John Joubert
Let’s be perfectly clear for all you anti-Nebraskan nay-sayers out there: John Joubert was from Lawrence, Massachusetts – not Omaha, Nebraska.
Nebraska just happened to be the state that cleaned up Massachusetts’ mess.
John Joubert had some serious wiring problems upstairs.
Growing up, his parents divorced when he was six and he lived with an overbearing, controlling mother who moved him to Portland, Maine in 1974.
In later interviews, John Joubert revealed that when he was 13, he became sexually excited when he stabbed a young girl with a pencil and she cried. John took a razor blade the next day and slashed a girl as she rode by him on her bike. Shortly after that, John beat up and strangled another kid.
He mentioned that he had spent a lot of time with a babysitter and fantasized about killing and cannibalizing her.
So John was apparently having problems pretty early on.
John Joubert first committed murder on August 22 of 1982.
The victim was 11-year-old Richard “Ricky” Stetson, who was jogging in the outskirts of Portland, Maine. When Ricky Stetson didn’t return after dark, his parents called the police and went out looking for him…but Ricky was probably already dead.
The next day someone driving on a local freeway saw Ricky Stetson’s body on the ground and called police.
An autopsy showed that the boy had been stabbed, bitten and finally, strangled to death.
There was a pretty wide search for the boy’s killer, but John Joubert was already gone, enlisted in the Air Force. He would end up stationed in Omaha, Nebraska’s Offuit Air Force Base.
As a 20-year-old airman specializing in radar, John liked to drive his tan Chevy Nova around the Omaha area and look for young boys to kill.
John Joubert finally found one on September 18th of 1983, in the city of Bellevue, which is kind of a suburb of Omaha.
Danny Joe Eberle was out on his bike delivering copies of the Omaha World Herald when John Joubert saw him. John approached the 13-year-old paperboy with a knife, and covered the boy’s mouth with a hand while forcing him into Joubert’s car.
Danny Eberle disappeared to the world until September 21st, when a group of searchers found his body hidden in some weeds about four miles from where his bike was left.
Danny had been stripped to his underwear and tied up with a rare kind of rope, his mouth covered in surgical tape. He had been stabbed nine times and tortured while he bled out.
On December 2nd of 1983, John Joubert struck again, this time abducting 12-year-old Christopher Walden as he walked to school in Papillion, another suburb of Omaha. A white guy with a tan car had driven off with the boy.
Two days later, Christopher Walden’s body was found in a dense grove of trees by some hunters. He had been stabbed many, many times and was stripped down to his underwear. His throat had been cut – cut so deeply that his head was nearly severed.
On January 11 of 1984, John Joubert tried to strike again, but an observant preschool teacher who saw John prowling around the area wrote down his license plate number and gave it to the police. Tracing that license plate led the police to John Joubert, who had rented that car for the day while his tan Chevy Nova was being fixed.
More of that unique rope was found once a search warrant had been issued. There was also a large hunting knife that was found.
Joubert eventually confessed to all the murders and was killed in the Nebraskan electric chair on July 17 of 1996.
Want to do a background check? Has he been arrested? What’s his credit like? Is he really a millionaire with houses all over the world? Is he being sued? Find out all this and more here.
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36 Comments »
That guy sucked.
My Father was “the Scoutmaster” in the tale of John Joubert. I shook Johns hand in my home the day he killed Danny Joe, and I was on the ground crew that found his body. That man took more than the lives of those two boys in Nebraska, he took part of my fathers soul. May he burn in hell!!
Right on Scoobasteve! I wish I could’ve had
just 5-minutes in Joubert’s cell with him!
That bastard robbed me of the most awsome
wonderful friend I’ve ever had in my life,
Danny Joe. I hope too, that he burns
eternally in the lake of fire!
Thanks for the Joubert post. Christopher Walden went to my elementary school. I was in kindergarten at the time… they have a plaque there on the wall to remember Christopher. One year earlier, I was a little girl at the pre-school where Joubert was later arrested. My pre-school teacher is the one that was nearly run down by Joubert’s car as she scrawled down the license plate number. By the time Joubert found the electric chair ( after countless appeals and trying to run off to Maine), I was in COLLEGE.
i hope that plaque is no longer there
why would you hope that?
Danny was my friend when he lived in North Dakota. He came from a very kind and hard working family. I wish I could have seen his killer die in the chair.
