November 4, 2025 • 33 mins
Former KMTV journalist Mark Pettit turned his several death row conversations with the notorious John Joubert into a book which just underwent its final edition. We talk here about "A Need to Kill."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vordiez, one of the more controversial names in the
history of this town. Had a big impact on my
childhood and then my fledgling radio career, which is all
these years later, still in the fledgling stage. I'm Scott Vorhees.
By the way, this is News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
(00:21):
When I was a little kid back in the fall
of nineteen eighty three, suddenly at the age of about
six and seven years old, I couldn't ride my bike
over to my buddy Eric's house. I couldn't go down
to the school to play because we had a question
here hanging over this town as we lost a young
(00:43):
man from Bellevue named Danny Joe, and then a couple
months later it was a kid named Chris. And the
name that would become such a notorious and awful name
for our community was Jubert. Years later, as an intern
getting started in the broadcast industry, I would be at
(01:05):
the State pen the night of July seventeenth, nineteen ninety six,
talking to people four and against the death penalty, and
then in the State pen as Jubert was being executed
down the hall with the rest of the media, I
thought about, you know what a weird closed circle on
(01:25):
a name that it had such an impact on my life,
But I frankly don't know anything about John Jubert. We
have someone in the studio who does you. Longtime Omaha
residents will remember him from being on KMTV three news.
He is Mark Pettitt, who joins US now Markets. So
great to have you here in eleven ten kfab Welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Thank you Scott and first of all, happy birthday to you.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
That's great to hear that. That's some fun news to
start the day.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Right, Well, I think about that. So nine eighty three,
forty two, forty two years years ago, I was turning
seven on this date, and I was still a time
when my parents suddenly I didn't really understand, but I
used to. Since I was five, I had pretty much
free run of everything in Ralston within certain boundaries like
(02:13):
one hundred and eighth queue to l Over to ninety six,
and I could do anything I wanted and did as
a little kid. It was such a great time. But
there were a few months there I suddenly couldn't ride
my bike unless I was with friends outside. I didn't
really understand why. What was the feeling of Almaha, after
a paper boy, Danny Joe Everley went missing out of Bellevue.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Abstract fear. And I'll tell you a quote that Mike Wellman,
who you might remember that name, Mike was the prosecutor
in this case. He said, there was fear in this
community like I have never seen before, and I hope
I never see again. And it's just sort of ironic
that we're here right now because forty two years ago,
at this very time frame, John Jubert was on the
(02:58):
loose for one hundred nineteen days. So Danny Joe Eberley
had been murdered on September eighteenth. His body was found
three days later, and you know Sheriff Pat Thomas, they
were all searching for the killer, bringing in FBI profilers
and so forth, and so it was absolute fear.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, it was thirty four years ago you wrote your
first edition of A Need to Kill, and now we've
got what you're saying is the final edition, and we'll
talk about what has happened in these decades since you
started researching and publishing your work on this person. But
going back to that time, I mean, I don't mean
to be glib, and I don't certainly don't mean to sound,
(03:38):
you know, like, hey, no big deal, but you know
people people get murdered occasionally. What was it about this
case that had people think like, do we have a
serial killer? Do we have someone targeting little kids here?
And why wasn't immediately thought of like, oh, this is
a family member or something, because that's usually the case
(03:58):
when someone goes miss.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I'll tell you just a little bit of background of
why I became interested in this case. I am from
a small town in North Georgia, so I grew up
during the Wayne Williams case, the missing and murdered children
in Omaha. I was a high school senior when that
all went down, and I sort of became obsessed with
the case. And when I was recruited to Omaha, John
Jewbert had just been arrested and the news director said,
(04:23):
we have our own Wayne Williams. Why don't you come
out here and figure out why this happened? So I
was fascinated with the Juwbert case. I dove in. It
took me two years to research everything that happened. I
pleaded with his attorney to let me talk to him,
and finally I said, you know what, they're going to
(04:44):
execute this guy before anybody talks to him. So I
wrote him a letter, and I just sent him a
self addressed, stamped envelope, and two weeks later he wrote back,
and Scott, when I opened that letter and it's in
the book, people can see it. The penmanship was incredible.
So I knew this was a highly intelligent person. Even
though the profiler said it was going to be a
(05:05):
blue collar, not very well educated person. They had a
lot of it right when they profiled him, but they
knew from the get go that it wasn't a family member.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, this was someone who grew up involved in scouting,
and there didn't seem to be any red flags in
his background, John Jewbert's background. And then he's in Portland, Maine.
Ricky Stetson, an eleven year old kid, is killed, and
then later he's suddenly here in Omaha. And that's when
(05:38):
Danny Joe Everley, thirteen year old paper boy out of Bellevue,
he's killed. And then a few months later, in December
of nineteen eighty three, thirteen year old Chris Walden of
Papilion is killed. What was it that first brought Jubert
from Maine to Nebraska Jubert grew up in Portland and
(06:02):
normal childhood. His parents were divorced. He didn't have a
great relationship with his father. His mother was kind of dominating,
and not a lot of friends in high school. Because
I went back and pieced all this together because one
of the times I interviewed Jubert on death Row, he said,
you know.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
You should go back to Portland. You might find some
interesting things back there. In talking with him, it was
almost like cat and mouse. He would ask me a question,
do you look into this? Did you look into that?
And that's when I went back and started piecing his
story together. And like you said, he was an eagle scout.
I was shocked. How do you in one moment be
an eagle scout. You're next year as an assistant scout
(06:40):
master in Omaha, close to kids, right, how do you
go off this deep end? And I said to him,
why did you do this? Why did you kill these boys?
And he said, listen, all I can tell you is,
for as long as I can remember, I've just had
a need to kill. And that made the hairs on
my arms. It still does when I hear those words.
(07:00):
And it started with little things. He wanted to kill
his babysitter because she wouldn't let him play games or
watch TV. And for him, he told me it was
like flipping off a light switch. Flip it off and
she would be gone. And then it progressed to him
stabbing a little girl with a pencil. Then he slashed
a little boy's throat who was walking down the street.
(07:22):
Then he stabbed a woman who was going to school,
switch thoughts he would have no, these are all things
that he actually did. These He did these things. So
that's what I'm saying is it was unknown until I
did these interviews and it started coming out and I
was like, okay, did you ever act this out? Well,
once I did, I stabbed a girl with a pencil.
I go back to Portland and pour through police records
(07:44):
and I started piecing together the little girl that was stabbed,
the little boy whose throat was slashed, and police had
actually stopped Jubert on his bicycle and said, hey, you
need to be careful. The Woodford slasher is out. That's
what they call the person they were searching for. And
then that's when I found Ricky Stetson and I came
(08:05):
back and this was probably near the last interview I
had with Jibert, and I said, I want you to
tell me did you kill Ricky Stetson? And he stopped
the tape recorder. You know, this is seven interviews in
on death Row. And he stopped the tape recorder and
he said, listen, I know you. I can't lie to you.
