Sarah Neal (6 of Diamonds, Nebraska)

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Speaker 1 We have two cards this week. Two separate cases that both require detectives to not release too much information in fear that it could hurt their investigations.

Speaker 1 We're hoping that by still sharing what we can about these stories, someone out there can help fill in the pieces needed to crack each of these cases wide open.

Speaker 1 So be sure to look for two episodes this week. And our first card is Sarah Neal, the six of diamonds from Nebraska.
16-year-old Sarah was not your typical teen.

Speaker 1 She was a multi-sport high school athlete who participated in basketball, softball, and track. I mean, she was a pretty darn good chess player too.

Speaker 1 But in June of 2005, somebody took all that Sarah loved away from her, and they took Sarah away from everyone who loved her.

Speaker 1 19 years later, the police are still trying to catch her killer, and they need your help. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck.

Speaker 1 Russell Neal pulled into his driveway a little before 4.40 p.m. on June 21st, 2005.
His house was on this little cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska.

Speaker 1 And all he wanted to do was get out of the hot, humid weather and maybe grab himself a cold drink. It was such a normal day.

Speaker 1 He had no idea that when he stepped into his kitchen, his life would be completely upended. Because there on the kitchen floor was his fully clothed, 16-year-old daughter, Sarah, in a pool of blood.

Speaker 1 Russell called 911 on the landline, and at almost the same time, he made another call to Sarah's mother, Nan, using his cell phone.

Speaker 1 And it sounds like Russell already knew that nothing could be done for Sarah. Here's Nan recalling that life-altering conversation.

Speaker 5 I never heard such an anguished voice in my life.

Speaker 5 He just called out. He just said, Sarah's dead.

Speaker 5 What?

Speaker 5 What?

Speaker 5 He repeated repeated it and

Speaker 5 there wasn't much else said. I said, I'm on my way.

Speaker 1 By the time Nan arrived, the cul-de-sac was blocked off and police were everywhere. She would later learn that her daughter had been shot.

Speaker 1 And it wasn't long before there was someone Nan and Russell pointed toward. Sarah had recently been seeing someone named Cletus Alford.

Speaker 6 We became aware that she had dated people in the past, and that would fall right in line with us doing our victimology and and trying to understand

Speaker 6 who her circle of friends are. Then that would include boyfriends or significant others and what their relationships were.

Speaker 1 That's Sergeant Scott Warner of the Omaha PD. He's working on this case today.
And if it sounds like he's being vague, that's because he was. Sergeant Warner was pretty tight-lipped about Cletus.

Speaker 1 I mean, he never even called him a person of interest, despite a previously published article in the Omaha World Herald titled Person of Interest ID'd in 2005 slang.

Speaker 1 It was written by Jason Kipper, and in it, the Douglas County attorney does name Cletus publicly. Cletus Alford was 28 years old at the time that he dated 16-year-old Sarah.

Speaker 1 And it sounds like Nea never even met him. I mean, she didn't even know what he looked like until she saw a picture of him in the newspaper.

Speaker 1 And apparently, he did look super young, so it might have been difficult to guess his true age anyway.

Speaker 1 Now, it's unclear how much Sarah told her parents about Cletus early on, but they knew that things had gotten bad toward the end.

Speaker 1 I mean, so bad, in fact, that Sarah had taken out a protection order against Cletus.

Speaker 5 Sarah was sneaking out to see this guy, and at some point she wanted to end things, and he began threatening her and stalking her and slashing tires, not just hers, but her dad's, because she was staying with her dad then.

Speaker 1 Nan says things had really come to a head just days prior. Cletus had taken a sexually explicit video of Sarah back in 2004.

Speaker 1 Considering her age, Cletus had been arrested for visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct.

Speaker 1 Now Naon claims that he was let out on bail for that charge and that he was let out just two days before Sarah was killed.

Speaker 1 Now it's important to note that we have not been able to locate any records that confirm this arrest or what date he was released.

Speaker 1 Though there are court docs and newspaper reports which reference charges that were brought at some point, it's just the exact dates that are muddied.

