Murder Mystery On Wheels - Clarks, Nebraska

Summary

Small Town Murder – “Murder Mystery On Wheels - Clarks, Nebraska”

Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman
Release Date: February 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Small Town Murder takes listeners to tiny Clarks, Nebraska (population: 333) for an absurdly twisty murder mystery filled with small-town intrigue, a sluggish police investigation, and a deadly love triangle. As always, James and Jimmie deliver a heavily researched retelling with trademark sarcasm and tangent-filled commentary, shining both a comedic and tragic light on this true small-town crime saga centered on the killing of Jerry Carlson.

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Key Discussion Points & Timeline

Setting the Stage: Clarks, Nebraska (04:27–11:03)

• Town Profile: Clarks is a minuscule, rural town in Merrick County, Nebraska, surrounded by similarly tiny communities. The main economic marker is low median income and cheap housing.
  • “If you’ve been feeling like things are a little too active, a little too crazy, get yourself to Nebraska. That’ll calm you right down. Trust me.” – James [04:46]
• Trivia & Notables: Evan Williams (co-founder of Twitter) is from here; the town’s major event is “Bean Day,” featuring beans, street dances, and comedic speculation on fart-themed contests.

The Main Players: Love, Breakups, Rivalries (11:06–14:30)

• Key People:
  • Charles “Chuck” Johnson: Amy’s ex-husband, unhappy about their 1994 divorce, desperate to reconcile.
  • Amy Johnson: Recently divorced, dating Jerry Carlson.
  • Jerry Carlson: Amy’s new boyfriend, described as a teasing, ball-busting guy with a job at Watts Electric and a fondness for fixing cars.
• “I've been divorced... not all of us, but me and you. Anyway, all of us in this room.” – James [11:55]
• Love triangle drama sets the tension, with Chuck unhappy and Jerry dating Amy.

The Night of the Crime: Suspicion, Swerves, & A Body in the Ditch (14:30–17:48)

• Timeline:
  • April 15, 1994: Jerry and friend Frank Cuba work on a golf cart and drink at Cuba’s Auto Body Shop.
  • After 10:30 PM: Jerry almost run over by a swerving van (later central to the case).
  • 11:30 PM: Jerry is last seen leaving in his Chevy pickup.
• Early Morning Discovery:
  • 1:15 AM, April 16: Jerry’s truck found idling in a ditch, headlights on, body slumped forward, killed by a single high-powered rifle shot through the back.
  • Police surmise Jerry could have lived 4–7 minutes after being shot, possibly driving a short distance before dying.

Investigation & Suspects: Twists, Lies, and a Bean-Spilling Witness (20:25–28:06)

• Strange Witness Accounts:
  • Rhonda Braun admits (after being pressed by investigators) that she was following Chuck Johnson’s truck the night of the murder, lied initially, and was romantically involved with Chuck.
  • “The crying is a dead giveaway that something’s going on here… Like, what are you crying about?” – James [22:13]
• Identifying the Weapon: The bullet (a rare 6.5mm Carcano rifle, the same model used to kill JFK) becomes a crucial link. It’s so rare, ammo for it is only sold through pawn shops and military surplus.

The First Round of Accusations: Chuck & Tom in the Hot Seat (31:39–36:24)

• Police Theory: Initial suspicion falls hard on Chuck Johnson and his buddy Tom Branting due to the love triangle and inconsistent stories from witnesses.
• Community chaos: Drink-driving is rampant; everyone seems to own a Chevy pickup; witness timelines and details become comically convoluted.
  • “It is awesome that this whole town casually just admits to drinking and driving.” – Jimmie [35:36]

A New Suspect Emerges: Enter ‘Angry Ed’ Kula (36:52–47:08)

• Edwin (Ed) Kula: Army veteran, marksman, expert in ambush tactics, with a known temper and a history of legal troubles. Worked at Watts Electric with the victim.
• April 15:
  • Ed goes bar-hopping with his 15-year-old son, Travis, in tow.
  • Encounters Jerry and Frank walking; Ed (drunk) swerves his minivan at them. Travis says Ed looked “not real pleased.”
  • Ed soon leaves home alone, telling his son, “That’s something I don’t want you to be a witness to and have to testify in court... I’m gonna take care of business.” [40:26]
• Aftermath: Ed’s wife and children flee for safety, fearing his anger; Ed returns to find his family gone, and acts utterly unconcerned.

Mounting Evidence: Lies, Guns, and Toilet Humor Motive (47:08–55:50)

• Ed’s Interview: He admits to swerving at Jerry—but says it was just a “joke.” Claims he blacked out part of the night and does not remember any shooting.
  • “He teases about poop, I tease about vehicular manslaughter. It’s sort of similar.” – James [46:30]
• Guns: Multiple witnesses and relatives confirm Ed had access to the exact murder weapon, although the rifle is never found.
• Motive: Jerry was known to tease Ed about, among other things, overflowing a toilet at work—a recurring humiliation that became central to Ed’s resentment.
  • “There was a story about Ed overflowed a toilet and Jerry broke his balls for him.” – James [44:28]

The Trials: Justice Small Town Style (53:27–79:41)

First Trial (1995)

• No eyewitness, circumstantial evidence: Prosecution leans heavily on Ed’s hatred for Jerry and his ominous remarks to Travis.
• Defense: Argues the love triangle points to Chuck and Tom; Rhonda and other witnesses gave inconsistent stories.
• Verdict: Guilty, first-degree murder. Life in prison plus extra for weapons charge.

Post-Trial Chaos (69:03–71:58)

• Police bungling: The department fails to secure the scene, mishandles evidence, fails to investigate Ed properly; sheriff ignores evidence that didn’t fit his theory.
  • “Within 15 minutes of being on the scene, the sheriff announced... he knew who committed the crime.” – James [69:38]
• Brady violations & lawsuits: Prosecution fails to turn over crucial evidence, leading to claims of misconduct, appeals, and even a sheriff recall campaign.

Second Trial (1997)

• New venue, some new evidence, testimony read in from Ed’s late wife Rose. After lengthy deliberation, Ed is found guilty—this time of second-degree murder. Life sentence again.

Appeal & Third Trial (76:29–76:54)

• A technicality—jury had access to inadmissible evidence—results in another overturned conviction.
• Plea Deal: Ed pleads “no contest” to manslaughter, gets 20 years (with time served, makes him parole eligible in less than two years).

Aftermath and Reflections (78:18–79:54)

• Civil Suits: Jerry’s mother sues Ed for funeral costs and general damages.
• Kula Family Tragedies: Rose (Ed’s wife) dies at 41; Travis (his son) dies at 39, along with his own young son.
• Editorial: The Grand Island Independent calls the case a prime example of the danger of sloppy justice and the toll it takes in small communities.

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Most Memorable Quotes

• On Small Town Life:
  “Clarks is full of beans and small town dreams. I wish I could name this episode, beans and Small Town Dreams.” – James [10:05]

• On Motives:
  “There was a story about Ed overflowed a toilet and Jerry broke his balls for him. Jesus Christ. How many you gotta eat? More beans, Ed.” – James [44:29]

• On Justice:
  “Justice has to be an exacting science. Close simply isn’t good enough when the future of a suspect’s life hangs in the balance.” – Editorial quoted by James [79:00]

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Timeline of Major Segments

• [04:27] – Introduction to Clarks, Nebraska and its local flavor
• [11:06] – The central love triangle (Chuck, Amy, Jerry)
• [14:30] – The night of the murder: swerving van, discovery of Jerry’s body
• [20:25] – Messy investigation and Rhonda Braun’s evolving statements
• [31:39] – Chuck Johnson and Tom Branting initially arrested for murder
• [36:52] – Edwin Kula replaces them as the main suspect—his background and behavior
• [47:08] – Investigators build their case; Ed’s interview, motive, and gun evidence
• [53:27] – First trial: prosecution vs. defense, verdict
• [69:03] – Sheriff’s egregious mishandling of the investigation
• [71:34] – Conviction overturned, retrial
• [76:29] – Second conviction overturned, plea to manslaughter
• [79:31] – Aftermath: lingering lawsuits, deaths, and an editorial on justice

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Tone & Style

James and Jimmie maintain an irreverent, conversational approach—balancing gallows humor with empathy for the victim and sharp satire at bureaucracy and small-town foibles. Tangents abound, but even amidst laughter, the tragedy and complexity of small town dynamics and justice are not lost.

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For New Listeners

Whether you’re drawn by the shocking backwoods drama, small-town color, or just want a true crime case set in utterly relatable mundanity, this episode embodies why Small Town Murder continues to engage: a wild case, deeply flawed investigation, and the fallible, very human cast of suspects, survivors, and lawmen. The full journey from murder, to investigation, to appeals, and a plea deal is covered in explicit but entertaining detail—no need to have heard previous episodes or know Clarks, Nebraska.

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Notable Timestamps

• 04:27 – Welcome to Clarks, “it’ll calm you right down”
• 10:05 – “Clarks is full of beans and small town dreams”
• 14:30 – Jerry almost hit by van, murder discovery
• 20:25 – Rhonda Braun’s shifting story
• 44:28 – Motive: “Ed overflowed a toilet and Jerry broke his balls”
• 53:27 – First trial begins
• 66:39 – First guilty verdict announced
• 69:03 – Sheriff’s bungled investigation
• 71:58 – Second trial; Rose’s testimony read from beyond the grave
• 79:31 – Editorial on the dangers of “good enough” justice

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Final Thoughts

An entertaining but sobering ride, this Clarks, Nebraska episode is a case study in how murder, egos, and incompetence are amplified by small-town isolation—and how, even after the “solution” of justice, everyone is left a little worse for the wear. All aboard… the Murder train!

