The Final Dominoes Fall

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Speaker 10 It's a funny old expression, isn't it? Fish or cut bait.

Speaker 10 But everybody knows. Everybody knows what it means.
Time to make a decision. Charge ahead or walk away.
Sort of thing keeps a prosecutor up at night.

Speaker 10 There was Matt Livers, who had confessed to killing his aunt and uncle, Wayne and Charmin Stock, and then unconfessed. Convictable? Maybe.
Confessions speak loud in court.

Speaker 10 But then they had to release Nick Sampson, the cousin who obviously didn't take part.

Speaker 10 And Jessica Reed, who most certainly was in on the murders with her boyfriend Greg Fester, refused a sweet deal to testify against either Nick or Matt.

Speaker 10 And now the CSI chief who'd overseen the crime scene, David Kofod, had been accused of planting evidence.

Speaker 10 Oh, and yes, there was that awkward business about the sheriff's office failing for months to tell Matt's attorneys that he had recanted his confession.

Speaker 11 I mean, I've been making answers of it left tonight.

Speaker 10 And now it truly was time to act, one way or the other.

Speaker 10 Fisher cut bait.

Speaker 10 I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Murder in the Moonlight, a podcast from Dateline.

Speaker 10 Episode 6. The Final Domino's Fall.

Speaker 10 By the end of 2006, more than seven months after the stock murders, the problems with their case multiplying, prosecutors finally agreed with the defense lawyers, Matt Liver's confessions were, as they say, unreliable.

Speaker 10 His attorney, Julie Baer.

Speaker 13 I went over to the jail and Matt was in in the cell and we told him, you know, this is over.

Speaker 14 You know, you're going home.

Speaker 13 And,

Speaker 13 you know, I probably had the biggest hug from a man that I've ever had in my life.

Speaker 10 Cass County Prosecutor Nathan Cox was once again left to call in the press and make the announcement.

Speaker 15 It's not my intention to try and convict somebody that is not guilty. That's not why I'm in this business.
The winning isn't the issue. The issue is whether justice is being done.

Speaker 10 And with that, after more than seven months in jail, Matt Livers was free.

Speaker 14 We did it.

Speaker 14 We did it.

Speaker 10 Free to speak to the press for the first time since his arrest.

Speaker 17 I'm innocent. I had absolutely nothing to do with this.

Speaker 10 At least for him, the doubters in the town all around him seemed to vanish in the joy of it all.

Speaker 18 I just went crazy. Praise the Lord.
Praise, you know, thank you, thank you, praise the Lord type thing.

Speaker 10 His girlfriend Sarah was there, of course, to take him home. And not long after, they became Mr.
and Mrs. Livers,

Speaker 10 and we had a talk.

Speaker 18 Best day of my life.

Speaker 18 Best day besides marrying my wife here.

Speaker 19 Sorry.

Speaker 20 What was it like watching him come out of there?

Speaker 17 Oh, it was awesome.

Speaker 13 It was awesome.

Speaker 21 He's like, I'm free. I'm free, you know.

Speaker 19 And praise the Lord. Great.

Speaker 21 It was just great to be able to touch him and feel him and be with him again, you know, and everything.

Speaker 18 It was a wonderful day.

Speaker 10 But why in heaven's name had Matt confessed in the first place? Finally, now that he was free, we could ask him. This was back in 2010.

Speaker 20 A lot of the audience will say, well, come on, nobody's going to confess to something they didn't do, especially something so horrible as the murder of your own relatives.

Speaker 18 Well, they changed their tactics on me. My rear end was going to be in the frying pan.
They were going to be going for the death penalty.

Speaker 17 You're scared. Yeah,

Speaker 18 tremendously.

Speaker 18 I'd been in there with them for a long time. So yeah, I started.

Speaker 18 I believe that they, I mean, they're police, you know, on the side of their car, you know, it says to serve and protect, you know, and I just thought I was serving them.