Speaker 1 Nan told us that a friend of Sarah's had told police that just a day or so before her death, while Sarah was at her house, Sarah received a call from Cletus and in that call, he had threatened her life.

Speaker 1 And Sarah wasn't even the first young woman he had threatened. When police started to look into Cletus, he had a scary and criminal history with ex-girlfriends.

Speaker 1 According to that same Omaha World Herald article, in 2004, he served eight months in jail for terroristic threats.

Speaker 1 He pushed and choked a girl and told her, quote, no one will ever see you again, end quote. And he said that before threatening to kill her.

Speaker 1 Sergeant Warner would at least admit to us that Cletus was not cooperative in their investigation, though again, wouldn't say much more.

Speaker 1 And he points out that although Sarah had a protective order against Cletus, they were limited in what they could do.

Speaker 6 A protection order in and of itself doesn't legally allow you to search anybody's house without a warrant or permission. It doesn't work that way.

Speaker 1 Sergeant Warner wouldn't confirm if Cletus' house was ever searched. He also wouldn't confirm if Cletus was ever even interviewed or asked to take a polygraph about Sarah's murder.

Speaker 1 And he wouldn't comment on any weapons Cletus might have been in possession of.

Speaker 1 While Cletus might have looked good on paper, as good a suspect as any, Sergeant Warner points out the danger in thinking too narrowly.

Speaker 6 About the time that you lock yourself into one theory or one specific path, you may be missing that one piece because you're not being open-minded enough that takes you actually in the direction that you need to go.

Speaker 1 What direction that was, the police were still trying to figure out.

Speaker 1 They canvassed the neighborhood and fully interviewed both Nan and Russell by that point, trying to get a better idea idea of Sarah's time leading up to her death.

Speaker 1 And what they learned came mostly from Russell, since he and Nan were separated at the time and Sarah lived with him.

Speaker 6 He said that he had been at work that day, nothing specifically out of the ordinary. A typical day, it's summer.
So his daughter, Sarah Neal, the victim, was home when he left for work.

Speaker 6 Nothing unusual about his day, nothing that stuck out that was out of the ordinary.

Speaker 1 Something a little out of the ordinary had stuck out to some of the neighbors that they started talking to during canvassing though.

Speaker 1 Because this occurred on a weekday, several people in the neighborhood told police that they were at work. But at least one witness said that she saw someone cutting through her backyard.

Speaker 1 It's unclear what time this happened, but she thought that it was odd because she had a chain link fence. So it's not like you could just stroll through, like this took some effort.

Speaker 1 And while she did give a description of the person, Sergeant Warner couldn't recall what that was other than being a male.

Speaker 1 Another witness saw an individual on a bike about a block away, though there's nothing about a description of this person or even what direction they were riding in.

Speaker 6 So as it would in any typical homicide investigation following dates, it's following up on those original leads, following up on the original witness statements, if there are, trying to bring clarity to that, trying to identify people that may have been there that were identified by witnesses continually with victimology, interviewing family, friends, anybody that might have some information, following up on tips we may have got from the public, tips we may have got from other avenues to see if those are viable leads.

Speaker 6 And if so, taking those to their logical conclusion to see if any of that brings us any closer to having clarity, not only as to what occurred, but who our perpetrator was.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, Nan and her family were going through hell. Sarah's two older brothers, who were in the army, had rushed home.

Speaker 1 Russell's house was being held as a crime scene, so everyone ended up at Nan's, which meant that she got to see her family's pain up close and personal.

Speaker 5 They were all in my apartment. It's real interesting with grief.
Everybody grieves. I had no idea how differently people grieve.

Speaker 5 I, for instance, could not stop talking about Sarah for probably a year.

Speaker 1 Nan and Russell had adopted Sarah when she was just 10 days old. And while Nan admits that she and Sarah had their battles, that didn't change how she felt about her.

Speaker 5 Mother's Day, my birthday. I would be the queen, and then she'd be back to being mad at me the next day.
And that was, that was okay. My love for her was unconditional.

Speaker 1 As Sarah's friends began to reach out, Nan could see her true impact on those around her, an impact that she wasn't even aware of.