Wade, I also had the God-given priviledge of having Danny Joe in my life as a best friend when I lived in Bellevue for a short time in 1983. We were the same age and went to school together. He was the most wonderful friend and person I’ve ever met to date. Even this many years later I am frequently saddened and depressed to think that Danny is gone. We were so close, I still break down when I think of him. He was the most kind, positive, responsible, caring, generous, neat and meticulous, helpful, reliable, and mature person I’ve EVER known. As for Joubert, I’m glad it took four jolts to kill him, I hope he felt every one of them! Wish I could have spit on him while he fried!
Hello all I am French and I am interested very much a crime, can you give me more information or site or mieu I can understand joubert john? Phots etc … Thank you very much.
Here’s my mail bilal9722001@yahoo.fr
I’m surprised that there weren’t more comments on this case. This is an obvious serial killer in the making that got caught before he became too skilled and protected (somewhat) by military prestige or have the ability to travel out of areas quickly so as not to be detected.
To catch a serial killer at the age of 20 is quite rare.
The teacher and the investigators should be exalted and commemorated for their outstanding work. Amazed and awe struck at how many lives were saved.
Why would you hope that a plaque remembering a slain little boy was removed, Mandy?
Yeah, baddie76, that confused me too.
I doubt if she will respond though because she posted 09/15/07.
I hope that was a mistake on her part.
Danny Joe Eberle became my best friend the summer and very beginning of the school year in 1983. My dad was an Air Force Staff Sergeant and we had just moved to Offutt AFB that April 1983 from Holloman AFB, NM. We were originally from north-central Wis. Danny Joe and I both attended Bellevue
Mission Junior High and had classes together and shared a locker. We became very close,
he was “the brother I always wanted but never had” and we had virtually everything in common. Two-weeks before he was murdered, I got up early and helped Danny do his paper route so he could get done sooner because my Dad was taking us fishing. He took us to breakfast and then fishing all day. It was a most wonderful day, one of those kind of days you NEVER forget. Danny Joe was a WONDERFUL friend and I’ll never, ever, ever forget him. I’ve still never met anyone like him. I’ve wished millions of times over all these years that I had been helping Danny with his route on 9/18/83 and maybe what happend to him would not have happend. To top off the terrible ordeal, we were again moved by the Air Force. My Dad was told his orders to Offutt had been a mistake and he was needed instead at Ellsworth AFB, Rapid City, SD nearly 500-miles away from Bellevue. We had until Oct. 1 to move. Dad had been notified sooner, but had been trying to get out of the transfer.
We moved from Bellevue on Sept. 30, 1983, exactly one-week after Danny Joe’s funeral.
I felt as if I’d been hit by a train! We lived in Rapid City for 18-years until Dad finally retired in 2002. We returned to Wis. because our relatives were here and for better job opportunities. Although I never
got back to Bellevue all these years, I now plan to soon to visit Danny Joe’s grave. I need to do this. I’ve never forgotten him and I know I never will. Danny Joe’s smile, his laugh, and the sound of his voice are as vivid in my mind as if I’d seen him last week. I know he’s still with me! John Joubert not only robbed Danny Joe of his life, he robbed me of the most wonderful friend I’ve ever had, even though a very short time. How I wish I could have had five-minutes in a cell with Joubert… the chair was way too easy!
It kills me to think that Danny Joe didn’t even get to eat breakfast before he died! He would eat after doing his route but he didn’t get that far! I continue to wish so much that I’d been with him doing his route that fateful day (Sept. 18). Joubert was a coward and needed a lone victim. He probably wouldn’t have targeted Danny Joe if someone, anyone, had been with him. I pray that God puts Danny Joe and I together once again some day.
When I grieve over my father’s death in Vietnam and how it broke my mother’s heart and destroyed our family- it helps me knowing that my father lost so much so that another could live.
Hold Danny to your heart, but know that your caring, loving, generous friend would never have allowed what happened to him to have happened to another boy or his family. And if it had not happened to Danny Joe, it would have been his brother or maybe even you.
Wow! I had not been on this site for a LONG time and something just made me check it tonite. I had originally stumbled onto this site while researching other material relating to the crimes of Joubert, and, when I first found it, very few comments were posted. It is nice to see so many more comments… from both people directly affected as well as interested, caring people wanting to offer sentiments. Thank you very much Robert C. for the VERY KIND and meaningful sentiments you posted. What you said about Danny Joe “would not have allowed what happend to him to have happend to anyone else” could not have been said better!