Speaker 18 I thought if I'd tell them what they wanted to hear, that I could get to go home.

Speaker 20 How did Nick's name come up?

Speaker 18 They asked me who else was involved, and

Speaker 18 I started just throwing out names. Finally, when I said Nick's name, then that's when they seemed they were happy and believed me.

Speaker 10 So you just pull it out of your hat, like a bunch of names, and his was the only one that stuck, as it were.

Speaker 18 Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 14 Why would you have mentioned him particular?

Speaker 18 You know, I've been asked this question before, and the only

Speaker 18 answer I could give you is because I think it was I talked to him on the cell phone a few days before, and his name was just fresh in my memory. You know, I'm terribly sorry for him.
I hated,

Speaker 18 hated it for him, but when I said his name, that's who

Speaker 18 it stuck, and they

Speaker 12 ran with it more or less.

Speaker 18 Ran with it more or less, yeah.

Speaker 10 But the damage was done. The whole thing left Matt and his cousin Nick at a loss for words to each other.

Speaker 20 What has this done to your relationship with Matt?

Speaker 19 Ruined it?

Speaker 14 Completely?

Speaker 17 It hurts knowing that he couldn't even

Speaker 17 be man enough after all this happened to apologize.

Speaker 16 And what's he chosen to do?

Speaker 12 Forget all about it? Forget all about you?

Speaker 17 I think he just wants to forget it ever happened.

Speaker 18 People give me shit about it all the time. You know, I try and let...

Speaker 17 make a joke out of it, but it hurts every once in a while.

Speaker 10 We wanted to know if their relationship has been mended. We reached out.
They did not respond.

Speaker 17 What will it take to convince them that you're an innocent man?

Speaker 18 I don't think anything will.

Speaker 16 You mean you're going to have to live under these

Speaker 17 under this cloud for the rest of your life?

Speaker 19 Probably?

Speaker 17 What do you do? Unless I move.

Speaker 14 Yeah. But I don't want to move.
I love Murdoch. It's my home.

Speaker 10 Nick and Matt, although at odds, were finally free.

Speaker 10 As for Jessica Reed and Greg Fester,

Speaker 10 it was time for Judgment Day.

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Speaker 10 Jessica Reed had given up the deal that could have given her a lighter sentence. And now, almost a year after the stock murders, the prosecutors offered her one more chance.

Speaker 10 Not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Oh, no, no.

Speaker 10 But a deal, just the same. And this one she took.
Jessica said she would plead guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for her testimony at trial against her accomplice. Greg Fester.

Speaker 10 Which meant, given she was still only 18 by then, she might get out of prison someday, have some sort of life.

Speaker 10 Second-degree murder, by law, carried a sentence of 20 years to life, with a chance for parole.

Speaker 10 So, all said, apparently. But then,

Speaker 10 well, in this case, would you expect anything to go according to plan? Because to all the mystifying moves by investigators and prosecutors in Cass County, Nebraska, add one more. And this time,

Speaker 10 it was a big one. A judge ruled the county attorney had missed a deadline to announce his intention to seek the death penalty against Greg Fester.

Speaker 10 And so first-degree murder was off the table. There would be no chance to send Greg Fester to death row.

Speaker 10 Another blow to the stock children, Tammy, Steve, and Andy.

Speaker 11 Is that a disappointment to you?

Speaker 25 It was to me.

Speaker 14 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 25 So then we just asked, well,

Speaker 25 what's the guaranteed way to give them the worst possible thing that they can get for punishment?

Speaker 25 Well, we think if we do it this way, that they're going to end up in prison for the rest of their life. All right, well, if that's what you think is going to happen,

Speaker 25 let's go to that because that's what they need to get. It's the worst thing they could get to them.

Speaker 19 I told the attorney, all I ask

Speaker 26 is make them stand up and take responsibility

Speaker 14 and

Speaker 26 go for the most

Speaker 19 that you can get.

Speaker 10 So before long a new deal was reached. Both Fester and Reed would plead guilty to murder in the second degree.