Speaker 5 I mean, I just heard all these things about her that she never shared.

Speaker 5 There were friends of hers that she would encourage that I didn't know anything about, that were just kids who were having trouble in their lives, or maybe getting bullied at school.

Speaker 5 that she was close to. And I did not know about any of these until after her death.
They came and told me about how she would call them.

Speaker 5 You know, there was one young woman that Sarah would call every day after school to see how she was doing and to cheer her up and make her laugh. Every day she would do this.

Speaker 1 Sarah fought for her friends, and Nan and her family now needed the police to fight for Sarah. As the days turned into weeks and then months and then years, Sarah's case went nowhere.

Speaker 1 And it actually looked like it might take a step backward in February of 2007.

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Speaker 1 February of 2007 was when the charges against Cletus regarding the video were dismissed.

Speaker 1 According to another Omaha World Herald article by Jason Kipper, it sounds like the dismissal was made at the request of the police.

Speaker 1 Apparently, they thought that somehow this could interfere with Sarah's murder investigation. How exactly is unclear.
And this wasn't something discussed with Sergeant Warner.

Speaker 1 Not that he could tell us anything anyway. But clearly in 2007, the police still had an eye on Cletus.

Speaker 1 Whether they had their eye on anyone else, Sergeant Werner, and I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, he wouldn't say.

Speaker 1 But he would tell us that as the years continued to roll on, they were constantly monitoring the advancements in testing, hoping that something there could maybe crack this case.

Speaker 6 We look at our cases, not only this one, but all of them, to see if something could be retested that maybe couldn't before, or maybe we have something that can be interpreted differently now that they have more advanced programs to tape what we have to see if that provides us any new information or leads or brings some clarity.

Speaker 1 Several years after Sarah's murder, there was still no clarity. But Sergeant Warner said that giving up wasn't even an option.

Speaker 6 Once you work these type of cases, you understand it and you have obviously talked to a lot of people that do this type of work and I would suspect that you would hear similar things.

Speaker 6 You're driven to want to solve these for a variety of reasons. But as a professional, you're handed this case.

Speaker 6 There's no higher calling in law enforcement, in my opinion, than to try to solve and bring clarity to a case like this so it doesn't go cold.

Speaker 6 You just hope and hope and hope for that piece of evidence, that tip, whatever it may be, to propel a case forward.

Speaker 1 What that piece of evidence or tip could be was still eluding police.

Speaker 1 And whether the police kept tabs on Cletus this whole time is a little unclear, but they probably didn't need to because Cletus wasn't staying out of trouble.

Speaker 1 In 2009, he was charged with violating a protection order, obstructing police, and disturbing the peace.

Speaker 1 This stemmed from an incident with another girlfriend in which Cletus slashed her tires, smashed her windshield, and shredded the interior of her car.

Speaker 1 The girlfriend had gotten that protection order against him after he threw a brick through her grandmother's apartment window.

Speaker 1 And Cletus' problems didn't end there because later that same month, the previously dropped charges for the video were re-filed against him.

Speaker 1 And in May of 2010, Nan got a small win when the prosecutor called her.

Speaker 5 She called me about 10.30 that morning and she said, Nan,

Speaker 5 You will not believe what just happened. Well, what happened? He pled guilty.
There's not going to be a trial.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 5 I said,

Speaker 5 incredulously.

Speaker 5 He pled guilty.

Speaker 1 Nan assumed this had to do with a plea deal, but the prosecutor informed her there was no plea deal. They didn't offer him one because the case was airtight.

Speaker 1 For whatever reason, Cletus just straight up pled guilty. Now, it sounds like he later tried to withdraw that plea, but that was denied.

Speaker 1 In August, Nan got the opportunity to speak at Cletus' sentencing.

Speaker 1 Although what she was allowed to say was limited, very limited, because she wasn't allowed to even mention that Sarah had been murdered.

Speaker 5 I just said, you know, what he did was terrible. And he should, I, you know, just ask that you will give him the harshest punishment that you can give him because this was a horrible thing to do.

