But apparently, under state law, dollar amounts for general damages aren't included in civil suits. That amount is for the jury to decide. Oh, got it. So you sue for what you want and say you have costs. They'll determine it. Yeah. They'll determine it from there.

Remember Travis, the son? Yeah. Old Trav. How do you do? 2019, he's dead at 39. What in the fuck is happening? I don't know what's happening in this town. Mom's dead at 41.

He's dead at 39? 39. We don't know what happened. I assume a heart attack or something like that. Jump in a town and country over a can. Who knows? With Dixie playing over the horn. He is, his obituary said he's reunited with his cherished firstborn son, Peyton Michael, gone all too soon and mother Rose Cula. His son is dead too? So Ed's got a dead wife, son, grandkid. He should be out of jail by now. A quote from the Grand Island Independent newspaper here from an editorial said this was, quote,

an example of what can happen when those involved failed to execute their duties short of perfection. Justice has to be an exacting science. Close simply isn't good enough when the future of a suspect's life hangs in the balance. Yeah. I mean, this is a hard case to unwind. I can't. I don't know that I don't know. This town is baffling.

The whole thing is baffling. That's what I mean. How the hell do you know about this? Nobody dies to life expectancy now. The sold down is a fucking mess. Never mind, median age. What's the medium life expectancy? Maybe it's all the dream.

Median life expectancy. Maybe. Yeah. Median age 37, median life expectancy, 41. Like, maybe that's what it is. Everybody's almost dead. I'm not sure. But holy shit.

That everybody, though, is Clark's Nebraska. Wow. And quite the goddamn tale. So if you enjoyed that story, as I hope you did, please get on whatever app you're listening on and give us five stars and help so goddamn much. Do that. Helps drive us up the charts. Listen to our other two shows as well.

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