Speaker 10 And in March 2007, not yet a year since the killings, they entered a courtroom to come face to face for the first time with the Stalks family.

Speaker 20 You went to the sentencing?

Speaker 14 We did.

Speaker 27 It's the first time we saw. And as three sat in the front row, we watched them both walk in,

Speaker 21 one at a time.

Speaker 27 I didn't think I could feel so much anger

Speaker 27 and sorrow

Speaker 14 and

Speaker 14 sadness.

Speaker 27 And I thought, you know.

Speaker 20 Triggered by the sight of them.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 27 Kind of shocked me.

Speaker 14 I didn't.

Speaker 25 So I remember just thinking, I didn't know I could be this mad.

Speaker 10 In the courtroom, the judge read the victim impact statements, which had been written by Wayne and Charmin's family members, as if such an impact could be measured in words.

Speaker 10 Jessica Reed and Greg Fester each apologized to the stock family.

Speaker 10 And then the family held its breath. Steve Stalk.

Speaker 25 The whole thing itself was just kind of a blur. It was so nerve-wracking and hard to sit through.

Speaker 25 And then when I got to the end and, you know, the judge went through the whole thing when he was actually talking, there was a little part of of me saying, he's going to let these guys off easy.

Speaker 10 But

Speaker 10 no, that was not to be. For Fester, the judge handed down two consecutive life terms, plus another 10 to 20 years for using a weapon.

Speaker 10 For Jessica Reed, the first to the courthouse to make a deal, remember, there was, in fact, no break at all. She got the same sentence for murder as Fester.
Two life terms. To be served back to back.

Speaker 10 If you can do such a thing. Her attorney, Tom Olson.

Speaker 17 Was that justice?

Speaker 28 I didn't think so. I thought that there was no question.
I think everyone believed in the case that the individual most culpable was Fester.

Speaker 28 No question about it.

Speaker 28 That the only person who had cooperated was Jessica.

Speaker 28 That the only person who

Speaker 28 really did the right thing by exonerating

Speaker 28 Lyvers and Sampson was Jessica.

Speaker 28 that she did show true remorse, that

Speaker 28 she had done some constructive things

Speaker 28 while she was incarcerated, and that

Speaker 28 you would have thought

Speaker 19 that something

Speaker 28 would have been given to her.

Speaker 20 She might have had a date far in the future, 40 years away maybe, where she might get a chance in front of the parole.

Speaker 14 Well, that's what you're hoping.

Speaker 28 That's what we were hoping for. I mean, she was only 17.
She really had no record to speak of of anything prior to this. That the circumstances by which she came here, along with Fester,

Speaker 28 he's older, you know, she loves him, they're going across country, and that this occurrence, the murders, was not a planned thing. They didn't go in there with the intent to go and shoot up the place.

Speaker 28 At least she didn't.

Speaker 28 That she would have gotten something for that. And I was hoping at least for some type of term of years where she had a date.
And so we were disappointed.

Speaker 28 I know Jessica was disappointed that she didn't. She got the life sentence.
But at least she can go away with knowing that she did the right thing. Faced with the opportunity to

Speaker 28 probably write her ticket out of jail at some point in time.

Speaker 28 She did the right thing. She told the truth.
And

Speaker 28 she didn't take the bait or fall into the trap of saying that these boys were there when they were not to save her own own neck.

Speaker 10 For the Stock family, ever graceful people, the sentences were a relief.

Speaker 10 But later, when we sat down with Andy Stock and his siblings in 2010, a rare flash of anger directed toward the two who took his parents' lives.

Speaker 19 I hope they live a miserable life

Speaker 19 because

Speaker 26 it's turned our lives upside down and so many other people's lives.

Speaker 26 They made the choice to go into that house. They made the choice to take guns in the house.
They made the choice to go upstairs when they knew someone was home.

Speaker 26 They made the choice to go in the bedroom.