But the last time I pled guilty to anything, I
(08:25):
got the death penalty. And when I put that in
the first edition of this book, the FBI swarmed the
TV station. They came after my records, they came after everything.
Because no one knew that Jubert was the killer until
the book came out. And that's when it really started
to go downhill because I had to go testify against
him in Portland.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So let's come back to a few of these details
in the moment and go back to you're being recruited
from Georgia to come up here to Omaha work for
KMTV three. And by the way, I mentioned some of
these streets and all that, that's my neighborhood. I'm sure
I met you. And I was a little kid because
I went to school right down at the Elementary School Bloomfield,
(09:06):
right down the street. And every year we go up
and get a tour a KMTV Like, Wow, Tom Bovoqua,
this is the greatest day of my life.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You remember the billboards, Tom Bavoqua, I'm not the I'm
not There was a word like I'm not infallible, I'm
the best available, Tomvoa. Tom was awesome. He had the
best wardrobe in our address. Yeah. Tom had like thirty
double breasted suits before, probably had two.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Full anchorman treatment. This is early eighties, the mid eighties,
Omaha meeting all you.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
We had it going on one one for Mockingbird Driving.
Some of the best reporters I've ever worked with were
right here in Omaha, Nebraska.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
What Mark pettit made you want to then? After you
sat there and stared into these eyes of John Jubert
and listened to him describe a compulsion to want to
kill children? What made you decide steal deeper into this
but and forsake perhaps your own mental health. What I'm sure,
with decades of sleepless nights, why not turn away from
(10:08):
that and go I don't want anything to do with
this guy.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well that's a very interesting question. And this book, Need
to Kill that's out today and it'll be available through
Amazon the rest of the week, but I'll tell you
how you can get it today. Mike Wellman again, the
prosecutor in the case. You know, I was twenty two
years old, Scott, and he comes up to me and
he says, you know what, you know more about this
case than anybody besides the killer. You should write a
(10:31):
book about it. And I was like, I'm gonna write
a book about it, you know. I was so naive, sure,
but I had such good relationships with the Sarpy, County
Sheriff's office, the prosecutor's office, Scott. They let me check
the evidence out of the evidence room and took it
to my home. I had autopsy photos, crime scene photos,
(10:52):
the knife, I had the rope. Can you imagine today
them giving a reporter this kind of access. It was
all in my house, catalogued. I spent many nights going
through reviewing reports, all the stuff, and it just sort
of became I had to tell the story. And there
were times I was like, I can't deal with this anymore,
and it just kept haunting me. Talking to Danny, Joe's mother,
(11:16):
talking to Chris and Steve Walden. I felt like I
had to tell the whole story and nobody had it
from these angles, from the families, from the police, the prosecutor,
and the killer himself. So I just felt compelled to
tell the full story. And what has been so ironic
is how evidence has continued to come out over the years.
(11:39):
I was at the prison the night Jubert was executed.
I was outside with KMTV and then something that really
had haunted me were these drawings that Jubert told me about.
So maybe again near the last or the next of
the last interview I had with him, he said, you know,
I'm still having those thoughts. And I was like, what
(12:00):
do you mean, these thoughts about killing more kids? And
he said, I actually draw it out. I drew them out.
They confiscated two of the drawings from my cell and
I was like, what do you mean. You're already on
death row and you're fantasizing about killing more kids. So
Scott he pulled. He took my yellow notepad and wrote
(12:22):
a letter to the warden saying, please release these drawings
to Mark pat at KMTV three. I was going to
take them to the FBI and get them analyzed. So
the prison refused, and it bothered me for all these years.
I was like, they have the evidence and Pat Thomas,
who was the sheriff, said he's gonna get if he
ever gets out, he's going to kill kids again. And
(12:44):
Jubert thought he was going to get out. That's the
amazing thing. Until he was executed. He thought he was
going to get out. So it bothered me and bothered
me that I couldn't get those drawings. And one day
Lee Polakoff, the sarpy county attorney, says, sue the state.
They should release these drawings. Found an attorney in Lincoln.
We sued the State of Nebraska and won, and like
(13:07):
three days before they were supposed to turn over the
drawings to me, the Attorney General appealed. It went to
the state Supreme Court and we lost. So I was like,
these things are never going to come to light. But
then again, and I say this in the book, that
sometimes can't be things can't be buried. And a confidential
(13:29):
source came forward and told me I have copies of
those drawings. He was a prison guard who had been
part of the team that shook down Jubert's sell found
those drawings. They were so shocking. He ran to a
copier and made copies of them, black and white copies.
He held for thirty years and when he found out
(13:50):
that the state was trying to stop me from getting
the drawings, called me at home on a Saturday night
and I answered the phone and he said, is this
Mark Pettitant And I was like, yeah, I thought it
was one of my friends from Omaha, the one that
wrote the book about John Jibbert. Yes, the one that's
trying to get those drawings. Yes, I have them and
I'm going to give them to you. So what I
(14:11):
finally got the drawings and had them analyzed. So imagine
how technology has advanced thirty years in behavioral science to
when I got the drawings, and they were able to
tell me so much more about Jewbert about what drove him.
So it was fascinating. And now through AI technology, I
(14:31):
was able to bring the drawings back to life and color.
So people are going to see the drawings just as
Jiwbert told me. He made them on parchment paper with
pastel pencils, and suddenly they're alive and it's shocking.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
This is part of the new edition. This is the
new edition of A Need to Kill by Mark Pettitt.
There and where can people get this book today?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
The place you can get signed copies starting today is
a need to Kill dot Com. That's my website. You
can read about why I've written the last and final edition.
What's in the book all color images now, you know,
when I first wrote the book, you couldn't put color
images in books. So it's all black and white, right.
But and you'll be able to see the scott when
(15:14):
when you look at but just bringing those drawings.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Back to life.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Oh it's wild, you know. And this is in if
you buy the book, you'll see that Jubert has drawn
himself in the woods standing over a little boy who's
who's bound and gagged. But notice in the drawing that
he has no blindfold. And the behavioral scientist said he
did this for a reason. He wanted those kids to
see him and have fear until the second they were murdered.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
I have so many more questions for you. A need
to Kill dot Com is the website to get the book,
sign copy of it from Mark Pettitt. He's with us
here in the studio for the hour. There's so much
about this that is rooted in decades of Omaha's past,
but there's also some things that are just as Germane
today as as any time absolutely. We'll continue this conversation
(16:04):
with Mark next. Scott Vories News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
This email here from David sent to Scott at kfab
dot com and says, like you, Scott, I was seven
at the time of these kids disappearing. I remember my
teacher and parents talking about it and how scared they were.
It didn't help that just over a year earlier, another
(16:27):
paper carrier had been kidnapped in Des Moines, a kid
named John Gosh, and his body has yet to be recovered.
