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.
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That guy sucked.
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scoobasteve reply on April 22nd, 2008:
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!!
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Jeff H. reply on May 13th, 2008:
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!
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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.
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i hope that plaque is no longer there
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Syyd reply on September 1st, 2008:
why would you hope that?
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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.
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Jeff H. reply on May 13th, 2008:
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!
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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
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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.
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Why would you hope that a plaque remembering a slain little boy was removed, Mandy?
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TurtleMania reply on April 21st, 2008:
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.
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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.
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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.
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