Speaker 19 And

Speaker 26 mom and dad had no choice. Our kids

Speaker 26 don't have a choice. My son, who

Speaker 26 will never know his grandma and grandpa, doesn't have a choice.

Speaker 19 The thing

Speaker 16 that I guess still gets to me

Speaker 19 is they were put in prison for life,

Speaker 19 but

Speaker 26 they can

Speaker 26 still receive letters from their family.

Speaker 26 They can still pick up the phone and call their parents. They can still

Speaker 26 live life to some degree.

Speaker 26 It's not a free life,

Speaker 19 but

Speaker 26 they can still talk for their family. Yeah.

Speaker 19 And they can still talk to their parents, and we can't. And I think that's what still gets me.

Speaker 26 They were put away for life, but they still have life.

Speaker 19 We don't.

Speaker 10 There was another unresolved question, of course. The big one, still not fully answered.
What really happened that night on the stock farm?

Speaker 10 What led two Wisconsin teenagers to throw away their lives by so callously killing a Nebraska farm couple whom everyone loved?

Speaker 10 Perhaps only two people in the world know what happened inside that farmhouse and why.

Speaker 10 So we gathered up our recording gear and checked ourselves into the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women,

Speaker 10 where a convicted killer was waiting to talk to us.

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Speaker 10 How close they seem to each other, given the vast expanse of the Nebraska Prairie. It was perhaps an irrational thought, but somehow affecting.

Speaker 10 There she was, year after year, housed in a prison just an hour's drive from the scene of her crime.

Speaker 10 It was here on a cool windy day that we were given one hour, no more, to talk to Jessica Reed, fresh off a shift working in what the inmates there call the dish room.

Speaker 14 Meaning...

Speaker 29 I would do the dishes, run all the dishes through the washing machine and all that.

Speaker 29 Sucks.

Speaker 20 How long have you had that job?

Speaker 29 Oh, I've had it for a few months now.

Speaker 10 Jessica Reed, at the time of this interview, was 21 years old. She looked and carried herself and spoke more like some kindergarten teacher than a convicted killer.

Speaker 10 Makes no difference. She will very likely die in prison.
And she told us she will spend her life haunted by what happened in that farmhouse.

Speaker 29 Two people

Speaker 14 are

Speaker 29 dead because of me, you know?

Speaker 29 And I have have a very hard time with that still.

Speaker 11 What was it like to watch those people die?

Speaker 14 Hell.

Speaker 20 And when you see it in your head,

Speaker 29 it makes my heart drop. It makes me very

Speaker 29 just

Speaker 29 like really exhausted because

Speaker 29 I can't change that. That's one thing in this world that I can't go back and fix.

Speaker 10 The truth about that night? After so many lies, so many versions.

Speaker 10 Here it is, said Jessica.

Speaker 10 She and Greg Fester, days without sleep or real food, had been driving aimlessly through Wisconsin and Iowa and Nebraska, breaking into homes along the way. In one, she grabbed a shotgun, a 410.

Speaker 10 So on Easter night, There they were, armed, drugged, and wired, bumping along a random country road. And Greg said, stop.

Speaker 10 Turned out to be the stock farmhouse, though they had no idea who lived there.

Speaker 10 But in they went through that unlocked window, Fester found.

Speaker 29 Greg was like, you know, follow me real quick.

Speaker 29 So I followed him and I was wearing this coat that was making a lot of noise. One of those puffy coats, right? A windbreaker type deal.
Right. It was making me nervous.

Speaker 29 So I like took it off and set it down on the floor

Speaker 29 in the kitchen.

Speaker 29 And he went straight upstairs. And so I followed him up the stairs.

Speaker 25 Why did he go upstairs?

Speaker 14 I don't know.

Speaker 17 Didn't tell you?

Speaker 29 He just told me to follow him, so I did. Okay.

Speaker 29 And we went upstairs.

Speaker 27 And when I turned around, Greg had turned on a light in the room.

Speaker 30 And I seen this guy laying in the bed.