That's from David, sent to Scott at KFAB dot com.
I'm Scott Voorhees. This is News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Our guest in the studio is the author of A
Need to Kill, which has just undergone its final revision
several decades now in the making. Former KMTV three investigative
(16:51):
reporter and anchor Mark Pettitt with us here on eleven
ten KFAB. Your book is about John Jubert, and I
can't help but think with the attention paid to him
or any killer, especially when we have the drawing straight
from his warped head into your book. I can't help
think about the families of the victims. I don't know
(17:12):
anything about Danny, Joe Everley or Chris Walden. What can
you tell me about these young men?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Well, I can tell you that their lights were turned
out way too young. These were great young men, thirteen
years old, both of them. Yeah, it is horrible, And
I spent a lot of time with Danny Joe's mom
and dad and his family talking about him, and partly
that's why we wanted to write the book. They were
more than murder victims. These were young men who had
(17:37):
bright futures, who were happy, and I wanted to tell
their stories too, And so that's that's in the books.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Do their families have any problem with you saying, hey,
you're promoting his name out there, because a lot of
times you get a killer and and everyone says, don't
say the killer's name. We need to elevate the victims.
We don't want to give the killer, you know, any
of the fame he was looking for. Any concern there, No.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Because, like I said, I spent a lot of time
with them. They are actually letters from Judy Eberley in
the book. There's a letter from Sue Walden in the book.
I said, listen, I think people would like to hear
from you as the mothers right, and they write, I'm
Judy Eberley, this is what happened to our family. And
I also have the letters that they wrote to the
(18:21):
sentencing board asking for Gibert to be executed. And this
is interesting too, because Steve and Sue Walden prior to
this were anti death penalty, and then when this horrible
thing happened to their son, they changed their minds and
wrote and asked that Gibert be put to death. So
I tried to tell the boy's story as much as
the killer. And same for little Ricky Stetson. It's horrible,
(18:44):
you know, and his pictures in the book you'll hear
about him, and just how tragic it was that these
lives all came together. You know.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Another long conversational segment coming up here in just a
moment after a Fox News update with Mark Pettitt. I
want to ask you, and let's see if I can
forget all of these things I want to ask you
from now until then. But there was a long time
between Ricky Stetson, his first victim and then the next
one Danny Joe. Everly was a long time. It also
seems like with all these things in his background. There
(19:17):
were so many things missed by whether it's Crens Society
or whatever, to prevent this kind of thing from happening,
which then delves into everything we deal today. What do
you do with juvenile offenders who are on that wrong path?
More with Mark Pettick coming up here. The book is
A Need to Kill details at a need to Kill
dot Com Fox News update next, Scott, and you talked
(19:40):
to Jubern a number of times. He killed Ricky Stetson
in nineteen eighty two, and then it would be several months,
if not almost a year later, when Danny Joe here
in Bellevue lost his life. What was Did he have
a conscious, conscious issue why he didn't do anything for
(20:02):
so long or what was he I think he was.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Trying to suppress it, Scott. I think and one of
the reasons he left Portland was to escape because I
think they were starting to catch on. These crimes were
starting to add up. As I said, the little girl
stabbed with a pencil, a little boy's throat slash.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Was this all within a short amount of time? Okay,
so he was an adult, He wasn't a kid, you know,
stabbing a classmate no, he was an adult.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
He was seventeen eighteen, so I think partly he joined
the air Force to get away from Portland. And I
remember talking to him, I said, what did you think
about Nebraska? And one of the quotes in the book
is from the second day I got there. I hated
the place. He hated Omaha. Those of us who live
here love it, you know. I loved Omaha my time here.
(20:48):
But Jubert was over at offed a offed air Force.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
You know, it doesn't bother me that John Jubert didn't
like it. You know, that's not exactly a chamber of
commerce slogan. You know, serial killers come here and they go, yeah,
this is my kind of place. I'm fine with.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
But those of us who know and love Omaha and
Bellevue went papillion. It's tragic that to have the innocence
shattered like it was, you know, And so that always
bothered me too. So I think Gilbert escaped to Omaha
and tried to suppress these feelings, but as I said,
he had a need to kill and he couldn't contain it.
(21:23):
And that's when it all started. Here.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
He there was some evidence that he'd been following Danny
Joe on his paper route. Yes, for days leading up
for this. Do we feel confident that we have all
of his victims?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I have gotten letters from all over the world Scott
about the John Jubert case, and I had somebody write
me from Germany saying I'm convinced he killed a little
boy here. I could not put those dots together that
Gilbert was ever stationed in Germany or ever travel to Germany.
But like Johnny Gosh, you mentioned Johnny Gosh earlier, people
(22:00):
thought that we had another Johnny Gosh. When Danny Joe
Everly disappeared and I looked into that, I went to
Iowa to meet with Johnny's mother, Noreen, And you know
then when Danny Joe was killed, they knew right away
because you know, the bite marks, the things that happened
to Danny Joe that were horrific as far as they knew,
(22:23):
did not happen to Johnny Gosh because they couldn't find him, right.
But Jubert, you know, not only kill these kids, but
to cannibalize and things like that. It was horrific and
it was like, how can you do this? And well,
this is back in the early eighties. DNA evidence not
(22:43):
nearly what it was today. Did did you get the
impression though, that he wanted to be caught? He wanted
to be attached to these murders, because when you asked
him about the kid in Portland, Maine, he didn't want
to go on the record and admit to it. Right,
So did he want to get caught? Did he want
to have his name go down in history? It was
a game to him. And you know the late Pat Thomas,
(23:03):
who was the sheriff who I referred to as Beauford
Pusser in the book from Walking Tall the movie. It
was a cat and mouse game. And I talked to
Pat about this and he said, oh, I knew he
was watching. And there's a time when I'm interviewing Pat
he looked directly into the camera and said, I knew
he was watching. And I told him to pick on
somebody his own size. So he was trying to play
(23:25):
mind games with Gilbert, and it got to Gilbert because
Pat was basically saying, you're not a man picking on kids,
why don't you come after somebody your own size? And
that's when Jubert went to Aldersgate Methodist Church saying he
was going to rob the school teacher, and that's what
ended it. On January eleventh, nineteen eighty four, when he
(23:46):
finally got caught, but it was a cat and mouse game.
He was like, yeah, I knew they were watching. I
knew they had nothing.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Three young men had their lives taken. You mentioned the
stabbing and slashing of other kids back in Maine, and
at this point Jubert was late teens, mid to late seens,
so still under the care of his parents, and you
had the police. Did they tie any of the I
mean certainly not till I put the pieces together. They didn't,
(24:16):
but did the police at the time. So a kid
gets his throat slashed? On some levels, that kid ended
up being okay, okay. Did they have any idea that
he was attached to these things before he left or no.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
They referred to him as the Woodford slasher. That's how
they referred to the suspect. But they had no idea
it was Jubert.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Did parents or law enforcement meant some obvious clues in
intervening in John Jubert's life that would have maybe stopped
him or put him in a place where he couldn't
have committed these murders.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
It's sort of what we hear today about people being
bullied in school or being a loner, not fitting in.
