OMAHA, Neb.—A man convicted of a 1988 double murder will take his case before the Nebraska Supreme Court for a fourth time, naming yet another suspect in hopes of getting a new trial.
Attorneys for Jeff Boppre continue to allege he’s been framed for the killings of Richard Valdez and his pregnant girlfriend, Sharon Condon. His latest appeal, which the high court will take up Sept. 3, offers a new explanation of the killings and identifies a new suspect.
Boppre is serving two consecutive life sentences for the fatal shootings.
Police found letters of Boppre’s name written in grease on the floor and on a door near where Valdez’s body was found. Prosecutors say Valdez wrote his killer’s name moments before dying. But Boppre has maintained he was framed and has named other suspects.
In his latest appeal, Boppre suggests Condon’s cousin, John Yellow Boy, may have killed the couple.
Yellow Boy is in prison in Limon, Colo., for convictions for kidnapping, first-degree sexual assault and robbery, according to Colorado Department of Corrections spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti. His estimated release date is in December 2049.
Sanguinetti said Yellow Boy was unavailable by phone, citing department policy.
Boppre’s filing says a Scottsbluff County district judge was wrong to deny his request for a new trial based on DNA evidence. Judge Randy Lippstreu had ruled last August that the DNA evidence was not enough to bring into question Boppre’s conviction.
But Boppre’s appeal says the judge should have considered other aspects of the case, not just the DNA evidence that showed Yellow Boy was at Valdez’s home before or during the killings. A former Scottsbluff woman, Melissa Moreno, now Melissa Archibeque, provided a sworn statement in 2007 that she hid in a bedroom during the killings and heard Yellow Boy’s voice, the appeal says.
“You have to start connecting the dots, basically,” says Boppre’s attorney Jim Mowbray, of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy.
According to the appeal, Archibeque said in her statement that Yellow Boy was angry that Valdez, a known drug dealer, wouldn’t give him cocaine.
State attorneys discredit Archibeque’s statement. In court filings, they say she was questioned soon after the killings but denied being in the house at the time. Her later statement, the filings said, came as she was incarcerated in Colorado.
In court filings, state attorneys also say DNA evidence shows Yellow Boy was in the house at some point, but it neither shows he killed Valdez and Condon, nor clears Boppre.
Trial testimony cited in court filings indicates Boppre often bought cocaine from Valdez for personal use and to sell, and he had suggested to a friend on more than one occasion that they should rob Valdez of his money and drugs.
The state said in its court filings that during a night of heavy drug use, Boppre shot the couple, then later tossed the gun near Gallup, N.M. The gun was later recovered with help from Boppre’s acquaintances, Kennard Wasmer and William Niemann.
Since his conviction in March 1989, Boppre has made three bids to have his case reconsidered: filing a motion for a new trial and two motions for post-conviction release. His three previous appeals were denied, and the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 1993, 1997 and 2004.
In some of those appeal documents, Boppre said Wasmer and Niemann framed him for the killings. Boppre said Wasmer killed Valdez and Condon.
Boppre’s attorney Mowbray said Yellow Boy became the suspect after new evidence, including Archibeque’s statement, came to light.
“The new evidence points to John Yellow Boy as being at the murder scene and a major participant in the murders,” the appeal says. “This evidence significantly discredits the testimony provided by the state’s informants, Niemann and Wasmer.”
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