Iowa teens accused of killing Spanish teacher over bad grade plead guilty

Two Iowa teenagers accused of beating to death their Spanish teacher as payback for a bad grade she gave one of them have pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the savage slaying.

Willard Miller and Jeremy Goodale changed their pleas to guilty Tuesday and admitted to killing Fairfield High School teacher Nohema Graber, 66, on Nov. 2, 2021, when they were 16.

Miller had met with Graber to discuss his poor grade in her class on the afternoon of her murder, according to investigators.

Prosecutors said the evidence showed both teens helped ambush Graber and struck her with a baseball bat in a park while she was taking a walk.

Miller admitted to helping plan and carry out the killing but denied ever hitting Graber.

Goodale, 18, testified that Miller, 17, initiated the plan and that both of them struck her.

“On Nov. 2 of 2021, I met Willard Miller at Chautauqua Park, and I understood that he had intent to kill Mrs. Graber,” he said as he entered his plea.

He said Miller “brought a bat among other supplies to go through with the murder.”

“After he had struck Nohema Graber, he then moved her off of the trail where I then struck her and she died as a result,” Goodale added. “Afterwards, we removed any evidence that we could.”

Graber’s body was found under a tarp, wheelbarrow and railroad ties in the park in Fairfield, a town of about 9,400 about 100 miles southeast of Des Moines.

Her van was seen leaving the park with two males in the front seat. It was as left at the end of a rural road.

After getting a phone call from Goodale, a witness later picked up the two as they walked to town on that road, officials said. Investigators said the teens later bragged about the kiiling on social media.

They were charged as adults due to the severity of the crime, but they weren’t subject to a mandatory sentence of life without parole because they were 16.

Prosecutors will recommend that Miller, who had been set to go to trial this week, receive life in prison with eligibility for parole after 30 years, the Des Moines Register reported.

They will recommend that Goodale, who had agreed to testify against Miller, be eligible for parole after 25 years.

“We’re glad the defendants have taken responsibility for the crime they committed and look forward to making sure justice is done at sentencing,” Jefferson County Attorney Chauncey Moulding said after the hearings.

The Mexican-born Graber, whose family attended Tuesday’s hearings, worked as a flight attendant and later as a pilot with the now-defunct Mexicana de Aviación airline, the news outlet reported.

In the 1990s, she moved to Fairfield, her then-husband Paul’s hometown, and earned an English degree from Iowa Wesleyan University in 2006.

She taught Spanish at Ottumwa High School until 2012, then took the same assignment at Fairfield High School, working there until she was murdered.

With Post Wires