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Transcript

[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, that's right.

[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Wisman]

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[James Petregallo]

Hello, everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Choo choo.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. You. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'm Jimmy Wisman.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely insane edition of Small Town Murder Express. All aboard the Murder train pulling away from the station.

[Jimmy Wisman]

There it goes.

[James Petregallo]

It's a wild one today. And it's twisty and it's crazy and unexpected and all sorts of weird stuff going on. So we're gonna get right into that. Before we do though, head over to shutupandgivemerder.com get your tickets for live shows, everybody. The whole slate is for sale. Starting out with febr 21st. Nashville. What? Come on out, Nashville. We know you're a going out kind of town. Coming out and see us.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Love it.

[James Petregallo]

March 6th in Durham. March 7th in Atlanta. Your stupid opinions. March 21st in Phoenix. We have tickets for that. Salt Lake City, sold out. Buffalo. Buffalo sold out. Denver has tickets May 2, Royal Oak, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Dallas, San Jose, Sacramento, Terrytown and Boston. Get your tickets right now. Yeah, get them yesterday, you need them. They're good stuff. So do that, then get yourself some Patreon, everybody. Oh my goodness. Do yourself a favor. Anybody, $5 a month or [e-mail] CrimeInSports. You're gonna get everything that we have to offer. Everything. You're gonna get a huge back catalog of hundreds of episodes you've never heard before immediately upon subscription. New ones every other week. One Crime and sports, one Small Town Murder. And this week is no different. This week for crime and sports, we're gonna talk about this is a really crazy story. William Tank Black, who was a coach turned agent and turned criminal. Master P, is involved in this. It's a lot. And then for Small Town Murder, we're gonna talk about that Perfect Neighbor documentary that everyone's been asking us to do. So we're gonna talk about that thrill.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I ran it out of the park with that one.

[James Petregallo]

That's a crazy one. There's all sorts of supplemental stuff on YouTube to watch and pick up on. So it's a good one. So we'll get into all of that and more. Patreon.com CrimeInSports and in addition to all of that, every show we put out, crime and sports, your stupid opinions and Small Town murder, all ad free with your Patreon. Ad free. Ad free. Are you out of your mind, James? Yeah, you know what? We're crazy enough to do it. We're giving it away, everybody. And then in addition to that, you also get a shout out at the end of the regular show. So that said, I think it's time, everybody. What do you say?

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's time.

[James Petregallo]

I think it's time to clear the lungs. Let me say here, arms to the sky, lets all shout.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Shut up. Forgive me, Murder.

[James Petregallo]

Let's do this, everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? We gotta go here to Nebraska this week. Yeah, it's Nebraska time. Everybody's. If you've been feeling like things are a little too active, a little too crazy, get yourself to Nebraska. That'll calm you right down. Trust me. Right down. This is Clark's Nebraska. This is really out there, man. This is.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I mean, the brass like the most boring clothes on the planet, right?

[James Petregallo]

Clarks? Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And like shoes or something.

[James Petregallo]

Clarks, yeah, those boring shoes. Yeah, the ones that the Wu Tang Clan used to talk about. Color in different color. Ghostface Killer obsessed with Clarks.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really obsessed. All he ever talks about it's cause they're sensible, James.

[James Petregallo]

They're sensible. That's all it is. And you can dye them different colors. He's very excited about that. If you listen to the Ghostface album, he had a whole inner song thing about it. This is in eastern central Nebraska. Nebraska is like. There's Lincoln, there's Omaha. Yeah. And that's Nebraska. A lot of fields outside of that. This is about an hour and five minutes to Lincoln. So, I mean, you could commute there if you really wanted to. An hour.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Was that where the. What's the word? The shot thing that Deadwood was looking for, Was it in Nebraska or was it in Kansas?

[James Petregallo]

They were going to Montana, I believe. Cause Yankton isn't. Yankton.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yankton, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yankton's in South Dakota now. But at the time it was in Montana Territory or whatever the hell it was. So that's where they were going, though. Oh, and Cheyenne also. They got the vaccine in Cheyenne.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Some up in there in the mountains.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's it. It's about an hour 50 to Omaha, about an hour 20 to Utan. Nebraska, which is our last Nebraska episode. Episode 622. Been exactly 50 episodes. Look at that. Covering your murder tracks. Was that one. That was the one with the. Found wrapped in barbed wire and on fire when they found her.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

She was currently on fire. This is in Merrick county. Area code 308. Population here, 333. Wow. People. People, Yeah. A lot more livestock, I'm sure.

[Jimmy Wisman]

333.

[James Petregallo]

333. And all the towns around here are like 400 people. 300 people. This is the middle of fucking nowhere. It's all the only way to put it. Median household income here, $51,094, which is about 18,000 below the national average. You figure it'd be cheap out here, though. Median home cost here is below the national average. $260,800. So, okay, not too bad.

[Jimmy Wisman]

National average, 320 or 280.

[James Petregallo]

It's like 331 or something. 338, I think. A little bit of history in this town. Clark's was platted in 1866. Yeah. When the Union Pacific Railroad was extended there. That's when they saw. Well, we might as well have. It's all of these middle of nowhere places. It's always a railroad. It's named for Silas Henry Clark, who was, you know, maybe he founder of the shoes. No. Yeah, that's right. Absolutely. No, he's actually the superintendent of the Union Pacific Railroad. So that's the name there.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's always somebody that worked with brake man.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. The guy who decided to stop should go here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That's who gets the town named after.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The guy who had to pee the worst. Right now.

[James Petregallo]

That's it. Now there is no reviews of this town of any sort. Nothing. It does not exist. It just doesn't.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They're keeping it secret, babe.

[James Petregallo]

No. I did find a couple of people from here. Number one, Evan Williams, who is the co founder of Twitter is from here. Yeah, he's here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Biz Stone's Palace.

[James Petregallo]

Arnold Ulrich. Ulrich, who was a football player. They call him Itch Itch Ulrich. He's born in 1905 and he played football. He played for Nebraska and played in the NFL for the Frankfurt Yellow Jackets in 1928.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's been a minute.

[James Petregallo]

It's been a while. Frankfurt went out of business, I believe in 1933. But interesting factoid in lieu of reviews here. Sahara Desert fart fact of the week that no one cares about. I'm sure. Unless you're a sports fan and then you care. Like where are they now? Let's see. October 26, 1931, the Yellow Jackets defeated the Chicago Bears 1312 at Wrigley Field. Wow. Now that was. Frankfurt was a Philadelphia based team. This is pre Eagles. So that game marked the last time a Philadelphia based NFL team was would win a road game against the Bears until 1999.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

The Eagles didn't go to Chicago and win till 1999. Isn't that crazy?

[Jimmy Wisman]

In the 20s or the 30s?

[James Petregallo]

1931 was 68 years. That's crazy things to do here. Oh, here it is everybody. Bean days celebration. Oh, get your beans and come into.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Town doing all the kind of.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yeah. Join the Clark's business people in celebrating Bean day. Yeah, that's about right for this town. A parade, lots of vendors, activities, ham and bean feed. Feed.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Feed.

[James Petregallo]

Don't eat feed.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Don't call it feed.

[James Petregallo]

Don't call anything. I'm going to ingest feed. That is. No, that sounds industrial. For animals in a barn.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It sounds like there's a schedule.

[James Petregallo]

Then there's a street dance and then to close out the evening, a big fart a thon. Just everybody's gonna let loose because it's gonna be gassy in this town.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Dutch oven contest.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. Come on ladies, get under them covers.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Make your wife throw up.

[James Petregallo]

See who can make their wife actually leave the bed. This is great. From their website. Clark's is full of beans and small town dreams. I wish I could name this episode, beans and Small Town Dreams. The annual bean day selection, scheduled to run throughout the day on Saturday, promises to be a gas. You know that's on purpose.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Why'd they do that? Come on. Why do you do that?

[James Petregallo]

The rib cook off kicks off the day at the water tower at 8am for the price of a $100 entry fee. Contestants will have ribs. That's for the competition. Will have ribs provided which they can prepare in the means of their choosing. And then the oddest extra thing that they stick on this, a bean day sand volleyball tournament. Okay. When I think of rural Nebraska, I think of beach volleyball, obviously. Okay. That said, let's talk about some murder. There's a lot here. And so that's why we kind of cut the town stuff a little bit short. And there's really not that much.

[Jimmy Wisman]

There's not a lot to do.

[James Petregallo]

Nothing to talk about.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Dammit.

[James Petregallo]

All right, let's start out here. Go back in time. Let's get in our time machine. Jimmy, here we go. Things are swirling.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Flip it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, we got, you know, clocks are flying by. We're doing this over.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. Things are being uninvented.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Oh, geez. Well, there went penicillin. Shit. Right? Well, there's that. Okay. Oh, shit, there's horses now. This is weird. Let's talk about 1994. Okay. That's where we're gonna start. And in 1994, let's talk about a couple who has just broken up.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, all right.

[James Petregallo]

This is Charles Chuck Johnson. Yeah, Old Chuckster.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's the lady of his dreams.

[James Petregallo]

That's right. And Amy Johnson, his wife. They've been together a few years, but they just got divorced in 1994.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Damn it.

[James Petregallo]

And I believe it was Amy's choice to get the divorce because it happens.

[Jimmy Wisman]

To the best of us.

[James Petregallo]

Well, it happens. We've all been divorced. Not all of us, but me and you. Anyway, the. All of us in this room.

[Jimmy Wisman]

50% of this world, Right?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's right. I think more now. I think it's up. But Chuck is not real happy with this arrangement. He's trying to win her back, essentially.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, go get her, Chuck.