I burst into tears as I read that, because that is EXACTLY the kind of person Danny Joe was… kind, caring, loving, generous! He was one of the rare assets of the world. Simply put: he was an absolutely incredible person in every way! I have believed that my Father’s “mixed-up” Air Force assignment orders was something God made happen so I would meet and know Danny if even only for a short time. We were taken out of that area immediately after Danny was found and laid to rest. God must have known that I most likely wouldn’t have been able to handle living around there anymore after what happend ( although now after 25-years have passed I must re-visit, see his grave/other places ). In Aug. 2007 my
Dad died at age 65 of a malignant brain tumor. What I have experienced totally unexpectedly is that the grieving over my Father’s death brought back my grieving for Danny Joe… not only brought it back but intensified it as well. I guess all I can do is keep believing and trusting that God is trying to tell or teach me something thru Danny Joe. I am thankful for the gift of memory… that I am yet able to recall the image of Danny as well as the sound of his voice almost as clearly as if it was last week. It is indeed hard to believe that 25-years, a quarter century, has already passed. For me, I feel that no matter how much time passes, it will always feel like just yesterday.
When I was 13 in the early 80’s I had a paper route. I was 5’0 tall and weighed 90 lbs if that, I was lucky in that I grew up around adults that I could trust and who were great mentors and in communities that were supportive. As ridicules as it may seem, I had the imagination of my youth that if Mr. T had wanted to fight me I would have had an even chance of winning. I was a legend in my own mind. I was trusting and a little on the shy side but also very resilient. It never would have crossed my mind that an adult would want to kill me or that I could even be killed for that matter. The truth is though, if someone like John Joubert had wanted to take me, he could have had me in the trunk in two seconds.
I had to collect from my customers and my mother told me to never go into anyone’s homes, but it seemed like everyone had me in their living-rooms while they wrote a check or dug money out of purses or wallets. This one guy invited me in. I walked into a very filthy living-room. There was trash on the floors and half eaten meals and cans on the table and counters and the place reeked of cigarettes and filth. I heard the door close behind me and turned to find him between me and the door. He pointed towards an Atari on the filthy coffee table and asked me if I wanted to play. I said, “No thank-you” and he got really pissed off acting and looking and started complaining that he did not get his paper early enough and wanted it delivered earlier or he would cancel. The time he was demanding his paper be delivered was even earlier than when they were dropped off for me and I told him that. “You see, that is exactly what I am talking about…!!” he started yelling and I was now alarmed and told him I was leaving and tried to go around him but he grabbed my shoulder and said that I was not going anywhere and I could feel him pressing me deeper into the house towards the hallway. I whined that my friend was waiting outside for me (a lie) and his jaw dropped and he headed towards the front window. I ran past him out the front door and fled on my bike.
Another time I had stopped and got off my bike and was readjusting my bags when a car passed me and pulled off to the side and a man got out and started walking towards me. As he approached he asked if he could buy a paper and I told him that I was only given enough for my route but told him he could get a paper from the 7-Eleven he passed a couple blocks up the street. He was really a decent looking friendly guy, smiling and talking softly but the situation was troubling me and he was looking this way and that as he neared. He was telling me that he thought he could just buy a paper from me. By this time I was back on my bike but with nowhere to go because like an idiot I was between parked cars. And that was when my dog slid around one of the parked cars. The guy looked like he was about to buckle as the dog stopped between us and alerted towards him, silently staring. The guys voice cracked and he asked me if it was a wolf. I simply said no and the guy went back to his car. That was the best dog I have ever had- I named him Mad Max after a movie and he was a malamute husky mix and big enough that I used to put his paws on my shoulders and dance with him (ha ha). But that dog always loyally followed right behind me every morning on my route and never strayed or chased anyone or went after papers. He was great. The whole thing with this guy in the car could have been innocent- but who knows ?
I had a great route manager and he used to pick us kids up in the bed of his pick-up and drop us off all over the place to solicit for new subscribers. There were trips to Great America and pizza parties sponsored by the paper. I met a lot of good friends from my JH that I had always just passed in the hallways and never would have known. I was having a real rough time with my first period teacher in the 7th grade and one morning I came in late due to problems on my route and he asked me why I was late and instead of criticizing me like I expected he showed me a lot of approval and respect that I had a job and I thought that was really cool.
I lived in an upper-class subdivision except for the old part of the neighborhood that was a cluster of shack like old duplexes and with my luck I pulled them on my route. I had one street of regular houses with 16 customers who always paid on time and every time. But the duplexes were something else. Four to six customers would move every month without paying and that money would come out of my pocket because I was basically billed by the paper and got to keep what was left over. I was getting shorted every month and a lot of those customers were asking to pay late or to be carried for another month. Anyway my great route manager was transferred and I got some old jerk who took the only street with houses on it and gave it to another kid and no matter how I did the math I knew I would never make another dime on that route with just the old duplex deadbeats. So, when the manager came to pick up my paperwork for the street for the other kid I handed him the entire binder, told him I quit, and slammed the door in his face.