That's what Gibert was. And I talked to his classmates.
They said, I don't remember him showing up for a
basketball game, a dance or anything. He was just a loner.
And he told me about playing dodgeball and how the
kids will all come at him. So I think he
(25:16):
felt bullied in some ways. But like I say, his
parents were divorced, no male figure in his life to
give him guidance, I don't think, and left to his
own devices. It was just it was like experiments. That's
one of the psychiatrists said. He was performing experiments on
these people, and it became progressively worse and worse until murder.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
The book is a need to Kill details at a
need to Kill dot com. Mark Pettitt, the author formerly
of Channel three here in Omaha. You were with KMTV
for how long?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Four years? For all the best years of my life.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Only four years at that time there, but you remain
you'd come back here and you would have these conversations
with Jubert. Did you then go on after that to
talk to other killers across the country? Did this kind
of become I mean this is before, this is in
the eighties. True crime wasn't nearly the explosion in popularity,
which a lot of people find weird.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I went on Forensic Files. Did you ever watch Forensic Files? I?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yes, I remember that show. I've seen that show.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah. So I was on a number of shows like
that in pr where they would come to talk to me.
Because few reporters had that kind of access to a
serial killer, right to take these notes and to write
a book about it. It was fascinating to a lot
of people.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Well there was in Cold Blood and probably a couple
others that aren't immediately coming to mind here, But did
you have any ideas like, Okay, this is going to
be my little cottage industry so rounded around this guy.
So what was it about that first conversation with Jubert
that made you think I need to go back there
(26:56):
and have more conversations with him? And were there other
reporters World Herald, other TV or radio people here in
the community who say, wait a second, we want to
go talk to him. Did other people try and talk
to him and he said, nope, I only want to
talk to Mark.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
I was the only reporter he had talked to. For
a number of years, first and only. And it was
interesting Scott, like I say, and you'll see it in
the book where I sent Jubert a letter and I
put a self address stamped envelope into there so he
could write me back, not thinking he would respond. And
in one of the interviews I said, why did you
(27:30):
pick me? And he said, you were the first person
smart enough to send me a stamp. We don't have money,
we don't have access to stamps. But also it intrigued
him that I knew almost as much as him about
the case, and it would be like, well did you
look at that? Did you talk to this person? It
was almost like a game for him. But what was
(27:51):
shocking about Gibert is at times he had a good personality.
He was funny.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I was gonna say, did you at any point in
talking with him over these times, realizing like I'm the
only person he's talking to and you had all these
different conversations, did at any point you suddenly have to
remind yourself, Oh, yeah, this.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Is a murderer of kids.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yes, I'm talking to you.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yes, I was probably sitting closer to him than I
am to you right now for hours. You know, I
would get these times scheduled and it would be two
and three hours at a time, just talking about everything,
his life, him growing up, the crimes. And like one
day I walked in, he said, what did you do
(28:34):
last weekend? And I said, oh, I play golf with
some friends and he said, well, isn't that special? Like
the church lady from Saturday Night Live. And then one
day I walked in and he said, have you seen
People magazine this week? Charlie Sheen is on the cover
of that magazine saying he'd rather be in a killing
scene than a love making scene. You realize I'm in
prison for that. So that level of conversation, you know,
(28:58):
and he would try to pick my brain, and that's
when he said, I think you should go back to Portland.
You might find some interesting things back there. So I
think he wanted me to. And then I was like,
you know, I found this article about this kid whose
throat was slashed.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
That was me exact oknife, you know. So it was
like putting the pieces together with him. You say, this
is the final edition of this book, this is it?
What questions between the last edition which was how long ago?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
The last edition was nine years ago?
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Okay, And what questions between then and now led to
this final edition And are you sure you don't have
any other questions still out there?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
No, I think this is it. I think that, and
you'll the audiobook will be coming out next week. And
so I narrate the upfront part of the audiobook this time,
and I talk about why I've been on this case
for forty years, that it grabbed me and wouldn't let
me go. That's what I felt. But I think the
final thing was being able to bring these Death Roads
drawings back to life through AI technology. And I've become
(30:04):
pretty good over the last year of using AI. And
I had these drawings only in black and white format
because the state still has them, the state should release
them to the public. But I went into AI and
found this tool, and I said, parchment paper, pastel, pencil,
outdoor setting and Scott. When it brought those drawings to life,
(30:26):
it blew my mind. So in this edition, this is
the edition of the book I wish I could have
put out, you know, one time, written this book once,
but so many things evolved, but this you know, new
intro all color images, the Death Row drawings brought back
to life, the analysis from the behavioral scientist you know
today looking at these drawings versus what you know we
(30:50):
didn't know about killers and about technique and about clues
that they leave behind.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
A need to Kill dot com. That's the name of
the book, A Need to Kill Well The Life and
Crimes of John Jubert, Nebraska's most notorious serial child killer,
Mark Pettitt. Fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for writing
the book, for sharing some of these details about someone
whose name we all know, but we know very else, little,
(31:19):
very little else about him or his victims.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Now you know the full story if you get the book. Yes,
you'll know everything and more that you've ever wondered about
this case.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
And I would be remiss if I didn't bring up
that we just saw you on the silver screen in
the latest Avengers movie, Captain America Brave New World, where
you're talking to Harrison Ford as if you feel you've
been typecast a reporter.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Mister President, Doctor Samuel Stearns just turned himself in. He
claims you promised him a pardon if he worked on
secret government projects for you.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
That is a lie. And then you caused Harrison Ford
to completely halk out.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Here comes to hal So and this, you know, fascinating Scott.
I started acting about seven years ago. I thought I
was too old to start, and it's been the absolute
opposite once I started acting and learned to act. I'm
in True Detective, I'm in mind Hunter, I'm in Mister
Mercedes Captain America. I'm in a new series which Detective.
(32:19):
I think it was season three that I'm in with
Marshall la Ali right. Excellent experience. But mind Hunter, if
you haven't watched that show, it's about behavioral scientists at
the FBI, so that's very close to me. I care
a lot about that. And ironically, I play a newscaster
covering the Atlanta missing and murdered children.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Do you feel like you've been type cast? Well, I'm
a reporter shouting questions that you worked with Harrison Ford.
That's a Harrison Ford. That's a really cool deal, really cool.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
But no, And as I've gotten better, I've started playing
bad guys. I actually play a killer in a in
a short film. So it's odd. But more people, you know,
and oh my, I had a great following here, we
were number one at KMTV, but more people have watched
me play a newscaster as an actor than could have
ever watched me on CNN or the other stations.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Up works, that's Mark Pettitt again. The website A need
to Kill dot com. Mark, Thank you very much for
you time today. Scott Boyes Mornings nine to eleven, Our
News Radio eleven ten KFAB
Scott Vordiez, one of the more controversial names in the
history of this town. Had a big impact on my
childhood and then my fledgling radio career, which is all
these years later, still in the fledgling stage. I'm Scott Vorhees.