[James Petregallo]

The paperwork has been done, shit has been signed, a judge has ruled, and they're still trying to. He's trying to make it work. She, on the other hand, has moved on and started dating somebody else. Oh. Which, of course, Chuck isn't very happy about, as you might imagine.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, you can't really win her back then, man.

[James Petregallo]

Well, yeah, once she's moved on, she's Moved on, you know. Yeah, she's. She's dating a 31 year old man named Jerry Carlson.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is he younger than her?

[James Petregallo]

No, they're about the same age.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

The same age. Now he lives in Clark's and he's like your typical kind of Clark's guy, I guess you'd say. He works at Watts Electric. He loves beans, big beans. Gassiest man in town. Works at Watts Electric and basically likes to fix engines and like works on cars and shit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Man after my own heart, James.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I mean that's fine. He sits around, he hangs out at the bars and works on cars. And he dated Amy Johnson. So they're hanging out, they're dating. Charles is trying to reconcile with him. Jerry, by the way, is described as someone. Multiple people said this who quote, likes to tease people. Okay. He's a ball breaker.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I think he's a fucking asshole sometimes.

[James Petregallo]

Sometimes. Or maybe he's funny.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. Oh yeah. Are they clever? Is it good?

[James Petregallo]

That's the thing. Yeah. Because that was currency with me growing up. My friends. How well you can tease and be teased is part of everything in a garage.

[Jimmy Wisman]

When you're working on cars. If you're just.

[James Petregallo]

It's not where he works. He's just tinkers.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. If you're working on a car, you're just ripping on anybody that's around. It's a party, it's fun.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he mainly tinkers like in his garage. I don't think he's got.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He works at the electric company.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he's just an electric guy. So April 15, 1954 or 1954. 1994. Why did I say 54? Jerry hangs out with his buddy this day, this guy named Frank Cuba. Cuba. Cuba. They work on a golf cart at Cuba's Auto Body Shop. I guess he's got his own repair shop. Yeah, he says, you know, why not? Jerry comes over to help him out a little bit. Help him put together a golf cart. I'm sure breaks his balls a little here and there. Yeah, yeah. They have fun. They're drinking beer the whole time.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Hell yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Everybody in this story is shit faced all the time, by the way. Everybody. When you hear it's crazy. Okay, so sometime after 10:30, but before 11:10, somewhere in that region, they're walking down the street, Jerry and Frank, okay, they leave the shop, they're walking down the street or they go from somewhere else to the shop. I don't know if they Went to get buy something, go to the store or whatever. A van swerves at them as they're walking down the street. Almost hits them, like they had to jump out of the way, basically, of this van. So 1130 or 1130, ish, Jerry Carlson leaves the auto body shop in his Chevy pickup. Jerry driving away in the Chevy. He turns west on Highway 30 toward Clark's, because that's where he lives now, 1:15am ish, around there. So this is April 16th. We're past midnight. There's a man named Tom Branting, and he'll come up quite a bit here. He stops at the residence of John Wirrick, who is the village marshal for Clarks. And he tells this John Wick that there's a vehicle might be Jerry Carlson's. This is such a small town, if you see a car, you're pretty sure whose it is, which is Chevy truck.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You know what he drives, which is wild.

[James Petregallo]

Cause half the people in this town have a Chevy truck, as we'll also find out.

[Jimmy Wisman]

But this one's particular.

[James Petregallo]

Well, yeah. In the dark across the field, he's like, I think it might be Jerry's.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Which is probably Jerry's.

[James Petregallo]

Probably Jerry's. Right. That's what happened. He said it's about two miles east of Clark's in a ditch adjacent to Highway 30.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

So then the marshal contacted the sheriff's department, and the marshal went and met the chief deputy, old Dick Miller, at the scene. Here. Yeah. Yeah. So the police arrive and they discover there is a pickup with its headlights on and engine running.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, in the ditch?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. It's about 20 to 50 yards south of Highway 30. Resting on a tree in a ditch containing a foot of water. So it's just sitting in the water.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, the tree stopped it.

[James Petregallo]

The tree stopped it. Yeah. It's obviously probably still in drive, I would think. So they get there, they discover all this. Now inside the truck, that's the interesting part. They find Jerry Carlson. So it is Jerry Carson.

[Jimmy Wisman]

But Jerry's in there.

[James Petregallo]

He is in there. He's seen better days. Jerry is very dead.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Very dead. He slumped over the passenger seat from the driver's seat, over the medium console, covered in blood. There's a wound in his back, just underneath the left shoulder blade. So perfect spot to blow your heart up if someone shot you there. And later on, the doctor would say the bullet caused a multiplicity of wounds, including the ribs, lungs and tip of the heart. So it just tore him apart, this.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Thing from the front or from the back.

[James Petregallo]

From the back under his left shoulder blade.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

And so they said it caused rapid bleeding and they said a lot more than just leaking. He would have bled out pretty fast for this, a lot of this. Now the rear driver side window on the extended portion of the cab was broke. Me an extended cab was broken out by a single bullet from what they discover will be a high powered rifle that pierced through the driver's seat, entered his back and penetrated his chest and did all that damage. Wow. That's through a seat.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So I mean through the window, through the seat, through the body.

[James Petregallo]

This is a powerful bullet coming at him here. So that's that. Now they recover the body, they take it for autopsy. And they said that after being shot, he would have been able to function, one doctor says, for up to four to seven minutes and possibly could have driven his vehicle along a straight highway during that period of time.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Four to seven minutes?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. They say he could be four to seven minutes away from where he was shot. We don't know. That's his guess.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So he could have been trying to.

[James Petregallo]

Go get help or get home or whatever it is. But they're trying to figure out where he was shot. Basically saying, did he die right away, go right off the road, or did he have a little bit of time.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Somewhere between this stump and four and seven minutes ago?

[James Petregallo]

That's it. Yeah. Anywhere in there, in the road that you can, you can deal depending on how much blood he had, not sure.

[Jimmy Wisman]

And depending on how fast he was going.

[James Petregallo]

That's the other thing too. There's a lot of factors of math here. Obviously everyone has the same amount of blood, but still. Now the weapon they figure out that he was killed with is a 6.5 millimeter Carcano rifle. Which is, if you know anything about this, this is like a Call of Duty gun that you get.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is that a Creedmoor?

[James Petregallo]

It's a bolt action. It's the same type of rifle that Lee Harvey Oswald used to kill Kennedy. Same millimeter and all that same shot there. It's manufactured in Italy, the Carcano. It's an Italian military bolt action rifle, fires a 6.5 by 52 millimeter round. So they call it a.264 caliber, I guess. Oh, okay. They were made at the Royal Arms Factory in Italy, stamped with the Royal Crown. And the Terni, which is the town it's made in, or terni marking by 1994. These are not common guns. Yeah, they have not been made in a long time. Ammunition wasn't even manufactured in the United States for these guns. Wow. Yeah. You had to buy it from, like, a pawn shop or some specialty catalog or surplus military supply stores, places like that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

One of those. What was that magazine? Ultimate Soldier or whatever.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. God damn it. What was that? Soldier. The Soldier of Fortune. Soldier of Fortune. Is that what it is? Fortune magazine that one guy was doing ads in. So, yeah, you can't just walk into Walmart and say, give me a couple of boxes of these. So there's a ballistics expert that says that he used the National Archives and a new optical device to positively verify this as a Carcano. He said the rifle was made in Italy in 1941 for use of the Italian military, obviously.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So that means they have the slug. Cause they.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah. When it stayed in them, it went through the seat, stayed in them, tore them apart. Okay. So the slug, though, it was hard to decipher because it went through the seat and threw him, hit a rib, and that messes the slug all up. Now, one of the first people they interview the police that they're trying to figure out what the hell happened here is a woman named Rhonda Braun. Okay? Now, Braun basically said that she gives her kind of what happened here? She was saying that. Weird thing is she has a couple of interviews and makes different statements during these interviews, which is interesting. She was with Tom Branting when Tom Branting had gone off to talk to the sheriff or whatever, the marshal there. So there's a. In the police report of her second interview, they state that Rhonda Braun told the police that she was following Branting and Chuck Johnson, and they were headed westbound toward Clark in Chuck Johnson's pickup, and she was following behind in a blue Oldsmobile. Oh. She said she then saw Mr. Johnson's vehicle swerve into the eastbound lane and another set of tail lights appeared. She said that Mr. Johnson's vehicle then went around the second vehicle. Oh, fascinating. Then the second vehicle swerved and the lights disappeared. She was then behind Mr. Johnson's vehicle again. She then came across a vehicle in a field on the south side of the highway with its lights on. And so that's what she said. She goes. That's what we just saw it as we passed by. Okay, now this is from the policeman's notes here. The detective, he said, I then asked her if she was in love with Mr. Johnson. Ms. Braun began to cry and stated, yes. Okay. The crying is a dead giveaway that something's going on here. You know what I mean? Like, what are you crying about?

[Jimmy Wisman]

And why did he jump to that question. That's an interesting question, right?

[James Petregallo]

To see if she's covering for him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, okay. All right.

[James Petregallo]

How much do you like this guy?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Are you in love with him?

[James Petregallo]

Are you willing to lie to a detective about a murder over this? Is that how much you love him? Yeah. So I then asked her if that was why she did not tell me the truth the first time I talked to her and she stated yes. I then asked if she was willing to tell me everything now and she said yes. I'll take a lie detector test if you want. I then asked if she would be willing to take a polygraph if I would set it up. She stated yes. I then asked her, why didn't you tell me the truth the first time about where you were in the positioning? Because first time she gave some, oh, we didn't see anything and all that. And then she gave the truth. She stated that she didn't want to get Mr. Johnson in trouble.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

All right, now we're getting somewhere. She said that she had dated Johnson and that her relationship with him was on and off. She said, quote, he still liked Amy. So she's upset that she's in love with this guy, but he's still in.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Love with somebody else. We got ourselves a love triangle.

