- What is up EWU crew.
Today we are covering the brutal case
of convicted killer Jeremiah Bean.
Our story begins many years ago
in the small town of Fernley, Nevada, on May 10th 2013.
Tucked inside of Lyon County, the city of Fernley
is home to a little over 20,000 people.
It was an exceptionally average Friday afternoon
for local residents, Robert and Dorothy Pape.
Like any other Friday, the 84 year old retired couple,
spent their time tending to their home
and preparing for the potential
Mother's Day weekend celebrations to come.
Robert Pape spent a large part of the afternoon
doing yard work in the Nevada sun,
while his wife enjoyed a midday nap in their shared bedroom.
The desert air was stuffy but the day was otherwise
like any other for the Papes.
That is, until an unexpected guest let himself in
to their quaint Lyon county home uninvited.
As Robert Pape began to finish up his work
in the couple's front yard, 27 year old Jeremiah Bean
walked through an unlocked door
and into the Papes living room.
At the time, Jeremiah Bean
had been fresh off an expired parole for a burglary charge
six months before stepping into the Papes' his residence.
Bean had been considered a juvenile delinquent
in the state of California,
before serving time in Nevada prisons for burglary.
During his parole, Bean began to associate himself
with Fernleys definition of the wrong crowd.
Local residents referred to being and his friends
as a pack of jackals, who wreaked havoc
when they weren't doing or selling substances
out of their garage.
This havoc, often involved intense partying
and stealing whatever they could
to keep their pockets stuffed.
On that fateful day in May,
Jeremiah Bean intended to do just that.
He snuck into the Papes' house
and wandered his way through the halls
until he came across the master bedroom.
There, he saw sleeping Dorothy Pape,
facedown on a mattress, snuggled up against a pillow.
As been rummaged through the Papes' dresser drawers
searching for jewelry,
he found a 22 Revolver sitting at the bottom.
He held it in his hand, and as he did so, Dorothy Pape
began to stir in her sleep.
Whether it was a result of anxiousness
or his original intent, Bean raised the revolver
with a steady hand and fired.
Her body went slack against the bed once more.
Bean moved quickly to stuff has pockets with necklaces,
bracelets, earrings and other valuables
he could get his hands on in the Papes' as his bedroom.
As he did so, Robert Pape rushed back into his home
to investigate the commotions source.
As he turned at the corner of the hallway
toward the bedroom he had shared with his wife for decades,
he was shot as well.
Though Robert Papes' his last moments
were filled with worry.
He was spared having to see the brutal fate
of the love of his life.
Jeremiah Bean had no remorse.
After all, it was Friday, and he needed cash.
Jeremiah did not stop there.
However, he did waver.
His initial motive for murdering Robert and Dorothy Pape
was rooted in needing money.
In addition to the pocketed jewelry and revolver,
Bean swiped the keys to Robert Papes' truck and left town.
He headed down the infamous Interstate 80 toward Reno
to pawn off the goods he had stolen from the Papes.
With a fresh $1,000 in his pocket,
he met up with his Fernley friends
to spend the remainder of Friday night
in the way they always had, partying.
Jeremiah was generous when it came to his friends
that evening.
He bought drinks insuring his place
as the life of the party.
He mentioned his day's actions
to at least six of his friends,
bragging about the success of his looting.
Jeremiah partied to his heart's content.
In the morning, Jeremiah awoke, feeling rather satisfied
and fueled by the notion that his plan had been successful.
So successful in fact that he realized
he could use the already secured Pape residence
as a source of income for the foreseeable future.
Throughout the remainder of the weekend,
Jeremiah drove back and forth between Reno and Fernley
along the I80, nicknamed the Big Lonely
because the desolate interstate appeared to go on forever
with nothing around.
On one of his first trips back to the Papes' house
in Fernley,
Jeremiah grew tired of looking at the lifeless faces
of Robert and Dorothy.
He dragged their limp bodies across the home's length,
and pile them on top of each other in a nearby closet,
and buried them in clothes.
Without the decaying witnesses watching him,
Jeremiah looted any items from the home
that he believed he could turn a profit with.
After each scavenge of the Pape house,
Jeremiah would return to Reno
to pawn off more items for cash.
In fact, after bragging to his friends
about his Mother's day weekend antics,
they took it upon themselves
to raid the Pape presidents as well.
On the following Monday morning,
Jeremiah had another truck full of items
that he wished upon off in Reno.
His greedy nature allowed him to believe
that this new routine of looting and selling
the late Papes' property could go on forever,
or at least as long as he could milk it.
As previously mentioned, the I80 was rather desolate,
stretching from Northern California to New Jersey.
During his drive along the Big Lonely, Jeremiah realized
that the truck he stole from the Papes was low on gas.