By the way, this is News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
(00:21):
When I was a little kid back in the fall
of nineteen eighty three, suddenly at the age of about
six and seven years old, I couldn't ride my bike
over to my buddy Eric's house. I couldn't go down
to the school to play because we had a question
here hanging over this town as we lost a young
(00:43):
man from Bellevue named Danny Joe, and then a couple
months later it was a kid named Chris. And the
name that would become such a notorious and awful name
for our community was Jubert. Years later, as an intern
getting started in the broadcast industry, I would be at
(01:05):
the State pen the night of July seventeenth, nineteen ninety six,
talking to people four and against the death penalty, and
then in the State pen as Jubert was being executed
down the hall with the rest of the media, I
thought about, you know what a weird closed circle on
(01:25):
a name that it had such an impact on my life,
But I frankly don't know anything about John Jubert. We
have someone in the studio who does you. Longtime Omaha
residents will remember him from being on KMTV three news.
He is Mark Pettitt, who joins US now Markets. So
great to have you here in eleven ten kfab Welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Thank you Scott and first of all, happy birthday to you.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
That's great to hear that. That's some fun news to
start the day.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Right, Well, I think about that. So nine eighty three,
forty two, forty two years years ago, I was turning
seven on this date, and I was still a time
when my parents suddenly I didn't really understand, but I
used to. Since I was five, I had pretty much
free run of everything in Ralston within certain boundaries like
(02:13):
one hundred and eighth queue to l Over to ninety six,
and I could do anything I wanted and did as
a little kid. It was such a great time. But
there were a few months there I suddenly couldn't ride
my bike unless I was with friends outside. I didn't
really understand why. What was the feeling of Almaha, after
a paper boy, Danny Joe Everley went missing out of Bellevue.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Abstract fear. And I'll tell you a quote that Mike Wellman,
who you might remember that name, Mike was the prosecutor
in this case. He said, there was fear in this
community like I have never seen before, and I hope
I never see again. And it's just sort of ironic
that we're here right now because forty two years ago,
at this very time frame, John Jubert was on the
(02:58):
loose for one hundred nineteen days. So Danny Joe Eberley
had been murdered on September eighteenth. His body was found
three days later, and you know Sheriff Pat Thomas, they
were all searching for the killer, bringing in FBI profilers
and so forth, and so it was absolute fear.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, it was thirty four years ago you wrote your
first edition of A Need to Kill, and now we've
got what you're saying is the final edition, and we'll
talk about what has happened in these decades since you
started researching and publishing your work on this person. But
going back to that time, I mean, I don't mean
to be glib, and I don't certainly don't mean to sound,
(03:38):
you know, like, hey, no big deal, but you know
people people get murdered occasionally. What was it about this
case that had people think like, do we have a
serial killer? Do we have someone targeting little kids here?
And why wasn't immediately thought of like, oh, this is
a family member or something, because that's usually the case
(03:58):
when someone goes miss.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I'll tell you just a little bit of background of
why I became interested in this case. I am from
a small town in North Georgia, so I grew up
during the Wayne Williams case, the missing and murdered children
in Omaha. I was a high school senior when that
all went down, and I sort of became obsessed with
the case. And when I was recruited to Omaha, John
Jewbert had just been arrested and the news director said,
(04:23):
we have our own Wayne Williams. Why don't you come
out here and figure out why this happened? So I
was fascinated with the Juwbert case. I dove in. It
took me two years to research everything that happened. I
pleaded with his attorney to let me talk to him,
and finally I said, you know what, they're going to
(04:44):
execute this guy before anybody talks to him. So I
wrote him a letter, and I just sent him a
self addressed, stamped envelope, and two weeks later he wrote back,
and Scott, when I opened that letter and it's in
the book, people can see it. The penmanship was incredible.
So I knew this was a highly intelligent person. Even
though the profiler said it was going to be a
(05:05):
blue collar, not very well educated person. They had a
lot of it right when they profiled him, but they
knew from the get go that it wasn't a family member.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, this was someone who grew up involved in scouting,
and there didn't seem to be any red flags in
his background, John Jewbert's background. And then he's in Portland, Maine.
Ricky Stetson, an eleven year old kid, is killed, and
then later he's suddenly here in Omaha. And that's when
(05:38):
Danny Joe Everley, thirteen year old paper boy out of Bellevue,
he's killed. And then a few months later, in December
of nineteen eighty three, thirteen year old Chris Walden of
Papilion is killed. What was it that first brought Jubert
from Maine to Nebraska Jubert grew up in Portland and
(06:02):
normal childhood. His parents were divorced. He didn't have a
great relationship with his father. His mother was kind of dominating,
and not a lot of friends in high school. Because
I went back and pieced all this together because one
of the times I interviewed Jubert on death Row, he said,
you know.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
You should go back to Portland. You might find some
interesting things back there. In talking with him, it was
almost like cat and mouse. He would ask me a question,
do you look into this? Did you look into that?
And that's when I went back and started piecing his
story together. And like you said, he was an eagle scout.
I was shocked. How do you in one moment be
an eagle scout. You're next year as an assistant scout
(06:40):
master in Omaha, close to kids, right, how do you
go off this deep end? And I said to him,
why did you do this? Why did you kill these boys?
And he said, listen, all I can tell you is,
for as long as I can remember, I've just had
a need to kill. And that made the hairs on
my arms. It still does when I hear those words.
(07:00):
And it started with little things. He wanted to kill
his babysitter because she wouldn't let him play games or
watch TV. And for him, he told me it was
like flipping off a light switch. Flip it off and
she would be gone. And then it progressed to him
stabbing a little girl with a pencil. Then he slashed
a little boy's throat who was walking down the street.
(07:22):
Then he stabbed a woman who was going to school,
switch thoughts he would have no, these are all things
that he actually did. These He did these things. So
that's what I'm saying is it was unknown until I
did these interviews and it started coming out and I
was like, okay, did you ever act this out? Well,
once I did, I stabbed a girl with a pencil.
I go back to Portland and pour through police records
(07:44):
and I started piecing together the little girl that was stabbed,
the little boy whose throat was slashed, and police had
actually stopped Jubert on his bicycle and said, hey, you
need to be careful. The Woodford slasher is out. That's
what they call the person they were searching for. And
then that's when I found Ricky Stetson and I came
(08:05):
back and this was probably near the last interview I
had with Jibert, and I said, I want you to
tell me did you kill Ricky Stetson? And he stopped
the tape recorder. You know, this is seven interviews in
on death Row. And he stopped the tape recorder and
he said, listen, I know you. I can't lie to you.