[James Petregallo]

That's what we got. Which can lead to murder. You never know.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You bet.

[James Petregallo]

So where were Chuck Johnson and Tom Branting that night? That's the question. Where are these two? All right. At about 8. Fifth. The guy who found the body and the guy who has the motive here. At about 7pm Branting and Johnson went together to the Cozy Bar with a K in Silver Creek, which is nearby and also has 300 people in it. According to Brandting and Johnson, this is what they did. They left the bar at about 11pm and drove west to Clarks, the town we're talking about in Johnson. Chevy pickup. Okay.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's got one too.

[James Petregallo]

Everyone's good. So, I mean, everyone's got a Chevy pickup in this. In this town. So I said that earlier. You're going to see. It's not. You wouldn't see a Chevy pickup. And go, must be Jerry. You go, must be half the town. Who the hell's that?

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's a great damn truck, James.

[James Petregallo]

It's a fine truck. Yeah. Especially 94, the square body ones.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh yeah. Square headlights.

[James Petregallo]

Fun truck. Those are good shit there. So Branting noticed a car following them that he believed to be Rhonda Brauns, whom Johnson had been dating. They got to Clark's and They said, oh, yes, it was Braun's blue Oldsmobile behind them, because they all pulled into the same place at approximately 11:10 or 11:12pm but not 11:11, not that one. Chuck dropped Branting off at Branting's home in Clarks, where he lived with his sister and his nephew Trent. All right. Then with Braun driving, Branting got into her car. So Johnson dropped Branting off. Then Branton got into Braun's car. Deals with Bill. Yeah. And they followed Johnson out to the house of Amy Johnson.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Who is Chuck's ex wife, which is three miles northeast of Clark's. According to Chuck, when he arrived at the house of Amy Johnson, where he was trying to reconcile, he said that was. He wanted to talk to her and get with her whatever whatever. It's 11:45 and he's coming from the bar. So you know what he wants?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Just to apologize.

[James Petregallo]

That's right. He's just looking for. Looking for some emotional support.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I want to do it again. I don't know if my apology was right last time.

[James Petregallo]

Amy Johnson said that her clock's at 11:45pm and her clocks are 15 minutes fast. She sets them 15 minutes fast. Now, Amy said that when Chuck arrived at her house, the clock showed about 12 to midnight, but she said her clocks are five to 10 minutes fast. And Chuck had said they were 15 minutes fast.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Why does everybody do that?

[James Petregallo]

Anyway, talking about what they observed, Branting told that Marshal Warwick or Warrick only the whereabouts of the vehicle and that it possibly belonged to Carlson. He didn't report that he had gone down to the pickup or seen a body or anything like that. He just said he saw a pickup.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He saw the truck.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Braun then took Branting home, where he encountered his nephew Trent, who noticed that Branting was wearing penny loafers or some kind of dress shoes and not boots like he normally wears.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

So he thought that was odd. And by the way, the procedure in this house is you go in through the garage, take your shoes off, leave them in the garage, and go in the house.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So pretty good plan.

[James Petregallo]

He comes in with penny loafers on.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Now, what actually happened, though, is much different because Rhonda spills the beans.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, in this town, that's not good to do.

[James Petregallo]

They're all over the. Well, that is good to do. That's how you have bean day. Everybody picks them up. It's bean pickup time, everybody. It's a blasphemy to smile. Everybody pick up your beans. They throw them. They go 1, 2, 3. Everybody pick up beans. And everybody just runs and scrambles. Whoever has the most beans at the end of the day gets to start off the square dance at the end.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Of the night and also shit their pants.

[James Petregallo]

And also, well, everyone's going to shit their pants. So Bransing had rode, had ridden with Braun back to Clark's. They then drove through Clark's, went to Polk for, for beer and cigarettes, another small town. Then went back to Silver Creek, then headed back west to Clark's, which makes no sense. Approximately three miles east of Clark's, they noticed a vehicle off the road. Branting wearing boots at the time, by the way. By the time he got home, the boots are gone. Waded down to the vehicle in ankle deep water to see. He said he didn't, but he went down there and he saw it was Jeff's or Jerry's pickup. He looked inside and saw blood and saw Jerry not moving in there. Then went back to Rhonda's car. Then they went back home. Then they went to the Marshalls and changed shoes. And changed shoes too, because they're all wet.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Gotta get those ankle deep boots off.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's right. Hey, everybody, just gonna tell you a better way to cook with tovala.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Tavala.com.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, it's so good. You know how it is. You're staring into the fridge and you're saying, I don't know what I'm making. What are we making? I'm tired. We work today. What are we doing? What are we making? Tavala will solve all of this for you.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Tavala is awesome. This podcast is sponsored by Tavala. It's a smart, easy, wonderful meal, delivery service, fresh meals and a smart oven that does the cooking for you. Yeah, I love this oven. We had a Tovala night the other night.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh yeah.

[James Petregallo]

We took all the stuff that they sent and we made like four things and we picked. It was so good. It really was. The beef stew with the root vegetables was awesome. It comes with like these biscuits too that you make. I'm like, what is this? And they're like dough and it's biscuits. And so I had these biscuits that I'm dipping in the stew. It was delicious. And the cheese, the ravioli with the bolognese sauce and the creamy broccoli Caesar thing. You cook the broccoli and there's a Caesar stuff. And I'm like, I don't know if that sounds good, but that's what the recipe says. And it was awesome. I ate it. They know what they're doing over there. These Tavala people. Tavala's meals are chef crafted and taste just like homemade meals you'd make yourself just without all of the headache. Tavala makes it so easy. You just scan the meal's QR code, you pop it in the oven and it cooks everything perfectly. It steams, bakes, broils automatically. No guesswork. You can save up to $300 on the Tavala smart oven when you order meals six plus times by heading to tavala.com stm and using our code STM for a limited time. And Tavala Smart Oven isn't just for their meals. You can also use the oven to scan some store bought groceries like Eggo Waffles, Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls and Amy's Frozen meals to name a few. It knows how to cook them too. It's magic and it's fantastic. Get your magic dinner today for a limited time because you're a small town murder listener. You can save up to $300 on the Tavala smart oven when you order meals six plus times by heading to tavala.comstm and using our code STM. That's up to $300 off when you head to tovala.comstm and use the promo code STM one last time. That's T O V A L A dot com and make sure you use our promo code STM for up to $300 off the Tavala Smart Oven. Or remember with Tavala, dinner is taken care of.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Hey everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you a better way to shop for clothes. Oh boy. With Quince.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Quince.com, q U I N C E.com.

[James Petregallo]

This place is great. I get everything on quints. Now I'm wearing like an all quints thing. All my clothes. It's amazing because a well built wardrobe is about pieces that work together and hold up over time. You don't want garbage. That's why Quince does. That's what they do best. That's it. They do premium materials, thoughtful design, everyday staples that feel easy to wear and easy to rely on even as the weather shifts from season to season. Quince has the everyday essentials that you're going to love. With quality that's going to last. Organic cotton sweaters, polos for every occasion. Lighter jackets that keep you warm. You know, as spring starts to come. The list goes on and on. They have it all. Quince works directly with top factories. What they do is they cut out the middleman. So you're not paying all that markup. You're just paying for good quality clothing, which is exactly what you want. Everything is built to hold up to daily wear and still look good season after season. Plus they only partner with factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. Like I said, I get everything from quints. I just got like five shirts two days ago. They're great stuff. Sarah also gets all her stuff there. We've gone on an all quints thing and it works for us and you should do it too. Refresh your wardrobe with quints. Go to quints.com smalltownmurder for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I-N C E.com smalltownmurder free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com smalltownmurder now back to the show. Now this is when the cops hearing about all this shit, this is when they're really starting to think about this might be a real love triangle situation. Yeah, nobody's stories match up. This guy's not saying he saw the body and then his girlfriend or his friend says he saw the body. Like this is strange. They have some witnesses too that make it even weirder. Okay, Joan Sock S O C K Joan Sock lived two miles west of Silver Creek on the south side of Highway 30 where the car went off. Sock was later on will be called as a witness for all this because she heard what sounded like a gunshot somewhere to the east of her house on the night of April 15. She said she didn't know exactly what time it was, but that she laid down on her sofa at about 11:10 and sometime after that she heard the sound. Yeah, so that's why we know it's a.

[Jimmy Wisman]

But it depends on how fast her clocks are.

[James Petregallo]

That's the other thing. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. We don't know. We don't know bean time in this town, how it works. So she said after she heard the sound, she waited a couple minutes and then looked out her window facing Highway 30. She saw two sets of tail lights approximately a half mile west of her house. Both heading west. Yeah, two sets of tail lights were close together and she thought that one vehicle was about ready to pass the other. She couldn't identify the vehicles. She also observed a light colored smaller car behind the two sets of tail lights. Two trucks and the Oldsmobile. So that would be two Chevy trucks, one belonging to Johnson, possibly One belonging to Jerry. And then the trailer car here, this bronze car, the Oldsmobile, back in the bean position. So there's a second witness, Ken Dittmer, later on, who said on the evening of April 15th. Him and his wife and another couple were playing cards. At about 11:25, Dittmer and the mail from the other couple went into Clark's to get more beer. Why doesn't anybody plan their beer better in this town?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Look, man, sometimes you just. It goes down faster tonight.