Speaker 29 And I said, come on, let's go.

Speaker 30 Let's do something.

Speaker 29 You know, because there was people there.

Speaker 16 What was the feeling you had as you said that?

Speaker 29 Like panic. It was like craziness, like,

Speaker 29 God, what if they wake up, you know? But he just turned and went into that room.

Speaker 29 The guy had rolled out of bed and they were wrestling with the gun.

Speaker 29 And I just was like startled and my gun went off. And I have no idea where that shot went.

Speaker 10 Sources close to the investigation told Dateline there is reason to believe that whether Jessica knows it or not, her shot might have been the fatal one.

Speaker 10 That it may have struck Wayne Stock in the head with evidence of the shot obliterated by another shot from Greg Fester's 12 gauge.

Speaker 29 And then Greg shot the guy in the back of the head and he went back in that room and shot that lady. He ran down the stairs and I ran after him.
And I picked up my coat on the way out.

Speaker 29 And that ring that they found,

Speaker 29 it flew off then.

Speaker 16 When you picked up your coat.

Speaker 29 Yes. I didn't know until like way, way later when they showed me a picture of it because I knew I lost that ring, but I had no idea where.

Speaker 20 What was it like in that truck on the way away?

Speaker 29 We didn't say anything.

Speaker 29 I mean, I started crying at one point, and Greg just looked at me and he was like, don't do that.

Speaker 29 You know?

Speaker 10 But what about all those letters? The words found later in that house with Jessica's belongings, with that cigarette box. Words Words she wrote, boldly admitting to her crimes.

Speaker 14 I don't understand it.

Speaker 29 I hate hearing them because it's just kind of like

Speaker 29 how everything was portrayed. I hate hearing it.

Speaker 16 Because it was how everything was portrayed.

Speaker 29 Because I'm not like that.

Speaker 17 Were you like that at the time?

Speaker 14 No.

Speaker 29 That was my way of showing Greg that I was okay with it too. Because when he told me not to cry, it was like,

Speaker 14 what?

Speaker 29 I'm not supposed to feel bad about this?

Speaker 19 I mean,

Speaker 29 how can you have no remorse for this at all?

Speaker 20 To them, it meant that you were a cold-hearted killer and that you enjoyed the process.

Speaker 16 And people

Speaker 20 saw you probably still see you as some kind of monster.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 20 You ever wonder about Greg Fester and whatever happened to him?

Speaker 29 I hope he's okay,

Speaker 21 you know,

Speaker 29 because I don't wish anything bad on him.

Speaker 14 I hope he's all right.

Speaker 11 You still feel like he's a friend?

Speaker 19 A love?

Speaker 29 I have love for him.

Speaker 29 But as far as any of that other stuff, not really.

Speaker 10 It's all a black hole of regret now, of course.

Speaker 10 Except, she said for one good thing she did. She refused to implicate two men who had nothing to do with the murders.

Speaker 10 Turned down a golden chance to cut herself a better deal with prosecutors by lying and nailing Nick Sampson and Matt Lyvers.

Speaker 17 Do you kick yourself about that sometimes?

Speaker 14 No. Why not?

Speaker 29 Because when I wake up in the morning, I can look at myself and be okay.

Speaker 29 They're where they should be on the streets because they didn't do anything.

Speaker 29 And I'm where I should be, you know.

Speaker 14 A lot of the members of their family believe that they got away with it, that they were involved, and that somehow, I don't know, you protected them, but that

Speaker 12 they're guilty.

Speaker 17 What would you say to

Speaker 17 those people with their suspicions?

Speaker 29 To stop being suspicious?

Speaker 29 Because they weren't there. They had nothing to do with this.

Speaker 10 But for the stock family, it wasn't that simple. Can you believe, Jessica? They asked.

Speaker 10 They were driven, they told us, by a common sense instilled at an early age by their murdered parents. And so they still were asking.
Who and why?

Speaker 10 Who did this?