As he steadily approached Reno,
he decided to get off at the Mustang exit,
where he had seen a sign for a nearby gas station.
Though he believed his gas stop to be well calculated,
Jeremiah accidentally took a wrong turn,
resulting in his need to get back on the interstate.
As he attempted to do so, the Papes' truck became
high centered, and Jeremiah was sufficiently stuck.
After attempting to turn over the engine multiple times
with no luck, Jeremiah decided to abandon the vehicle.
He assumed that he could walk along the Interstate
and come across a payphone that he could use
to call one of his friends to come pick him up.
He wandered down the I80 on foot for about a quarter mile
before his stranded state took a turn.
Much to his avail, an unsuspecting Eliazar Graham
pulled up alongside Jeremiah to offer some assistance.
Eliazar, described as an ever helpful individual
by his family and friends, had no idea
that he was looking into the eyes of a cold blooded killer.
Prepared to provide this total stranger
with a jump or a ride if necessary.
Eliazar rolled down his window
and introduced himself to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah had a decision to make.
The simple notion that Eliazar are had seen Jeremiah's face
and noticed the abandoned truck further down the Interstate
meant that Eliazar knew too much.
Jeremiah allowed the small talk to continue
between himself and Eliazar for a few moments
before slipping his hand behind his back.
There, he fidgeted with Papes revolver
that was nestled in the small of his back.
Before Eliazar could even process what was about to happen,
Jeremiah whipped the 22 out of his jeans's waistband
and named it at Eliazar.
The 52 year old newspaper delivery man was killed.
It was then that Jeremiah knew that he had to act swiftly.
Though the Interstate was desolate,
Jeremiah was not so naive as to believe
that it would remain that way for long.
He maneuvered himself to the driver side door of the truck
and forced it open.
He unbuckled the seat belt that was supporting
the lifeless body of Eliazar Graham.
As he did so, Eliazars body slumped forward
onto the steering wheel.
Jeremiah caught it and mustered up the strength
to drag him out of the seat
and onto the hot asphalt beneath him.
Jeremiah tossed Eliazar in front of the truck,
wherein he quickly hopped in to the still warm driver's seat
and shifted the gear from park to drive.
Without hesitation, Jeremiah stepped on the gas.
He waited just long enough to feel both the trucks front
and back tires roll over Eliazars body.
He parked the truck once more,
leaving the keys in the ignition and hopped out.
He dragged Eliazar to the side of the road
and tossed some assorted newspaper sheets
and a carpet over him to hide his shape.
Once he was satisfied with disguising Eliazar as trash.
Jeremiah jumped back into Eliazars truck and sped off
back towards Fernley.
There was no time to follow through with his original plan
to pawn the Papes' items off in Reno.
He realized he needed to dispose of Eliazars truck quickly
before someone noticed he was missing.
As Jeremiah sped off down the Interstate,
Eliazar was added to the over 500 other deceased individuals
abandoned along the I80 over the years.
Just like that, Eliazar Graham
went from being a warm hearted, selfless individual
to another I80 statistic.
Upon returning to Fernley, Jeremiah turned down
Jessica lane, and approached the Pape house
that had been picked clean.
The smell of the decaying bodies of Robert and Dorothy Pape
began to flood the hallways and rooms
of the abandoned house.
Jeremiah drove Eliazars truck into the garage
and removed his belongings from the vehicle
along with himself.
He popped the hood of the pickup truck
and opened all of the doors
before lighting the whole thing on fire.
As he watched the fire spread from Eliazars pickup truck
to the Papes' garage walls, he ran.
The flames licked the sides of the house quickly
in the Nevada sun, spreading more and more rapidly,
the bigger they became.
Jeremiah had been staying with a friend named Patrick Brady
on Tamsen lane a few blocks away
from the burning Pape residence.
When he entered Brady's house, he was beginning to panic,
Jeremiah began to realize that his actions were
larger than he had initially intended them to be.
You can find it in his friend Patrick,
explaining the details of the crimes he had committed.
He recounted murdering Dorothy Pape while she slept,
stealing her personal belongings, murdering her husband,
pawning off there property, partying in Reno,
murdering Eliazar Graham on the I80
and lighting the evidence on fire at the Pape house.
Patrick Brady, listened as Jeremiah Bean
inadvertently recorded a confession
on the cell phone in his pocket.
While Patrick and Jeremiah discussed the weekend's events,
they noticed their neighbors
standing in the backyard of their house a few doors down.
Jeremiah realized that they were watching the Pape house
burn from a distance.
In a panic, Jeremiah dashed out of Brady's house
and let himself into the neighbor's home.
67 year old Angie Duff and her 69 year old boyfriend,
Lester Lieber, remained in Angie's backyard,
watching as fire trucks continued to flood down
Jessica lane toward the Pape house.