[James Petregallo]

Get more. Get two 12 packs. It's not going bad. What are you doing?

[Jimmy Wisman]

You got a bunch of people coming over.

[James Petregallo]

Have to.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It'll be fine.

[James Petregallo]

And later on it'll come up, too. Another guy going for beer. Everyone goes for beer at 11:30 at night in this town. Like, it's packed in the store. So he wasn't able to find an open establishment. Ah, damn. Then they left for Silver Creek. We're getting beer. We're not taking. I'll drive all over fucking Nebraska for beer. I don't give a fuck. Those college kids gotta have something over there. Traveling east on Highway 30 with his friend. Driving approximately halfway between Clarks and Silver Creek. Dittmer saw two westbound vehicles which he identified as being both Chevy pickups. Yeah, okay. He testified later on that these vehicles were moving fast and traveling 5 to 10ft apart. And were bumper to bumper. Sounds like a chase. Approximately two miles behind the Chevy pickups. Also proceeding in the same direction was a little blue car. So it's interesting. And like we said, we know what everybody's driving here. So. April 25, 1994. The cops have heard enough of these stories. And they arrest both Chuck Johnson and Branting. They arrest them both on murder charges.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Both of them?

[James Petregallo]

Both of them. They were both in the truck.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So, yeah, it is awesome that this whole town casually just admits to drinking and driving.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, you have no fucking idea. Wait till you hear this.

[Jimmy Wisman]

There's a shitload of drinking and driving in this story.

[James Petregallo]

We haven't even hit the tip of drinking and driving yet. Wow. I'm telling you. Hold on a second here. So they are bound over to district court for jury trial. They had preliminary hearings and all of this. So the problem is, as they go through it, their evidence isn't quite lining up the way it should. They have these witnesses that all seem to say that there was two pickup trucks and a chase and a guy behind them. And Branting lying and all this type of shit. But the problem is there's some new evidence pointing to somebody new. Okay, so on November 17, 1994, charges are dismissed against Branting and Johnson.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Both of them?

[James Petregallo]

Both of them. On November 21, Chuck Johnson files a $1 million claim against Merrick county and the sheriff to Schneider Hines for violation of his civil rights. On April 15, he files a federal $4 million lawsuit against the county and sheriff for violation of civil rights.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's good. And pissed.

[James Petregallo]

He's pissed. Now why did they drop the charges on November 17, you may ask.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Well, what the hell.

[James Petregallo]

They talked to somebody else on November 16th is why. And there's some reason why they talked to this guy, which we'll get to. His name is Edwin Kula K U L A. Goes by Ed. Born in November of 52. So yeah, he's 42 at this point. Ed had served in the army at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri back in the early 70s. He was an expert marksman. Oh, like top of his class marksman. Hit 87 out of 100 targets during a qualification.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's pretty impressive.

[James Petregallo]

Pretty goddamn good. His training. He's got training in assault tactics, shooting from various positions and even selection of ambush sites. Because he's a marksman. Yeah. So they're gonna teach him all that stuff. Problem is, in the military, he's not exactly. From what I understand, and from what I found, he had some AWOL incidents. Apparently not real good at it. No. You know where he works, by the way? Watts Electric. Oh. With Jerry. He also has a wife named Rose and a son named Travis, who's about 15 at this time. Ed's got some issues here. Um, he's got some DUI convictions, which in this town is. Just means you're. You're a resident is what that means, I feel.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Just means you're going to get more beer.

[James Petregallo]

That's all it. I was just getting more. Shit. I ain't even drunk yet. I was going to get more beer. Feel better?

[Additional Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Theft charges, fraud charges. Both in Nance and Merrick County. So he's had some legal issues. Rose, his wife, would later say that if Ed was in a bad mood, she, quote, didn't want to be home when he got home. So we're painting a picture of Ed here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Short temper.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, short temper. Angry drunk. That's what it looks like. Lives on a farm about three and a half miles north of Silver Creek with Rose and their kids. They have multiple kids? I guess. But Travis is the one we'll concentrate on now. Where was he on April 15? Well, he said that he and his son Travis, he took his 15 year old out to go to the bar. What? Let's go to the bars, Dee Dee. Firstly, why? First they go to eat. He's 15 by the way, not 16. So he visited two bars in Silver Creek. They ate at the Cozy Bar with a K, then went to Little Joe's. Little Joe? For approximately three or four hours. He took his 15 year old son to the dive bar for four hours. Travis said he'd cool. That's wild. Travis did not know what time he and Ed left Lil Joe's in the coolest Dodge minivan. But he said it seemed pretty late. So at Ed's direction, Travis drove home. I'm shit faced. You gotta drive.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I've been here for four hours, son.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. He said they drove no time like the present. You wanna learn how to drive?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Let's go.

[James Petregallo]

How about now? Yeah. So they drove south out of Silver Creek, then turned around and came back through town, which makes no sense. They came to an intersection and saw two men walking. Now when Kula saw the two men, Travis later said that Ed's face changed expressions like he wasn't real pleased with something. You saw those two. Ed referred to one of the men as being Jerry Carlson and the other being Cuba. Then he told Travis to turn right as the Minivan approached. The two men walking at approximately 15 miles an hour, Ed grabs the steering wheel and jerks it toward them.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, there's the van.

[James Petregallo]

There's the van swerving at them now. Travis said they became within inches of hitting them. I mean, they got to jump out of the way. Travis asked Ed, what the hell's going on? And Ed just crossed his arms, didn't say shit. So Travis drove to the Kula farmhouse, which is three miles east and one and a half miles north of Silver Creek. The trip from Silver Creek to the Kula home takes approximately 10 minutes. When they arrived home, Ed indicated to Travis that he's going back out. Travis said, why? We just got home. And he said, well, that's something I don't want you to be a witness to and have to testify to court. And. And he was like, well, what are you doing? And Ed said, I'm gonna take care of business. Illegal. Yeah, it's something not good. Travis went straight to his room. He's like, I've seen this show before, I don't want a part of it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Now, Rose, I just drove home.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, and this guy's got a wife, Rose, who's like, what's happening now? He heard Ed and she heard Ed and Travis come home between 11:20 and 11:30, she didn't see Ed, but heard someone go back outside.

[Jimmy Wisman]

All right.

[James Petregallo]

She then heard the minivan, quote, take off a little fast.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Well, I mean, that's not.

[James Petregallo]

That's, you know, that doesn't happen. You get a heavy foot after 10.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Years, you can stomp on a minivan and it ain't going anywhere.

[James Petregallo]

It'll sound like it's taking off fast. She said it. She heard it take off.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's a great point. She did not see it.

[James Petregallo]

If she said, I saw it take off, it'd be like, fuck you, Rose. You lying.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You lying asshole.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, no, I heard it take off a little fast. Then I looked out and it was still in the same place. And then it took off the driveway. So she looked out the window and saw the minivan drive over to the garage. She woke up and asked Travis, what the hell's going on? Or she woke Travis up. Travis had already passed out. He was pretending to sleep. One of the two, Travis told her that, quote, she didn't want to know. Yeah, you don't want to know what's going on. And she said, but I think I do, actually.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I need to.

[James Petregallo]

Anything the 15 year old can know, I should probably know, too. So Travis eventually told Rose that Ed was upset with Jerry Carlson and, you know, swerved the van at him and all that kind of shit. So from Travis's window, Rose watched the minivan drive to the end of the farm lane and sit for approximately five to seven minutes sitting there, contemplating, sitting there. She then left Travis's room and went to the garage to see if any guns were missing. Now, if someone leaves the house and your first thought is, I wonder if they took guns with them.

[Jimmy Wisman]

How many? Yeah, how many guys are still home?

[James Petregallo]

She noted a.22 caliber pistol was missing that she had seen in the garage earlier that afternoon, and that a.22 caliber rifle was missing that Ed had used to shoot birds earlier that day. 222s, 222s. So when Rose saw the guns were gone, she became concerned. So she grabbed the kids and went to Columbus to a hotel. Tonight, not Ohio in this area. Rose said also, if Ed's in a bad mood, she didn't want to be home when he got home. And she was like, this is going to be crazy. So the day this next day, April 16th, Rose is back home, and Ed brings up the subject of Jerry's death. Jerry Carlson got killed. Rose said that he was upset with Jerry about some of the teasing that he did at work. He broke his balls at work. It's a blue collar place. People break balls.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Jerry teasing him?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Ed was mad because Jerry teased him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Ed also told Rose that he had a blackout and that it was a coincidence that he was going to go with the intent to do bodily harm to Jerry. And that Jerry was killed. Ain't that a coincidence? I left the house looking for blood.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I was looking for that. Some bitch. Somebody got him.

[James Petregallo]

He's even worse than I thought because other people are real mad at him now. So. Also that Ed had recently quit his job at Watts Electric.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, really?

[James Petregallo]

Rose said that within one month of the date of Jerry's murder. Ed said that he didn't care for Carlson because Carlson liked to tease people and he didn't like that. One of the stories of teasing. This is amazing. This would be the craziest murder motivation of all time. There was a story about Ed overflowed a toilet and Jerry broke his balls for him. Jesus Christ. How many you gotta eat? More beans, Ed. The hell are you going. More fiber and roughage. The hell's your problem?

[Jimmy Wisman]

He exploded the toilet at work.

[James Petregallo]

At work.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Apparently that's what happens. You fuck the toilet up where we all. You're gonna get it.