When I was in college and read the book about what happened to Danny Joe it kept me up very late because I was so troubled by the realization of just how breakable I was back then.
Robert, you have sealed the fact that my boys will never have a paper route.
You have a guardian angel.
I was Joubert’s trainer and supervisor in the Comm/Nav shop at the 55th AMS. From his arrival at Offutt I always thought him weird. About a week after the first killing, Joubert began showing signs of apathy in the way he dressed and acted, but I attributed it to him just not paying much attention to detail – his usual. I remember “pictures” of the “killer” being posted on the base, in the building and in the shop. I also remember Joubert passing those signs and just shaking his head. My son was about 8 at the time and Joubert would ask me repeatedly if he was involved with the Boy Scouts. As I reflect on those conversations, I cringe and then thank God. Yes, Joubert was scum. And no, he didn’t get what he deserved – he deserved a much worse fate. God bless the families and friends of the victims – may they find some peace, some day.
I feel so bad for the friends and families of these victims. They seemed to be extremely rare individuals. May God be each of you as you are still struggling years later.
Wow. I just watched the Forensic Files episode on this guy last night. Everytime I see it, it still brings chills. It’s scary that this guy was 20 years old (and looked a lot younger) and was killing kids the same age as me. To say this guy had some serious wiring problems upstairs is an understatement. For scoobasteve, what’s it like to shake hands with someone so evil?
Isn’t it ironic, Nebraska’s most famous serial killer died in the same chair as Nebraska’s most famous mass murderer, Charles Starkweather. What’s creepy, Starkweather was executed on my birthday. Joubert, one day before my niece’s
I am from Portland Maine and am currently a forensics student. As an assignment I have to present a case. I chose this one becuase I knew Ricky Stetson and my grandfather was the one who called the police after a woman walking her dog found Ricky and ran to his house for help. I am disappointed that Ricky is so rarely mentioned in all of the research I have done. And the brief story of his death is so distorted. All three boys were robbed of their lives, and all three deserve to be remembered equally.
I think it’s the nature of the beast, so to speak. Ricky’s case was not solved for years, and the trial was in absentia in Maine. By the time Joubert was convicted, it was 8 years later, and Joubert was already on Death Row in NE.
It was certainly traumatic for Ricky’s friends and relatives and neighbors, but nationally it did not make as many waves as a fresher case with an interrogation and forensic evidence and the killer in the courtroom did.
Have you read the book The Child Stalker by John Evans? I believe it is about these cases. I haven’t read it, but the Amazon review indicates that Ricky is included.
No, in the book The Child Stalker, very little mention is made of the Ricky Stetson murder of Maine. The book is primarily dedicated to the Nebraska murders of Danny Eberle and Christopher Walden in
late 1983.
Jhon joubert was a wack job or should i say IS my dads friend grew up with him and used to go camping down in the marshes and the woods so they would go down and stay a few nights my dads friend said he thought when he was a kid that there wasnt something right with him so they would bring there bb guns and one day jhon just aimed the gun at him and shot him in the stomachand they pushed him out of there club house that they and broke his arm .plus jhon lived up near usm and they were reports at that time of stabbings it turns out that jhon would go around on his bike and stab people in the back one girl was actualy sliced in the neck so as i said my dads friend always thought there was just not something right with him
sorry for the bad spelling on the other one Jhon Joubert is a whack job. I was recentley camping with a very good friend of the famly and we were sitting around the fire and he said Have you ever heard of jhon Joubert ? I said no so he started to talk about his childhood he loves the outdoors like most of the people up here in maine. So when he was a kid he used to go camping down in the marshes sometimes they would stay for two or three days and they would bring there bb guns and act like army men one night they were all sitting around the fire jhon aimed his gun and shot him just flat out of the blue for no reasone at all. So jhon lived up near usm Universety Of Southern Maine and at that time ther were reports of stabbings in that area so it turned that jhon was riding his bike around and stabbing people in the back one time he even sliced a girls neck open Well like i said he was a Whack Job !
ive lived in neb my whole life and sadly to say never knew about this horrible nightmare that happened in quiet old corn growing nebraska… til i picked up a book called “a time to kill” as i read the book and realized how close i have lived to the horrific scenes and drove by them and never realized the history… i cried many times through out this book… i could never imagine what the families went through friends or the community… the thought of him makes me sick… i hold my kids tighter everynight now and tell them i love them more and more each day… jeff the fact that you can come on here and put you heart out for everyone to try to understand you pain is honorable!!! and i hope they keep chris’ plaque up in the school, what john did was horrible and never forgivable and he should have been killed the same way those sweet loving boys were, the embarrassment of bein in your underwear and bound pleading for your life… he should have felt their pain…. my love and prayers go out to the family friends community and everyone involved
Thank you so VERY much for your very kind lovely sentiments you
posted. Anyone who has ever said that “time heals” has not truly
experienced a crisis or loss, as something like this never goes away.