When he walked back into the house,
she found Jeremiah Bean standing in her living room
in a blood stained t-shirt with her 38 in his possession.
Upon looking into Jeremiah's eyes,
Angie knew she was in trouble.
She began to scream
as she frantically ran toward her bedroom.
Jeremiah fired at the fleeing Angie Duff.
She slumped to the floor as her boyfriend Lester
rushed towards the back door in a panic.
Lester watched Jeremiah standing over his girlfriend
from behind the sliding glass door.
When Jeremiah noticed him,
he fired shots in Lester's direction,
shattering the glass barrier between the two of them.
It was then that Lester rushed to Jeremiah,
attempting to remove the 38 from his possession.
The two men struggled with each other for a moment,
Lester, taking advantage of Jeremiah's scrawny frame
until Jeremiah was able to finish off Lester.
During the struggle between Jeremiah and Lester,
Angie had miraculously found the strength to stand up.
In fact, Angie had summon the courage
to rush into the kitchen and emerge with a knife.
Angie did not have any real plan,
but she knew she had to do something
to potentially spare her life and save her boyfriend's.
She rushed the sweaty Jeremiah Bean,
praying he'd wasted all of the rounds.
When she got close enough to Bean,
she lunged at him with all of her strength,
Bean moved swiftly to catch her hand
and remove the knife from her grasp.
He then finished her off as well.
Jeremiah Bean tossed her to the side
and rushed out of the house.
In a hurry, he removed his t-shirt and ran one door down
to the nearest neighbors home.
Their front door was locked and panic had begun to set in
for Jeremiah.
He crouched down and slid his narrow shoulders
and slim waist through the half ajar doggy door
at the base of the locked door.
Once inside, he maneuvered himself into a crawlspace
above the hallway.
Here in this hot, dusty crawlspace,
he emptied his pockets of all evidence.
He dropped the 22 revolver that had once belonged
to Robert and Dorothy Pape, the 1600 dollars cash
he had made from selling stolen items from the Papes,
and a 38 he had used on Angie Duff and Lester Lieber.
Jeremiah removed himself from the crawlspace quickly
after disregarding the evidence he had on him.
When he reached the living room on his way out of the home,
he was confronted by the house owner
whom he had not yet seen.
No longer being armed, he ran past the homeowner
and dove back outside through the doggie door.
With adrenaline pumping through his veins,
he made the split second decision
to run back to Angie Duff's home,
in hopes of stealing a car belonging to her or Lester.
He grabbed both sets of keys from the kitchen counter
and let himself out of the house through the garage.
He realized, that Angie and Lester
had parked their cars along the street
rather than inside the garage.
He impatiently waited for the garage door to open
enough for him to slide under and abandon the crime scene.
Much to his dismay, there were a plethora of police cars
parked directly outside that served as a barricade
in the event that he would try to escape.
The commotion had been so loud and worrisome
for the neighbors of Tamsen lane that multiple people
had called for the local law enforcement
to come to investigate.
The second the hot Nevada sunlight
touched Jeremiah Beans skin
as he emerged from Angie Duff's garage.
He was met with police officers
ready to put him in handcuffs.
The officers confiscated two sets of car keys
from the jean shorts Jeremiah was wearing.
Jeremiah Bean murdered five innocent people
over the span of a single weekend.
His fingerprints were found in the Papes' truck
that he'd abandoned on Interstate 80.
A quarter of a mile down the road,
Eliazar Graham's body was recovered,
after officers discovered his pickup trucks remains
in the garage of the charred home
that had once belonged to Robert and Dorothy Pape.
The bodies of Angie Duff and her longtime boyfriend,
Lester Lieber, were discovered directly after Beans arrest.
their family's lives were irreparably damaged in minutes
by a man who had no remorse.
Richard Davies, Jeremiah Beans attorney remarked that
the demon of that methamphetamine
is so deeply entrenched in his soul,
that that is the one he's going to answer to.
Davies tried to convince Bean to plead guilty
to receive a lesser sentence than the death penalty,
but Bean ignored the advice.
Davies tried to argue against a harsh sentence
saying that though Beans rampage was irrevocable and brutal,
it resulted from his rough upbringing,
meth addiction and below average intelligence.
In under two hours in court,
the jury found Jeremiah Bean guilty
on five counts of first degree murder.
Prosecutors concluded his trial
in stating that what the evidence has shown
is that Jeremiah Bean is not a part of a pack of jackals.
He is not the center of a pack of jackals,
but rather, Jeremiah Bean is a lone wolf.
As of September of 2019,
the court ruled that Beans death penalty sentence
could move forward.
Though the lives of Dorothy and Robert Pape, Eliazar Graham,
Angie Duff, and Lester Lieber cannot be replaced.
The city of Fernley can confidently say
that Jeremiah Bean will never be able
to take the lives of anyone else ever again.