[James Petregallo]

You're the shit guy now. You're the guy with the giant logs. How big are his assholes? Like this? Boy, I tell you what. So the police interview Ed. They talk to Rose, they talk to Travis. They really need to talk to Ed. So they sit down with Ed. Ed says, I didn't kill Jerry. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. He said that he worked with Carlson at Watts Electric and that Carlson liked to tease. But he said he was not any more of a target than any of the other workers. He broke everybody's balls. Everybody.

[Additional Sponsor Voice]

Shit's big.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Specifically, you know, he said that he had no hard feelings against Carlson. Just hard shits that'll break toilets, but not failing. He said that he quit his job a couple months after starting because he didn't like the long hours, the lack of breaks and the terrible roll away cot he had to sleep on in a motel a few nights on the job. It made people share rooms probably. Then he says the night of the murder, he was playing pool with his son. And he said, this is great. I was kind of on the road to getting pretty well bombed. He said that the game, game of pool was good. He had a good time. He admits that he saw Travis. That he and Travis saw Carlson in Cuba walking on that night. He even admits that he, yes, Travis didn't lie. I did grab the steering wheel and swerve it toward them. But quote, as a joke. That's how I tease.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I was fun and too.

[James Petregallo]

That's how I tease. He teases about poop, I tease about vehicular manslaughter. It's sort of similar.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'll damn near kill you.

[James Petregallo]

I'll kill you. So he said that he just. It was just a, quote, buzz to put a little scare into them. Just buzzed him a bit.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Buzzed the tower. Even swapped for making fun of my giant shit.

[James Petregallo]

Same thing. So he said after Travis drove him home, he went into the house to check for more beer, then went back to town and bought a couple of sodas because that's what you want when you're drunk and you want beer. He says he then drove around for appro. 15 minutes.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Just.

[James Petregallo]

Why?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Just having fun.

[James Petregallo]

Just. Just cruising.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's how hard it is to crash a minivan, James.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus Christ. Yeah, well, especially in these big, wide roads.

[Additional Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

A 15 year old can manage it all the way home. Even with a drunkard hanging off the wheel.

[James Petregallo]

He can do it. I feel like this isn't Travis's first drive home. That's the thing.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He's driven the town and country several times.

[James Petregallo]

There's been. He sat on phone books before. Oh, yeah, for sure. Dad, I can't reach the pedal. He's like, I'll push it for you. Don't worry. You just stare.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Stand up in the seat, boy.

[James Petregallo]

That's right. He said that he went home then to find his family gone. He claims he thought they'd taken his youngest son to the doctor because the boy had recurring health problems. We think he'd want to know if the kid got rushed to the hospital at midnight. Crazy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Whose kid?

[James Petregallo]

His kid. His youngest son.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So he waited a bit, then called two of his wife's sisters and her mother to try to find Rose. But he couldn't find her. So wife and kids disappear in the middle of the night. I guess I'll go to sleep. He just went to sleep. That's what he said.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I hope they're here by morn.

[James Petregallo]

That's right. So the next morning he went and picked up his last paycheck from Watts Electric. He said that's when he heard about Jerry's murder. Okay. Heard it from there. He said that he admitted. Also, he said, you're driving around, you're just cruising. What are you doing? He said, I was tearing around some in the minivan. You don't Tear in a.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It's a front wheel drive car, man.

[James Petregallo]

And he said that that was, quote, not unusual for him after he'd been drinking. I like to go out and just tear them roads up after I had a few. It's a fun act. This is what I mean. This is what they do for fun. It's not even, I need to get home. This is, ah. Tear it up a little bit. I'm feeling good right now.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Well, e. Brake slide. Fucking caravan down the road.

[James Petregallo]

And that's the thing. If it wasn't dangerous, drunk driving could be fun. Imagine if you were on like a track and you were in like a Nerf car with Nerf walls. It would be the most fun. The problem is that's not the other. There's other people and trees and people and kids and everything else. He then said that he did all that. Then he said that he didn't have any guns with him that night and that all the guns he had were in the house and not in the garage, which contradicts what Rose said. They keep him in the garage. He also said I do have blackouts sometimes.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

He said they go, yeah, why'd you go into the garage that night? Your wife said you went in the garage. He goes, I don't remember. I get blackouts.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

I was probably. So he says, yeah, I get that. So they ask him again, did you take a gun when you left the house? And he said, no. They said, is it possible you shot Jerry even accidentally and blacked out about it? Maybe you don't remember it. He said, quote, it'd be an awful lot. It had seemed to me it'd be an awful lot to black that out. Awful lot.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'd probably blacks out portions of the night. But he remembers tearing ass down the road.

[James Petregallo]

Tearing ass looking for. Looking for beer and all that. He also said during the interview that he didn't think he had anything to do with the death. But he said, there's a part of a percent where I know I blacked out. And we'll get to that quote. Because it's great. Because they asked him about taking a polygraph examination. And they asked him again, do you think you had anything to do with the murder? And he said, by the way, what's the answer to that, Jimmy? No, absolutely not. No, not at all. Not even a little bit. What the fuck are you talking about? Want to go home now?

[Jimmy Wisman]

He said, what's his strength, too?

[James Petregallo]

Well, as far as I can remember, I never had anything to do with this damn thing. Not the murder. This damn thing, which is this damn thing minimizing is bad. When they say I didn't hurt him or I didn't touch him, he said, this damn thing, it's not even a murder anymore.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, this is the most trivialized night of my life.

[James Petregallo]

He said, but you know, there's a 1% too, that you know, that I don't know some of the things that I did. And I'm kind of, I mean, I'm worried about it. He said, I don't know what to do about the damn thing, you know. So he's saying, I'd like to take a polygraph, but there's 1% of me that might know that I did something bad. So I don't really want to take a polygraph. Basically they said, do you own a Carcano 6.5 millimeter rifle? Do you have that? Because that's the main issue. And he said, absolutely. Never seen that gun in my damn life. Don't know anything about a Carcano. Never touched a Carcano. I don't know shit about it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's good.

[James Petregallo]

So then they talked to his brother in law, Ed, another Ed, and this Ed said he traded that Ed a Carcano rifle back in 90 or 91. He said he had bought it at a pawn shop and then traded it to Ed. And he definitely had the gun because Jay Richards, the former police chief of the Clark's Police Department, testified that on April 16, 1990, he went to the Kula residence and was given three guns by Rose for safekeeping. So what was going on there when he went to the residence? You need to hold my guns. He said he took the guns to the police department, inventoried them and you know, inventoried, put them in a locker. About two months later, Rose came to the police department and asked for the guns back. An inventory sheet was received here that shows one of the guns that Rose had given to him for Safekeeping was a 1941 XIX Terni Italy, B6 1070. Which is exactly the gun that fucking shot the guy that he says he never had. Yeah, another brother in law, Ed, bought.

[Jimmy Wisman]

It at a pawn shop and traded it to him.

[James Petregallo]

Traded it to Ed? Yeah, the other Ed. Then there's another brother in law and his nephew. They both said that they had seen Ed in possession of the Carcano rifle. Yeah, and his brother in law also said that Ed usually made him aware of his gun trades or sales because they were into it together and that he was not aware that he had sold, traded or disposed of the Carcano.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Rose's family is a bunch of stool pigeons.

[James Petregallo]

This is bullshit. Her, the kids, everybody will tell right away.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They're just talking.

[James Petregallo]

So they never recover the murder weapon. It's never found.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Really.

[James Petregallo]

They argue that the ballistics here, they know what the gun is and all that, but they never find the rifle they're looking for. Okay, so they bring Ed to trial in December 1995. Yeah. Opening statement. The prosecutor says, we don't have an eyewitness to tell you Edwin Kula shot Jerry Carlson. Yeah, we don't have that, he said, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. And he said shortly before he was murdered, Kula told his son Travis to stay home because you don't need to see this and I don't want you to be a witness in court.

[Additional Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Meanwhile, he's on the witness list in court. Yeah. Because that's worse than letting him see it almost. If you let him see it, you can say you're in this too. Now, don't say anything. If you just say.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Don't say a fucking word.

[James Petregallo]

I don't want. I don't need you to be a witness. That's even more suspicious. So they go through all of how he was shot. And he said, Edwin Kula was an angry man. And the evidence points to him. It's a deep seated hatred. Now, the defense, their entire thing is that he said, this trial starts with witness. And in the end, the state's case is full of sound and fury and signifying little. He said that Ed had. The prosecution had said that Ed had the means and motive or the opportunity. And they said, no, no, no. You know who had the motive?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Who?

[James Petregallo]

It's Chuck Johnson and Tom Branton, the two people who were arrested to begin with.

[Additional Sponsor Voice]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

So they are the specter over this whole trial. That's the defense's whole case is obviously those two did it. Well, we have witnesses saying they saw them chasing the guy and everything else. So what? They went away and then another guy who's angry at Jerry got on the road and killed him. That sounds like a stretch.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's crazy. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So Branting and Johnson are both called as witnesses and they deny any involvement in the death Completely. Obviously, the defense attorney said Jerry Carlson died because he loved Amy Johnson.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

Which means that Chuck Johnson would be pissed off.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Has to be.

[James Petregallo]

So, yeah, the defense hammers that these two had means. They had motive, they had opportunity. It was obviously them. Branting was even given immunity to testify. They said the jury, this is the defense said whether or not Charles Johnson and Tom Branting intended to kill Jerry Carlson is a question for another jury. It's like, we don't even need to deal with that. But we do need to get this poor man out of this chair. Even though he said, I may, I may could have blacked out and done it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

1%.

[James Petregallo]

1%. Now, Rhonda Braun here, this lady is.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Fucking it all up by lying.