But the last time I pled guilty to anything, I
(08:25):
got the death penalty. And when I put that in
the first edition of this book, the FBI swarmed the
TV station. They came after my records, they came after everything.
Because no one knew that Jubert was the killer until
the book came out. And that's when it really started
to go downhill because I had to go testify against
him in Portland.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So let's come back to a few of these details
in the moment and go back to you're being recruited
from Georgia to come up here to Omaha work for
KMTV three. And by the way, I mentioned some of
these streets and all that, that's my neighborhood. I'm sure
I met you. And I was a little kid because
I went to school right down at the Elementary School Bloomfield,
(09:06):
right down the street. And every year we go up
and get a tour a KMTV Like, Wow, Tom Bovoqua,
this is the greatest day of my life.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You remember the billboards, Tom Bavoqua, I'm not the I'm
not There was a word like I'm not infallible, I'm
the best available, Tomvoa. Tom was awesome. He had the
best wardrobe in our address. Yeah. Tom had like thirty
double breasted suits before, probably had two.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Full anchorman treatment. This is early eighties, the mid eighties,
Omaha meeting all you.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
We had it going on one one for Mockingbird Driving.
Some of the best reporters I've ever worked with were
right here in Omaha, Nebraska.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
What Mark pettit made you want to then? After you
sat there and stared into these eyes of John Jubert
and listened to him describe a compulsion to want to
kill children? What made you decide steal deeper into this
but and forsake perhaps your own mental health. What I'm sure,
with decades of sleepless nights, why not turn away from
(10:08):
that and go I don't want anything to do with
this guy.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Well that's a very interesting question. And this book, Need
to Kill that's out today and it'll be available through
Amazon the rest of the week, but I'll tell you
how you can get it today. Mike Wellman again, the
prosecutor in the case. You know, I was twenty two
years old, Scott, and he comes up to me and
he says, you know what, you know more about this
case than anybody besides the killer. You should write a
(10:31):
book about it. And I was like, I'm gonna write
a book about it, you know. I was so naive, sure,
but I had such good relationships with the Sarpy, County
Sheriff's office, the prosecutor's office, Scott. They let me check
the evidence out of the evidence room and took it
to my home. I had autopsy photos, crime scene photos,
(10:52):
the knife, I had the rope. Can you imagine today
them giving a reporter this kind of access. It was
all in my house, catalogued. I spent many nights going
through reviewing reports, all the stuff, and it just sort
of became I had to tell the story. And there
were times I was like, I can't deal with this anymore,
and it just kept haunting me. Talking to Danny, Joe's mother,
(11:16):
talking to Chris and Steve Walden. I felt like I
had to tell the whole story and nobody had it
from these angles, from the families, from the police, the prosecutor,
and the killer himself. So I just felt compelled to
tell the full story. And what has been so ironic
is how evidence has continued to come out over the years.
(11:39):
I was at the prison the night Jubert was executed.
I was outside with KMTV and then something that really
had haunted me were these drawings that Jubert told me about.
So maybe again near the last or the next of
the last interview I had with him, he said, you know,
I'm still having those thoughts. And I was like, what
(12:00):
do you mean, these thoughts about killing more kids? And
he said, I actually draw it out. I drew them out.
They confiscated two of the drawings from my cell and
I was like, what do you mean. You're already on
death row and you're fantasizing about killing more kids. So
Scott he pulled. He took my yellow notepad and wrote
(12:22):
a letter to the warden saying, please release these drawings
to Mark pat at KMTV three. I was going to
take them to the FBI and get them analyzed. So
the prison refused, and it bothered me for all these years.
I was like, they have the evidence and Pat Thomas,
who was the sheriff, said he's gonna get if he
ever gets out, he's going to kill kids again. And
(12:44):
Jubert thought he was going to get out. That's the
amazing thing. Until he was executed. He thought he was
going to get out. So it bothered me and bothered
me that I couldn't get those drawings. And one day
Lee Polakoff, the sarpy county attorney, says, sue the state.
They should release these drawings. Found an attorney in Lincoln.
We sued the State of Nebraska and won, and like
(13:07):
three days before they were supposed to turn over the
drawings to me, the Attorney General appealed. It went to
the state Supreme Court and we lost. So I was like,
these things are never going to come to light. But
then again, and I say this in the book, that
sometimes can't be things can't be buried. And a confidential
(13:29):
source came forward and told me I have copies of
those drawings. He was a prison guard who had been
part of the team that shook down Jubert's sell found
those drawings. They were so shocking. He ran to a
copier and made copies of them, black and white copies.
He held for thirty years and when he found out
(13:50):
that the state was trying to stop me from getting
the drawings, called me at home on a Saturday night
and I answered the phone and he said, is this
Mark Pettitant And I was like, yeah, I thought it
was one of my friends from Omaha, the one that
wrote the book about John Jibbert. Yes, the one that's
trying to get those drawings. Yes, I have them and
I'm going to give them to you. So what I
(14:11):
finally got the drawings and had them analyzed. So imagine
how technology has advanced thirty years in behavioral science to
when I got the drawings, and they were able to
tell me so much more about Jewbert about what drove him.
So it was fascinating. And now through AI technology, I
(14:31):
was able to bring the drawings back to life and color.
So people are going to see the drawings just as
Jiwbert told me. He made them on parchment paper with
pastel pencils, and suddenly they're alive and it's shocking.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
This is part of the new edition. This is the
new edition of A Need to Kill by Mark Pettitt.
There and where can people get this book today?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
The place you can get signed copies starting today is
a need to Kill dot Com. That's my website. You
can read about why I've written the last and final edition.
What's in the book all color images now, you know,
when I first wrote the book, you couldn't put color
images in books. So it's all black and white, right.
But and you'll be able to see the scott when
(15:14):
when you look at but just bringing those drawings.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Back to life.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Oh it's wild, you know. And this is in if
you buy the book, you'll see that Jubert has drawn
himself in the woods standing over a little boy who's
who's bound and gagged. But notice in the drawing that
he has no blindfold. And the behavioral scientist said he
did this for a reason. He wanted those kids to
see him and have fear until the second they were murdered.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
I have so many more questions for you. A need
to Kill dot Com is the website to get the book,
sign copy of it from Mark Pettitt. He's with us
here in the studio for the hour. There's so much
about this that is rooted in decades of Omaha's past,
but there's also some things that are just as Germane
today as as any time absolutely. We'll continue this conversation
(16:04):
with Mark next. Scott Vories News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
This email here from David sent to Scott at kfab
dot com and says, like you, Scott, I was seven
at the time of these kids disappearing. I remember my
teacher and parents talking about it and how scared they were.
It didn't help that just over a year earlier, another
(16:27):
paper carrier had been kidnapped in Des Moines, a kid
named John Gosh, and his body has yet to be recovered.
That's from David, sent to Scott at KFAB dot com.