You obviously understand. Thank you!
I just watched the story in forensic files and wow incredible, so sad how these kids were killed by this young man, so sad.
I hate my commonwealth. Between John Joubert, Keith Lukes, and Ted Kennedy, we keep churning out fucking morons and murderous scum.
The comments on this post show that these crimes still cause pain and sadness many, many years later to the friends and families that are left behind when their loved one is killed. When a loved one dies in such a horrific and tragic manner, you never get over the loss, sadness, and anger that you have. You have to move forward, but you can never forget. John Joubert may have been executed, but he died more humanely than his victims did. Sadly, I have always wondered if John Joubert had more victims that they were not able to connect him to because of lack of evidence. It would not surprise at all if he did have more victims. To the families and friends, I am sorry your loved ones lives were ended so tragically by this beast. My thoughts are with you all.
Your comments and thoughts are RIGHT ON target and are much
appreciated… Thank you!
I favorted this site from this page so, unfortunately, everytime I log in I have to look at “jerk-off” Joubert’s stupid face.
I did the same exact thing you did, except every time I log in I am forced to look at that motherfuck of a dwarf hobbit James Sargent staring blankly into the camera like some hopped up goth reject.
Oh joy.
Jeff Hintz,
when you visit his grave I hope you will snap a photo and then add it to his memorial at findagrave. There is a memorial on there for him, but the author states on his profile that he will transfer his memorials to friends/family on request. i think you can do a much better job with that memorial, the person there does not even list a cemetery, etc.- in fact you should register on there now and request and redo it.
findagrave links:
Danny Joe Eberle:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=eberle&GSfn=danny&GSmn=joe&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=11940092&
Christopher Paul Walden:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSmid=46907378&GRid=39880771&
Lantern:
Thank you much for the great idea and vote of confidence. I was
certainly more than willing to do just that and contribute in any way I could to Danny’s memorial. I e-mailed “Tombstoner”, the author of “Find a Grave” asking for instructions on how to contribute to the memorial and that I planned on soon visiting the grave. I did not say anything about the “Joubert- People You’ll See
in Hell” website or your link, because I didn’t want to give out too much information to someone, author,etc. who I didn’t yet know and I didn’t think you’d want that either (Tombstoner could’ve seen
your comments about someone else doing a much better job).
Seeing that the memorial at that time was very vague, even stating
only “buried somewhere in Nebraska”, I did tell Tombstoner that I
knew in fact that Danny Eberle was buried specifically in the Bellevue City Cemetery and even the exact plot location. I never
heard anything back from Tombstoner, but something made me just
tonite recheck the memorial site. Now all of the sudden there are pictures of the grave marker ( not from me ) and a word for word
description of grave location just as I had worded it. I think this is a great improvement to this memorial in Danny’s memory, I only wish I had had the chance to actually be the one contributing rather than someone else. Thank you for the info. on “Tombstoner- Find a
Grave” I had no idea that even existed.
Dear Jeff,
Sorry I have not been on this site for a little while.
As for Tombstoner, don’t worry about it. What he did was he sent in a photo request to a volunteer who took the photo for him. I know this because I viewed the photographer’s messages and he Tombstoner thanked him for the photo.
What the rules of FindaGrave state is that it is mandatory that a member honor a transfer request from a family member. I have an old email address for Danny Joe’s father. If you want it let me know and I will email Max the Cat and have him forward it to you- then all Danny Joe’s dad needs to do is transfer it to you- then you can edit the memorial anyway you like.
And I hate to critique, but the photo could have been better even though the flowers were nice- I have seen the grave site on “Forensic Files” and I know that there is a beautiful tree next to the grave that I would have included in the photo. Probably a close up of the marker and then a landscape shot.
I did the memorial for Chris Walden by the way.
Create a profile on the site and publically ask for the transfer now, afterall he did promise- too bad all he has done so far is make a photo request based on the info you gave him and did not even bother to thank you for it.