[James Petregallo]

Well, she lied at first and then said something else. So you don't know what she's lying about. She said, talking about her second statement, that she was trying to protect. Where she said she was trying to protect Chuck during an offer of proof outside the presence of the jury, she admitted to making those statements. But she did say that she made the statements only after they kept telling me and trying to get me to say that. She said, I just broke down under the pressure they wanted me to.

[Jimmy Wisman]

The question was really intense.

[James Petregallo]

They said they put pressure on her. They threatened to take her to jail. They threatened to treat her poorly. Yeah, they said, if you're like cops do, you don't want to be an accessory to this, because we heard you were there. And you'd be in prison, too, right next to them. And that lady's prison ain't too nice.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's not fun.

[James Petregallo]

Ain't fun. So she admitted that she essentially repeated the statements two hours later to another investigator, which, in her opinion, that investigator who she repeated it to, again, didn't mistreat her at all. So they put her in. They had good cop or bad cops.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And then they put her with good cop. And she still said the same thing, so.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So good cop, back cop doesn't work.

[James Petregallo]

Well, it does. They got her to say what they wanted twice. Oh, so great, actually.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Same thing. She said the exact same thing.

[James Petregallo]

But the guy didn't force her to the second time. So the defense calls her as a witness. By Ed. Ed calls her as a witness, and she said she did not see any other westbound vehicles on Highway 30 besides Chuck's pickup truck. She did testify, though, that she was following Branting and Johnson and that she saw Johnson's pickup truck swerve a little bit left of the center line. She saw a glimpse of light on the south side of the field in the area where Johnson made this swerve and where Carlson's pickup truck was later found.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Ended up being found.

[James Petregallo]

Defense calls a bartender, Shannon Lurch, from the Cozy Bar. Yeah, she said that Branting and Johnson left the bar when she did, which was 11:30 not 11. Another woman from the bar said that she left between 11 and 11:30 and that Branting and Johnson left at the the same time. A firearms expert said he examined three bullet fragments taken from Carlson's body. He described the condition of the fragments and stated that in his research and experience there was not enough left of the fragments to determine what caliber the bullet had been.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, so we don't even know that's what he said.

[James Petregallo]

This is a defense witness. They said that in their opinion. In his opinion, the gun that fired the fatal bullet was a center fire, high powered, high powered rifle and not a rim rifle such as a.22 caliber, right? Yeah, yeah. Center punch. He said that the Carcano 6.5 would be capable of firing the bullet that killed him. But there are millions of guns in existence in the US that would be capable of firing the same type of bullet. So he said using a Carcano, he demonstrated to the jury that after a shot is fired, the spent cartridge is not extracted and that a new cartridge is not inserted into the chamber until the rifle's bolt is manually operated.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Have you ever seen the Lee Harvey Oswald recreations? That's what it is, yeah. They have dueling pathologists here. One guy is called by a witness from the state. He gave the opinion that after being shot, Carlson could have functioned for four to seven minutes and could have driven straight on the highway and then crashed. The defense's pathologist, he's got a different opinion. He said that Carlson would have lost conscience within less than a minute and would not have been able to consciously drive his vehicle down a straight road.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay, so four to seven minutes of living, but one minute of consciousness.

[James Petregallo]

So. Well, no, he's the first guy said he would have functioned for four to seven minutes and been able to drive. This guy said less than a minute, he wouldn't have been able to drive. Okay, so the defense is saying he would have crashed where he got shot, which is where those people saw the two trucks and all that. And the prosecution saying, no, no, no, Ed could have shot him here and then he could have veered for a while and he could have just, you know, kind of floated down the highway and then went off. Hey, everybody, just going to tell you about the safest sponsor that we have to offer here. Simply safe.

[Jimmy Wisman]

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[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Wisman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

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[Jimmy Wisman]

Now back to the show.

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[James Petregallo]

That's nationaldebtrelief.com now, closing arguments here. They say that everybody was lying. Rhonda was lying. Branting was lying. Chuck Johnson was lying.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay?

[James Petregallo]

And he said that's a very big lie and that's reasonable doubt, everybody. There's also shoddy investigation contributes to reasonable doubt. The murder scene was not preserved. No measurements were taken. Evidence was collected and hidden from investigators. Some evidence not gathered at all. He called the investigation sad. It's a sad investigation.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I'd say this is very frustrating.

[James Petregallo]

This is small town murder is what this is. This is a bunch of cops that aren't used to this shit going, oh, what do we do? I don't know. Shit, I forgot how we're supposed to do this.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You got two guys with plenty of reason to hurt somebody.

[James Petregallo]

The prosecution told the jury not to be distracted by smoke and muck or anything else beans or anything you got there. So they said neither of the men had made any statements that night, branding or Johnson. That they wanted to harm Carlson. And neither of them made sure that there were no witnesses to their actions. Ed had told his wife he intended to harm Carlson and then covered his tracks. Yeah. So the only explanation for what he did is because he killed Jerry Carlson. So the verdict comes in. Guilty of first degree murder.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Guilty of first degree murder. Comes a first degree too, like had to. Police sat there for seven minutes thinking about it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Sentencing comes around you sir. Oh wait, I got the thing here. You sir, may fuck off. Life plus a consecutive 6 and 2/3 to 20 year charge for the weapons.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Get out of here.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Now also in December there is a sheriff recall petition based on the fuck ups in this case here. Later on the county attorney will nullify the recall effort because they said the wrong number of signatures were turned in. Apparently the sheriff here, the Merritt County Sheriff, Dan Schneider, Schneiderhynes had notebooks containing information from a clerks man who said that an anonymous female told him that two other men committed the murder.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh for Christ's sake.

[James Petregallo]

The notebooks were not turned over to the defense. Brady. Shit. The Nebraska Supreme Court will later call this prosecutorial misconduct for sure not good. Branting files a $4 million lawsuit by the way, against the county and the sheriff. Defamation May of 96. The sheriff is recalled in most part for this December of 96. A federal appeals court rules in favor of the sheriff saying he didn't violate Chuck's civil rights by arresting him March 20. Yeah, being incompetent doesn't mean you act with malice. You're just an idiot sometimes. March 21, 1997. A federal judge dismisses Johnson's lawsuit against the county and the sheriff and then Branting's also gets dismissed. So they don't get a dime out of that sheriff ended up, you know, whatever, floating into obscurity I guess so. The Merrick's County Sheriff's Department has a former deputy named Rodney Williamson who listed several complaints about the way the department investigated. They got a whistleblower here, okay. He said basic investigative procedures weren't followed, such as roping off the murder scene or preserving the area for evidence. No measurements were made of Carlson's truck from the roadway. Officers looked for evidence by flashlight when the department was called out about 2am but it would be days before anybody was asked to go back and walk the highway during the daylight where anything happened.

[Jimmy Wisman]

They don't know what they're doing.

[James Petregallo]

No, they just don't do this a lot. They don't know what this is. Why small town murderers say sometimes make fun of a bumbling police statistic fucked everything up here. The night of the murder. Williamson said he asked the sheriff if he should secure the scene and call out a State Patrol crime van to lock the scene down. The sheriff's response was quote, we don't need the damn state police here.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Goddamn staties.

[James Petregallo]

Goddamn state police coming in, taking over everything, talking about they don't like beans.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I know, bring some luminol in here.

[James Petregallo]

A second request to call the State Patrol was made by Sheriff Deputy Miller, who was one of the first responders that we talked about. Within 15 minutes of being on the scene, the sheriff announced to Williamson that he knew who committed the crime.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Already knew.

[James Petregallo]

I walked around and figured it out. Done figured it out. He said it was Charles Johnson and Thomas Branting. That's it. He said that he knew that they did it cuz Johnson's ex wife Amy had dated this guy. Cause even the sheriff knows everybody's business. Yeah, everybody knows everything about everybody in this town.

[Jimmy Wisman]

So he's dating this man's ex wife. So he clearly this is just real.

[James Petregallo]

He said he knew Johnson and Branting had, quote, been running around that night.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh boy.

[James Petregallo]

And at one point during the investigation, the deputy county attorney asked Williamson and Schneider Hines about Ed Kula. He said, what about this guy? Because we keep having people Say that he hated Jerry Carlson. And the sheriff said, I knew Ed for a long time, and I went out and talked to him, and it's fine. It ain't him.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

This sheriff not doing a great job.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He just wrote off the bowl splitter over nothing.

[James Petregallo]

Just over anything. Yeah, just. I know him. He's fine. There's also a jailhouse informant named Jerry Barnes who would later testify that Ed admitted to owning the Carcano rifle while they were in and they were incarcerated.

[Additional Sponsor Voice]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

He would tell later that Ed admitted to owning it and said that Kula told him he was in Silver Creek the day of the murder as well. Now, the cellmate had worked in the Silver Creek area near Highway 30 at the time of the death. And he said that he'd spoken to Ed several times after the murder because he knew about the murder. 1997. The State Supreme Court overturns the conviction. They argued that police reports pointing to possible other suspects were not turned over to the state until the first. Or not turned over by the state until the first day of the trial, which is ridiculous. Discovery. You need time to go over everything. How to put that into a strategy. Give them a chance.

[Additional Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Make it fair. So he said this was the sheriff's notebooks, that whole thing. The Nebraska Supreme Court said the discovery process is not a game of hide the ball. And discovery orders must be completed in a timely manner. Overturned. Wow. Reverse new trial ordered. Second trial. There's a change of venue, by the way, because everyone knows everything about it.

[Jimmy Wisman]

All333. You've heard it?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Fuck, yeah. How do you pick a jury out of that? So Branting again, given immunity to testify. The jury's not told about that during this trial, though. By this point, Rose had filed for divorce from Ed. Travis had been removed from the home through juvenile court proceedings.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Can't even live with Rose.

