Joshua Keadle seeking to have murder conviction, sentence vacated
Keadle was convicted at trial in the death of Tyler Thomas
By News Channel NebraskaBEATRICE – A man serving a 71 years to life prison term for the murder of a former Peru State College student is seeking to have his conviction vacated, his sentence set aside…and a new trial be ordered.
A less than five-minute evidentiary hearing was held Monday in Gage County District Court, where attorneys for both sides opted to submit written arguments and briefs in the case of 43-year-old Joshua Keadle, convicted of second-degree murder in the death of former Peru State student Tyler Thomas, whose body has not been found.
District Judge Rick Schreiner, who presided over Keadle’s trial that was moved from Nemaha County to Gage County…conducted the short hearing on Monday. Defense Attorney Benjamin Murray and Assistant Attorney General Sandra Allen appeared. State attorneys have said Thomas was killed December 2nd or 3rd, 2010…at a boat dock area near Peru along the Missouri River.
Keadle is contending there is evidence to show Thomas was in Phoenix, Arizona the afternoon of December 3rd of that year…and that there is a witness who saw Thomas in Omaha, around noon the following day. Keadle contends another witness told another person that Thomas was still alive and held in a house around December 10th of 2010….and was killed by two unknown men at some later time…while Keadle was in jail on another matter.
That witness, who Keadle says died in a 2016 car accident…told someone he and two other men had raped Thomas,,,,that the other two men drowned her and that all three buried her body.
Keadle also contends that the State of Nebraska unreasonably delayed charging him in order to have more time to show there was no evidence that Thomas was still alive.
The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed Keadle’s conviction in July of 2022.