I'm Scott Voorhees. This is News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Our guest in the studio is the author of A
Need to Kill, which has just undergone its final revision
several decades now in the making. Former KMTV three investigative
(16:51):
reporter and anchor Mark Pettitt with us here on eleven
ten KFAB. Your book is about John Jubert, and I
can't help but think with the attention paid to him
or any killer, especially when we have the drawing straight
from his warped head into your book. I can't help
think about the families of the victims. I don't know
(17:12):
anything about Danny, Joe Everley or Chris Walden. What can
you tell me about these young men?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Well, I can tell you that their lights were turned
out way too young. These were great young men, thirteen
years old, both of them. Yeah, it is horrible, And
I spent a lot of time with Danny Joe's mom
and dad and his family talking about him, and partly
that's why we wanted to write the book. They were
more than murder victims. These were young men who had
(17:37):
bright futures, who were happy, and I wanted to tell
their stories too, And so that's that's in the books.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Do their families have any problem with you saying, hey,
you're promoting his name out there, because a lot of
times you get a killer and and everyone says, don't
say the killer's name. We need to elevate the victims.
We don't want to give the killer, you know, any
of the fame he was looking for. Any concern there, No.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Because, like I said, I spent a lot of time
with them. They are actually letters from Judy Eberley in
the book. There's a letter from Sue Walden in the book.
I said, listen, I think people would like to hear
from you as the mothers right, and they write, I'm
Judy Eberley, this is what happened to our family. And
I also have the letters that they wrote to the
(18:21):
sentencing board asking for Gibert to be executed. And this
is interesting too, because Steve and Sue Walden prior to
this were anti death penalty, and then when this horrible
thing happened to their son, they changed their minds and
wrote and asked that Gibert be put to death. So
I tried to tell the boy's story as much as
the killer. And same for little Ricky Stetson. It's horrible,
(18:44):
you know, and his pictures in the book you'll hear
about him, and just how tragic it was that these
lives all came together. You know.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Another long conversational segment coming up here in just a
moment after a Fox News update with Mark Pettitt. I
want to ask you, and let's see if I can
forget all of these things I want to ask you
from now until then. But there was a long time
between Ricky Stetson, his first victim and then the next
one Danny Joe. Everly was a long time. It also
seems like with all these things in his background. There
(19:17):
were so many things missed by whether it's Crens Society
or whatever, to prevent this kind of thing from happening,
which then delves into everything we deal today. What do
you do with juvenile offenders who are on that wrong path?
More with Mark Pettick coming up here. The book is
A Need to Kill details at a need to Kill
dot Com Fox News update next, Scott, and you talked
(19:40):
to Jubern a number of times. He killed Ricky Stetson
in nineteen eighty two, and then it would be several months,
if not almost a year later, when Danny Joe here
in Bellevue lost his life. What was Did he have
a conscious, conscious issue why he didn't do anything for
(20:02):
so long or what was he I think he was.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Trying to suppress it, Scott. I think and one of
the reasons he left Portland was to escape because I
think they were starting to catch on. These crimes were
starting to add up. As I said, the little girl
stabbed with a pencil, a little boy's throat slash.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Was this all within a short amount of time? Okay,
so he was an adult, He wasn't a kid, you know,
stabbing a classmate no, he was an adult.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
He was seventeen eighteen, so I think partly he joined
the air Force to get away from Portland. And I
remember talking to him, I said, what did you think
about Nebraska? And one of the quotes in the book
is from the second day I got there. I hated
the place. He hated Omaha. Those of us who live
here love it, you know. I loved Omaha my time here.
(20:48):
But Jubert was over at offed a offed air Force.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
You know, it doesn't bother me that John Jubert didn't
like it. You know, that's not exactly a chamber of
commerce slogan. You know, serial killers come here and they go, yeah,
this is my kind of place. I'm fine with.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
But those of us who know and love Omaha and
Bellevue went papillion. It's tragic that to have the innocence
shattered like it was, you know, And so that always
bothered me too. So I think Gilbert escaped to Omaha
and tried to suppress these feelings, but as I said,
he had a need to kill and he couldn't contain it.
(21:23):
And that's when it all started. Here.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
He there was some evidence that he'd been following Danny
Joe on his paper route. Yes, for days leading up
for this. Do we feel confident that we have all
of his victims?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
I have gotten letters from all over the world Scott
about the John Jubert case, and I had somebody write
me from Germany saying I'm convinced he killed a little
boy here. I could not put those dots together that
Gilbert was ever stationed in Germany or ever travel to Germany.
But like Johnny Gosh, you mentioned Johnny Gosh earlier, people
(22:00):
thought that we had another Johnny Gosh. When Danny Joe
Everly disappeared and I looked into that, I went to
Iowa to meet with Johnny's mother, Noreen, And you know
then when Danny Joe was killed, they knew right away
because you know, the bite marks, the things that happened
to Danny Joe that were horrific as far as they knew,
(22:23):
did not happen to Johnny Gosh because they couldn't find him, right.
But Jubert, you know, not only kill these kids, but
to cannibalize and things like that. It was horrific and
it was like, how can you do this? And well,
this is back in the early eighties. DNA evidence not
(22:43):
nearly what it was today. Did did you get the
impression though, that he wanted to be caught? He wanted
to be attached to these murders, because when you asked
him about the kid in Portland, Maine, he didn't want
to go on the record and admit to it. Right,
So did he want to get caught? Did he want
to have his name go down in history? It was
a game to him. And you know the late Pat Thomas,
(23:03):
who was the sheriff who I referred to as Beauford
Pusser in the book from Walking Tall the movie. It
was a cat and mouse game. And I talked to
Pat about this and he said, oh, I knew he
was watching. And there's a time when I'm interviewing Pat
he looked directly into the camera and said, I knew
he was watching. And I told him to pick on
somebody his own size. So he was trying to play
(23:25):
mind games with Gilbert, and it got to Gilbert because
Pat was basically saying, you're not a man picking on kids,
why don't you come after somebody your own size? And
that's when Jubert went to Aldersgate Methodist Church saying he
was going to rob the school teacher, and that's what
ended it. On January eleventh, nineteen eighty four, when he
(23:46):
finally got caught, but it was a cat and mouse game.
He was like, yeah, I knew they were watching. I
knew they had nothing.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Three young men had their lives taken. You mentioned the
stabbing and slashing of other kids back in Maine, and
at this point Jubert was late teens, mid to late seens,
so still under the care of his parents, and you
had the police. Did they tie any of the I
mean certainly not till I put the pieces together. They didn't,
(24:16):
but did the police at the time. So a kid
gets his throat slashed? On some levels, that kid ended
up being okay, okay. Did they have any idea that
he was attached to these things before he left or no.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
They referred to him as the Woodford slasher. That's how
they referred to the suspect. But they had no idea
it was Jubert.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Did parents or law enforcement meant some obvious clues in
intervening in John Jubert's life that would have maybe stopped
him or put him in a place where he couldn't
have committed these murders.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
It's sort of what we hear today about people being
bullied in school or being a loner, not fitting in.