[James Petregallo]

And Ed had lost his job and everything he owned while he's in jail.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah. I mean, he doesn't have anything.

[James Petregallo]

Then. Rose died before the second trial. Oh, fuck. At age 41, she's dead.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What happened?

[James Petregallo]

Don't know. Her testimony from the first trial is read in to the record because she's not alive to testify, which you can do. Really? Yeah. Now, the cost of this is wild, by the way. This county cannot afford this trial. It's crazy. They said the annual budget for the fiscal year is only $93,000. And court costs are only $28,000 out of that. And this cost $170,000. 28,000 that they have to spend. Not great. So that's a lot. This features the tape recorded interrogation of Ed, but it's only in transcripts, not the audio tape. Oh, so in transcripts everything looks a little. You can look more or less guilty on transcripts, depending on who you are. Also features the jailhouse informant testimony. Prosecution calls Branting. Same testimony they called more people trying to basically say that Chuck was mad at Jerry, which we know about. He said that they call a bartender who was at the Cozy Bar, a guy named Mark Prososki. He said he was acquainted with Chuck Johnson and Tom Branting and said that both of them were in the bar on the night of April 14th. And that they were in a, quote, ornery mood. April 15th. When asked what he meant by ornery, he said, what, you never seen a fucking Western? What are you talking about? Ornery, like an angry cowboy, you know what I'm saying?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Doing a little grab ass, but also mad about it.

[James Petregallo]

Mad, pissed off, he said, you know, looking for trouble. That's what he said. He said that Branting and Johnson left the bar about 1115 and that Rhonda Braun was also in cozies that night and left shortly after Johnson and Branting, they bring in Tom Branting's nephew Trent, who said that Branting was living with them in 94. He said it was the family's habit to leave their shoes in the garage before entering the house. He saw his uncle's boots in the garage when he came home late. And he said his boots were dry, not wet and muddy. Oh, now Rhonda said that. So this he found.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So the verdict comes in. This takes 23 hours and 17 minutes of deliberation.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

During this time, Betty Wyman, who is Jerry Carlson's mother, said, quote, God will take care of it. Uh, oh, yeah. So they find him guilty of second degree murder. Okay, so not first degree murder and the weapon use. So the jury said that Betty, Jerry's mom, said, thank God it's over. Sentencing comes around, you, sir, may fuck off. Life plus six and a half to 20 years consecutive on second degree, on second degree at the same exact sentence. So not much. He appeals again very quickly. His attorneys allege 29 errors. The Supreme Court found one. It's a good one. The judge had allowed jurors to have a copy of a transcript of the tape. Recorded statement that he gave investigators that Ed did. The one where he denied possessing the murder weapon. The original tape contained inadmissible statements, including talk of Kula's criminal record and discussion about Whether he'd take a lie detector test. An edited version was prepared, but instead of playing the edited tape for the jury, they were given written transcripts. They said this was the first time the jury could see that evidence and were allowed to read it during deliberations with the prosecutors urging them to study it, whereas before, they just heard it and it was in their head. And if they had notes, whatever. His attorney during this appeal said, this is of August 11th of 2000. Ed Kuhl has been in jail since June 5th, 1995. He still hasn't had a fair trial. The judge here wrote there was a palpable danger that the jury gave undue emphasis to the redacted transcript in its deliberations when it found Kula guilty. Overturned again.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Third trial, everybody. Who's up for number three?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Are they gonna do it again?

[James Petregallo]

October 26th, 2000. Ed enters a no contest plea to manslaughter.

[Jimmy Wisman]

That's what he'll take.

[James Petregallo]

Much different than first degree murder. So he was sentenced to you, sir. Again, they fuck off. 20 years in prison.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

And ordered to pay $4,592.39 in court costs.

[Jimmy Wisman]

In 2000.

[James Petregallo]

In 2000. 4,500 bucks.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He already served more than five years. With a 20 year sentence and time served, he could be eligible for parole in less than two years. 2004. Yeah, 2010 from 2000. He appealed, saying the sentence was excessive, and challenged the court costs, arguing that he shouldn't have to pay for the prior overturned trials. He's like, you guys fucked that up.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

They affirm the sentence, but they do say that he does not have. But they reverse the cost. Court cost. So he doesn't have to pay that, but he does have to do the time. Yeah. He filed. He also is sued by Betty, Jerry's mother, seeking $6,600 in special damages plus an undetermined amount in general damages on behalf of herself and the estate.

[Jimmy Wisman]

You murdering my son has cost me $6,600.

[James Petregallo]

That's. Well, funeral costs. Okay.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You know, who knows? If she had to, like, do things with his kids or something. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I hope my mom, if I'm murdered, sues for much more than that.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. That shows, though, how reasonable she's being.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Yeah, she's being so kind.

[James Petregallo]

I need a million dollars. But apparently, under state law, dollar amounts for general damages aren't included in civil suits. That amount is for the jury to decide.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, got it.

[James Petregallo]

So you sue for what you want and say you have costs. They'll determine it. Yeah, they'll determine it from there. Remember Travis, the son, Old Trav?

[Jimmy Wisman]

How'd he do?

[James Petregallo]

20, 19. He's dead at 39.

[Jimmy Wisman]

What in the fuck is happening?

[James Petregallo]

I don't know what's happening in this town. Mom's dead at 41. He's dead at 49.

[Jimmy Wisman]

He died at 39.

[James Petregallo]

39. We don't know what happened. I assume a heart attack or something like that.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Jump in a town and country over a canyon, who knows?

[James Petregallo]

With Dixie playing over the horn, he is. His obituary said he's reunited with his cherished firstborn son, Peyton Michael. Gone all too soon. And mother Rose Kula.

[Jimmy Wisman]

His son is dead.

[James Petregallo]

His son is dead. So Ed's got a dead wife, son, grandkid. He should be out of jail by now. A quote from the Grand Island Independent newspaper here from an editorial said this was, quote, an example of what can happen when those involved fail to execute their duties short of perfection. Justice has to be an exacting science. Close simply isn't good enough when the future of a suspect's life hangs in the balance. Yeah, I mean, this is a hard case to unwind.

[Jimmy Wisman]

I can't. I don't know that. I don't know. This town is baffling.

[James Petregallo]

The whole thing is baffling. That's what I mean. How the hell do you know about this?

[Jimmy Wisman]

Nobody dies to life expectancy. Now the town is a fucking mess.

[James Petregallo]

Never mind median age. What's the median life expectancy? Perhaps it's all 37. Median life expectancy.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Drinking and driving around this town?

[James Petregallo]

Maybe, yeah. Median age 37. Median life expectancy, 41. Like, maybe that's what it is. Everybody's almost dead. I'm not sure. But holy shit. That everybody, though, is Clark's Nebraska.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

And quite the goddamn tale. So if you enjoyed that story, as I hope you did, please get on whatever app you're listening on and give us five stars. It helps so goddamn much do that. Helps drive us up the charts. Listen to our other two shows as well, Crime and sports, and you'd stupid opinions. They're available anywhere. You listen to podcasts? Definitely. Follow us on social media. Smalltown murder on Instagram. Small town pod on Facebook. Hang out with us there. You definitely want Patreon. Oh, actually, wait before that. Shutupandgivemerder.com.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Get your tickets for live shows. February 21st, Nashville. Get your asses out there. Goddamn boot wear and jackasses. Come see us March 6th and 7th in Durham and Atlanta. Come out and See us there. And then March 20th in Phoenix is sold out. But the 21st is your stupid opinions. Get your tickets for that and come see us and hang out with us. Shut up and givemeimurder.com patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get everything. All the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above. You get hundreds of episodes you've never heard before. Immediately upon subscription, back catalog of bonus stuff. New ones every other week. One Crime in sports, one Small Town Murder, and you get them all. This week, what we have for you for crime and sports, we're gonna talk about William Tank Black, who was an agent or a coach that turned agent and then turned criminal. Master P's involved. He sold the company to him. It's weird.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Good career trajectory.

[James Petregallo]

That's a wild trajectory. Then for Small Town Murder, we're gonna talk about that perfect Neighbor documentary that everyone has been asking us to talk about. So we're gonna go ahead and do it. I've seen a lot about it. It's a good documentary. It's on Netflix if you want to check it out. So do that. Hang out with us. Patreon.com CrimeInSports you also get everything. We put out ad free. All the shows, ad free. And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show as well. So come out, hang out with us. Keep doing that. If you want to follow us on social media, shutupandgivemerder.com has all the links you could possibly want to go everywhere you need to go. So do that. And keep coming back every week. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Hey, everybody. Listening to Small Town Murder out there. Hi.

[Jimmy Wisman]

Hello.

[James Petregallo]

Good to see you out there. I'm here with Jimmy too. And this is an ad, but not an ad for a product. This is an ad for tour dates. Yes. Come see a live show, the 2026 Tour. All the tickets are for sale right now. Starting out with February 21st in Nashville, March 6th in Durham. March 7th in Atlanta. Phoenix is sold out. We do have tickets though, to super your stupid opinions on 21 March. Salt Lake City sold out. Denver has tickets. Be there on May 2. May 29, Buffalo, sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan. May 30, we have September 18, Milwaukee. September 19, Minneapolis. October 3 in Dallas. October 16 in San Jose. October 17 in Sacramento. November 13 in Tarrytown. November 14 in Boston. Come see us. The live shows are spectacular. Come join all of the other estate. You're going to meet so many people you're going to have fun. Make some new friends like crazy. And make some new friends come out and see us. Shut upandgivemerder.com is where you go for those tickets. Get them right now while they're hot.

[Jimmy Wisman]

See you on the road.