Speaker 26 I'd like to know

Speaker 26 the honest truth about everything.

Speaker 19 You know, I hope someday

Speaker 26 we can all sit down and look at each other and say,

Speaker 19 were

Speaker 26 these two involved? Yes or no? Definitely. Was the blood planted? Yes or no? Definitely.
I don't know if we'll ever know those answers.

Speaker 19 I don't know if there's any way to prove those answers, but

Speaker 26 I hope someday we'll know.

Speaker 10 We wanted to know how the stock family feels about Matt and Nick today, but they did not respond. As for Jessica Reed, since that day we spoke to her in prison, she's had a bit of an epiphany.

Speaker 10 She explained in a TED Talk taped behind prison walls.

Speaker 30 What if my real purpose is to never get out of prison, but change the way imprisoned women come in broken and leave mended?

Speaker 30 All I ever wanted to do was just get out of here, leave all this behind and never look back. That one thought changed my whole paradigm.

Speaker 30 I stopped living solely for my own outcome and I started living for those around me.

Speaker 10 What if, indeed?

Speaker 10 At this point, Jessica has served 18 years behind bars. She is not eligible for parole.
Her accomplice, Greg Fester, did not respond to our interview requests. He too has served 18 years.

Speaker 10 No parole for him either. Ever.

Speaker 10 A postscript?

Speaker 10 Andy Stock now runs Stock Hay and Grain. He knocked down the home where the murders occurred and built a new house, where he made some better memories.

Speaker 10 Matt Livers and Nick Sampson have gone through many struggles to get back their good names.

Speaker 10 They settled lawsuits against state and local authorities, as well as CSI Chief David Kofod, for something north of $7.5 million.

Speaker 10 As for Kofod, he was acquitted of federal evidence tampering charges. But then the state of Nebraska took up the case, and at his second trial, Kofod was found guilty of evidence tampering.

Speaker 31 You understand what you were convicted of?

Speaker 20 Yes, Your Honor.

Speaker 10 At his sentencing, the career law enforcement man again denied planting evidence and told the judge the truth would come out eventually.

Speaker 31 I don't believe this is the last of this case for me.

Speaker 16 I want to continue on, and that's nothing personal with you.

Speaker 10 But the judge had a somewhat different perspective. He told the court he'd been moved by letters from Livers and Sampson asking him to throw the book at Kofod.
and that is just what he did.

Speaker 31 The defendant has not acknowledged any wrongdoing. He's not

Speaker 31 appeared to be particularly remorseful.

Speaker 10 The sentence up to four years in prison, Kofod served two.

Speaker 10 In the end, two defense lawyers still marvel that poor police work almost did their clients in, even as investigators on the same case brilliantly tracked the one piece of evidence that saved Livers and Sampson and finally identified the real murderers.

Speaker 10 A simple gold ring.

Speaker 13 Had they not been able to trace that ring to its owner in Wisconsin, I'm really afraid we'd have two guys sitting on death row or

Speaker 13 locked up for the rest of their lives for something they didn't do.

Speaker 10 As for that citizen who went way beyond the call to find the critical evidence that saved Matt Livers and Nick Sampson, that gold ring with the inscription on it.

Speaker 10 She shrugs, as if Mary Martinu still believes it was no big deal.

Speaker 23 I heard homicide. If it was somebody in my family, I would have wanted the assistance.

Speaker 10 Murder in the Moonlight is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Shane Bishop is the producer.
Brian Drew, Kelly Laudine, Bruce Berger, Marshall Hausfeld, and Candace Goldman are audio editors.

Speaker 10 Brittany Morris is field producer. Leslie Grossman is program coordinator.
Adam Gorfane is co-executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer.
And Liz Cole is senior executive producer.

Speaker 10 From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Bob Mallory and Katie Lau. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.

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Speaker 8 Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program.

Speaker 7 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zin.

Speaker 4 Check out Zinn.com/slash find to find Zinn at a store near you.

Speaker 3 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.