That's what Gibert was. And I talked to his classmates.
They said, I don't remember him showing up for a
basketball game, a dance or anything. He was just a loner.
And he told me about playing dodgeball and how the
kids will all come at him. So I think he
(25:16):
felt bullied in some ways. But like I say, his
parents were divorced, no male figure in his life to
give him guidance, I don't think, and left to his
own devices. It was just it was like experiments. That's
one of the psychiatrists said. He was performing experiments on
these people, and it became progressively worse and worse until murder.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
The book is a need to Kill details at a
need to Kill dot com. Mark Pettitt, the author formerly
of Channel three here in Omaha. You were with KMTV
for how long?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Four years? For all the best years of my life.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Only four years at that time there, but you remain
you'd come back here and you would have these conversations
with Jubert. Did you then go on after that to
talk to other killers across the country? Did this kind
of become I mean this is before, this is in
the eighties. True crime wasn't nearly the explosion in popularity,
which a lot of people find weird.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I went on Forensic Files. Did you ever watch Forensic Files? I?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yes, I remember that show. I've seen that show.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah. So I was on a number of shows like
that in pr where they would come to talk to me.
Because few reporters had that kind of access to a
serial killer, right to take these notes and to write
a book about it. It was fascinating to a lot
of people.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Well there was in Cold Blood and probably a couple
others that aren't immediately coming to mind here, But did
you have any ideas like, Okay, this is going to
be my little cottage industry so rounded around this guy.
So what was it about that first conversation with Jubert
that made you think I need to go back there
(26:56):
and have more conversations with him? And were there other
reporters World Herald, other TV or radio people here in
the community who say, wait a second, we want to
go talk to him. Did other people try and talk
to him and he said, nope, I only want to
talk to Mark.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
I was the only reporter he had talked to. For
a number of years, first and only. And it was
interesting Scott, like I say, and you'll see it in
the book where I sent Jubert a letter and I
put a self address stamped envelope into there so he
could write me back, not thinking he would respond. And
in one of the interviews I said, why did you
(27:30):
pick me? And he said, you were the first person
smart enough to send me a stamp. We don't have money,
we don't have access to stamps. But also it intrigued
him that I knew almost as much as him about
the case, and it would be like, well did you
look at that? Did you talk to this person? It
was almost like a game for him. But what was
(27:51):
shocking about Gibert is at times he had a good personality.
He was funny.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I was gonna say, did you at any point in
talking with him over these times, realizing like I'm the
only person he's talking to and you had all these
different conversations, did at any point you suddenly have to
remind yourself, Oh, yeah, this.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Is a murderer of kids.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yes, I'm talking to you.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yes, I was probably sitting closer to him than I
am to you right now for hours. You know, I
would get these times scheduled and it would be two
and three hours at a time, just talking about everything,
his life, him growing up, the crimes. And like one
day I walked in, he said, what did you do
(28:34):
last weekend? And I said, oh, I play golf with
some friends and he said, well, isn't that special? Like
the church lady from Saturday Night Live. And then one
day I walked in and he said, have you seen
People magazine this week? Charlie Sheen is on the cover
of that magazine saying he'd rather be in a killing
scene than a love making scene. You realize I'm in
prison for that. So that level of conversation, you know,
(28:58):
and he would try to pick my brain, and that's
when he said, I think you should go back to Portland.
You might find some interesting things back there. So I
think he wanted me to. And then I was like,
you know, I found this article about this kid whose
throat was slashed.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
That was me exact oknife, you know. So it was
like putting the pieces together with him. You say, this
is the final edition of this book, this is it?
What questions between the last edition which was how long ago?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
The last edition was nine years ago?
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Okay, And what questions between then and now led to
this final edition And are you sure you don't have
any other questions still out there?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
No, I think this is it. I think that, and
you'll the audiobook will be coming out next week. And
so I narrate the upfront part of the audiobook this time,
and I talk about why I've been on this case
for forty years, that it grabbed me and wouldn't let
me go. That's what I felt. But I think the
final thing was being able to bring these Death Roads
drawings back to life through AI technology. And I've become
(30:04):
pretty good over the last year of using AI. And
I had these drawings only in black and white format
because the state still has them, the state should release
them to the public. But I went into AI and
found this tool, and I said, parchment paper, pastel, pencil,
outdoor setting and Scott. When it brought those drawings to life,
(30:26):
it blew my mind. So in this edition, this is
the edition of the book I wish I could have
put out, you know, one time, written this book once,
but so many things evolved, but this you know, new
intro all color images, the Death Row drawings brought back
to life, the analysis from the behavioral scientist you know
today looking at these drawings versus what you know we
(30:50):
didn't know about killers and about technique and about clues
that they leave behind.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
A need to Kill dot com. That's the name of
the book, A Need to Kill Well The Life and
Crimes of John Jubert, Nebraska's most notorious serial child killer,
Mark Pettitt. Fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for writing
the book, for sharing some of these details about someone
whose name we all know, but we know very else, little,
(31:19):
very little else about him or his victims.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Now you know the full story if you get the book. Yes,
you'll know everything and more that you've ever wondered about
this case.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
And I would be remiss if I didn't bring up
that we just saw you on the silver screen in
the latest Avengers movie, Captain America Brave New World, where
you're talking to Harrison Ford as if you feel you've
been typecast a reporter.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Mister President, Doctor Samuel Stearns just turned himself in. He
claims you promised him a pardon if he worked on
secret government projects for you.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
That is a lie. And then you caused Harrison Ford
to completely halk out.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Here comes to hal So and this, you know, fascinating Scott.
I started acting about seven years ago. I thought I
was too old to start, and it's been the absolute
opposite once I started acting and learned to act. I'm
in True Detective, I'm in mind Hunter, I'm in Mister
Mercedes Captain America. I'm in a new series which Detective.
(32:19):
I think it was season three that I'm in with
Marshall la Ali right. Excellent experience. But mind Hunter, if
you haven't watched that show, it's about behavioral scientists at
the FBI, so that's very close to me. I care
a lot about that. And ironically, I play a newscaster
covering the Atlanta missing and murdered children.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Do you feel like you've been type cast? Well, I'm
a reporter shouting questions that you worked with Harrison Ford.
That's a Harrison Ford. That's a really cool deal, really cool.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
But no, And as I've gotten better, I've started playing
bad guys. I actually play a killer in a in
a short film. So it's odd. But more people, you know,
and oh my, I had a great following here, we
were number one at KMTV, but more people have watched
me play a newscaster as an actor than could have
ever watched me on CNN or the other stations.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Up works, that's Mark Pettitt again. The website A need
to Kill dot com. Mark, Thank you very much for
you time today. Scott Boyes Mornings nine to eleven, Our
News Radio eleven ten KFAB
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