Speaker 5 And I'm sure you don't want him to do this to anybody else.

Speaker 1 Cletus was sentenced to five to eight years, but he would end up serving additional time because of a pending charge related to Cletus confronting yet another ex-girlfriend and assaulting her boyfriend with brass knuckles.

Speaker 1 So while Cletus has proven to be a violent man convicted of violence against those he dated, he has never been charged in Sarah's murder. And no one has been arrested for the murder of Sarah Neal.

Speaker 1 Cletus served his time and he was released from prison in 2020. Since he's never been charged in Sarah's homicide, our reporting team wanted to give Cletus the opportunity to make a statement.

Speaker 1 We tried calling and texting every phone number that we could find for him, even messaged him on Facebook. But as of this episode airing, we have yet to hear back.

Speaker 5 I don't understand how anybody can go through a monstrous experience like this.

Speaker 5 without a relationship with God. I already had a strong relationship with God when this happened, and I survived this.
It was extremely hard.

Speaker 5 I would not wish this on anybody, but I survived it, and I knew within a relatively short period of time that I was going to be okay.

Speaker 1 For anyone out there who is in a relationship where someone is being abusive or threatening to kill you, much like the relationship Sarah had been in with Cletus, Naon has a message for you.

Speaker 5 Run.

Speaker 5 Run like hell. Get out.

Speaker 5 Don't ever let anybody

Speaker 5 belittle you or hurt you or demean you or make you do things that make you uncomfortable or scare you or you know are just wrong.

Speaker 5 Do whatever you have to do to get away from that person.

Speaker 5 Whatever you have to do. Get people to believe you.
Don't shut up about it. Don't bury it.
Tell a counselor at school they will listen to you. Tell a policeman they will listen to you.

Speaker 5 Tell your parents if you have a relationship such that they will believe you.

Speaker 5 But talk about it, tell people, and get some help.

Speaker 5 Whatever you have to do, don't let anybody ever treat you like that.

Speaker 6 Ever.

Speaker 5 Not for one second.

Speaker 1 Sergeant Warner is still hopeful that Sarah can finally get the justice she deserves and that Nan and the rest of her family can get some kind of closure.

Speaker 1 But he's well aware that he's going to need some help to do that. And that help may have to come from someone out there listening.

Speaker 6 What we're hoping to gain as a department, specifically in this case and using a platform like yours, is trying to garner that information, not from my perspective, but from somebody that's out there that knows something

Speaker 6 and it's interesting to them that, hey, I know this. I remember this from 2005 or I heard this in 2006 or I heard it in 2010.
And I think this is important for the police to know.

Speaker 6 That's what's interesting to me. That's what's of value to me at this time.
We're at the point now where we need the public's assistance. We need somebody that's interested.

Speaker 6 in contacting us because they have something that's of interest to them that that they believe is germane and specific to this case and can propel it forward.

Speaker 6 That's what we need and that's what we're hoping for, that there's somebody that says,

Speaker 6 I'm coming forward.

Speaker 1 Sarah Neal wasn't just a gifted athlete. She was also a gifted artist and poet.

Speaker 1 So if Nan Neal and Sergeant Warner's words aren't enough to compel someone to come forward and help, maybe some of Sarah's own words will be. This is something she wrote.

Speaker 1 There's a girl in my mirror that cries every night, and each day she sheds even more tears. I try my hardest to make her feel all right, but help is something she fears.
She doesn't trust people.

Speaker 1 She doesn't even trust me, though I look into her eyes every day and tell her everyone's not out to get her. And trusting some people is okay.

Speaker 1 A $25,000 reward is being offered in this case.

Speaker 1 So if you know anything about the murder of Sarah Neal in Omaha, Nebraska on June 21st, 2005, please call the Omaha, Nebraska Homicide Unit at 402-444-5656.

Speaker 1 We also have the number for the Omaha Police Department in the show notes, as well as the number for the Omaha Crime Stoppers if you want to report something anonymously.

Speaker 1 You can also visit omahacrimestoppers.org.

Speaker 1 The deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com.

Speaker 1 So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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