Two Iowa teenagers accused of beating their Spanish teacher to death with a baseball bat allegedly carried out the brutal attack because she gave one of them a bad grade, according to prosecutors.
Nohema Graber, a 66-year-old teacher at Fairfield High School, vanished on 2 November 2021 after going on her regular daily walk in Fairfield, Iowa.
The next day, her badly-beaten body was found hidden under a tarp, railroad ties and a wheelbarrow in a local park.
Two of Graber’s students Jeremy Goodale and Willard Miller, who were both 16 at the time, were arrested and charged with her murder – sending shockwaves throughout the close-knit community.
Now, bombshell court documents have revealed a potential motive for the first time.
In the documents, filed in an Iowa court this week, prosecutors said that Mr Miller met with his Spanish teacher at the high school on the afternoon of the murder.
The meeting was held to discuss the low grade he had received in her class.
The teenager allegedly told police that he was angry that Graber had given him a poor grade which was lowering his overall grade point average (GPA).
He also voiced frustration with the way that Graber taught Spanish in her class, prosecutors said.
“The poor grade is believed to be the motive behind the murder of Graber which directly connects Miller,” the documents read.
Hours later, investigators said that Graber drove her van to a local park where she was known to go for a walk every day after work.
There, the teenagers allegedly stalked and ambushed the teacher, beating her to death with a baseball bat before hiding her body.
Around 42 minutes after Graber arrived at the park, witnesses saw two males driving her van away from the area, investigators said.
The vehicle was later found abandoned along a rural road.
Investigators said that the two teenagers were later picked up on the same road by a witness after Mr Goodale called them for a lift.
The net closed in on the two students when police received a tip-off that Mr Goodale had boasted about killing the teacher on Snapchat.
According to police, the teenager implicated both himself and Mr Miller by name in the murder, detailing how they stalked Graber, killed her and then hid her body and disposed of evidence.
The two teenagers were arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
Both suspects have denied the murders and pleaded not guilty.
Instead, Mr Miller has claimed it was a “roving group of masked kids” that carried out the murder and then forced him to help in disposing of her body, the court documents state.
He has claimed he “had knowledge of everything but did not participate” in the killing, the documents state.
The documents were filed as Mr Miller is asking a judge to toss swathes of evidence from the case including the Snapchat conversations, information taken from his cellphone and his interviews with police.
Lawyer Christine Branstad has argued that four search warrants were obtained illegally and should not be admissible in court.
A judge is expected to hear arguments and issue a ruling about the evidence on Wednesday.
Mr Miller and Mr Goodale, now both 17, are set to be tried as adults on the murder charge.
If convicted, they face life in prison.
